Look what I found!

I am so excited about this. I meant to wait until tomorrow to blog it, but no way I can retain my enthusiasm!
One of the second hand shops in the village does house clearances and look what I found abandoned in a corner: a Zenit E with an Helios 44-2 lens, straight from 1971!!!
Along with it for the bargain price of £15 I also got a wide angle Vivitar lens, f=35 mm and a Photax f=200mm.
I don't have a clue whether the camera works well or not, or just how good, or how bad the lenses are. So, I bought a roll of film, went to the local photographer to help me put it in and had a go shooting around. It makes the best clicking sound!
Anyway, next week the film will be developed and I will know what's really going on. Should it work (please, please!) I'd be so, so happy. I would love to create something that feels and looks grainy, warm and old fashioned.
We shall soon see!
I'll post the results, good or bad. It's all learning. And good fun in the meantime!

Hythe High Street. Act II.

Some more shots from the other day.
"Taboos" is the local greasy spoon which serves the best fry up around here, just perfect.
Nevermind, the plastic table covers and the fake flower in the little vase, if the grub is good, we'll eat it!

Hythe High Street. Act I.

A pre-dinner constitutional with my beautiful girl and my beloved camera in the village and I came home with these images.
I simply adore this place. So calm.

By the way, the launderette is where I froze my toes off during this snowy winter as our washing machine was triumphantly broken. (Not that much worked in there either... The washing machines, when spinning, always sounded as if they were getting ready to be launched into orbit. I would always have to pull my little girl closer to me for fear she might get launched into outer-space along with them.)
The jewelery shop is the one where J bought my engagement ring (a little 1920's diamond ring- when J gave it to me he warned me that it would be the only diamond I was ever going to get. Charming.).
The bookshop is where I get ripped off. But oh, I keep going back for more!
The greengrocer's shop, which looks so perfectly British, is actually owned by an Italian!
It's a small world after all...

British Museum's lost photos.

We went to the British Museum in London a few months back and forgot to blog about it! I'm not such a good blogger yet! I know blogs are supposed to be all about the here and now but I thought I'd put these up anyway.
The British Museum is such a gorgeous place. Every time I go I have to literally look at the floor and drag myself out of it!
Every time we go we do a different section: this time it was all about the Babylonians and the Romans: beautiful.
But, walking about London and the museum in itself takes its toll so afterward we had a lovely hot chocolate for us girls and a nice drink at the charming "Museum Tavern" just outside the museum. Lovely.

Reflections on mortality.

I watched "Hotel Rwanda" last night.
We all know about the ferocious genocide that happened there in 1994.
This film is set back then, featuring the story of a truly kind, loving man who risked his life to save over 1000 lives.
Amazing.
The savage, bloodthirsty hate of some is truly demonic, but at the same time the kindness and generosity of others lead one to believe that it is possible for humans to be good again, to see harmony among men again.
The elements are all there, we just need a little bit of extra help to get there.

I went to this graveyard a while back, I've already posted some photos of it, but I had a few more I wanted to turn Black and White.
These made me think of all the innocent, slaughtered people who were ruthlessly murdered for no reason in Rwanda and who never received a dignified burial.
Time presses on, we're busy with our own lives and how quickly we forget...

Sonnet 19
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.