Caveat, Cavea, Cave: lockdown musings on a sea wall and amphitheatres…

Graffiti on the sea wall, north Cleethorpes

I returned to live in my home town, Cleethorpes in July of last year and have yet to experience ‘normal’ life in this Lincolnshire resort. At the time of writing we are in the middle of a lockdown and I’ve had a quiet Christmas, a quiet New Year and, yesterday, a quiet but significant birthday (I now qualify for a bus pass that allows me free travel in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area).

On arrival I had to quarantine for 14 days (I had traveled from overseas) and this I did in a holiday let overlooking the river mouth, tantalizingly close to the promenade. A couple of days earlier restrictions had been relaxed following the first lockdown: pubs and restaurants were open once more and, from the garden of my temporary home, I could watch the endless procession of people out to take advantage of the sunshine and sea air. From central Cleethorpes most walk south along the coast as this is far prettier than the walk north towards the port of Grimsby: this takes in a bleaker aspect along an interesting sea defence built in the mid-1970s. And it was the route I often chose once I regained something of my freedom.

The railway line runs alongside the wall and it was in 1953 that the sea took away a significant amount of track. Being a terminus, Cleethorpes is indeed the end of the line and in those days rail travel was a vital link. Quite a disaster. The wall was built, using a stepped design, to put an end to this and other incursions by the tide.

A place to walk, a place to run, a view to ponder

The walk north along the wall is exposed to the elements, the weather can change quickly and, when it does, there is nowhere to shelter: I have been caught out a time or two. On a fine day it provides an interesting walk, a decent place from which to fish or watch a variety of sea birds. Exercise seems to have become increasingly popular during these restricted days and the path is ideal for joggers, cyclists and dog walkers.

At sunrise and sunset the wall, depending upon the cloud cover, provides some interesting colour effects. Very early morning is my favourite time of day, photographically speaking.

As you leave Cleethorpes and enter Grimsby, the wall provides a palette for some of the area’s graffiti artists: an interesting and entertaining gallery is the result.

View from the Fuller Street railway bridge

The title of this post consists three Latin words: caveat needs no explanation for anyone living a life of enforced restriction and ‘cave’ is popular with public schoolboys as a warning to others of impending danger. It kind of fits. But cavea? Here we have a flight of imagination that resulted in my forming a relationship – tenuous at best – between the northern sea wall and a roman amphitheatre. I blame lockdown.

The wall is curved at each end, most dramatically towards the south. Contemplating the scene it occurred to me – in a fanciful way – that it might be nearly half of some vast, ruined amphitheatre. The steps represented the seating – the cavea – from where spectators would, in ancient Rome, watch animal hunts, gladiator games, executions and, oddly but appropriately, mock naval battles. Here in Cleethorpes one might sit and watch the drama of the tides, the coming and going of sea birds and shipping and the gathering of storm clouds on the horizon. At this point it is time to return home…

For the technically minded, the camera I used for these photographs was an Olympus OMD em5 mk II. Thanks for taking the time to look at my blog.

An ordinary street, a half thought out project…

Back in August 2019 I wrote a post on this blog: ‘A holiday snap and how Henry Miller hit the nail on the head…’ The post dealt with the photograph above which I took on my very last holiday in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.

There is no need to further explain the photograph. In July of this year I returned to my hometown; not for a holiday but to live. After 14 years out of the country.

After a two week quarantine in a holiday let overlooking the seafront the kids and myself went to stay with my sister. She lives on a quiet road that joins Humber Street and it was while returning from a walk that I felt compelled to stop. I had a second photograph of the short thoroughfare that had so appealed to my subconscious a year earlier.

It was after a third photograph, made on the last day of July 2020, that I decided I might try to keep an eye on Humber Street over the course of one year.

There are less that 50 dwellings on Humber Street and at the time of the last census it was home to 117 people. It lies roughly east to west on the slope of the ‘cliff’, the eastern end overlooks the River Humber and, as far as I know, it has had an unremarkable history. The postcode is DN35 8NN and I now live only minutes away in a flat at the top of the hill. I know the coordinates but little else.

Latitude: 53.5565 / 53°33’23″N, Longitude: -0.0251 / 0°1’30″W

I have yet to see much of the residents but hope to at some stage. I’d like to think I might include them in the project. No matter: if it happens it will happen. I did meet one chap and engaged in what turned out to be a lengthy conversation in the drizzling rain. But he was the owner of a flat on the street and he lived on the other side of the river, in Hull. His was a holiday flat – currently unoccupied – and we mainly discussed the ongoing pandemic which was having an adverse impact on his finances.

I took nothing in the street during September and at the moment I find myself looking forward to fog in November, frost and maybe snow during the winter months. At the end of the day I don’t want to force anything and the project was half due to my restricted movements for the time being: I’m usually strapped for cash and I don’t have a car. Perhaps a bit lazy, too. As for my new life in Cleethorpes – the place of my birth nearly 66 years ago – I love it. Though I’m not ready to hang up my boots and stick the popular house name, ‘Dun Roamin’ on my front door anytime soon.

Life With Restrictions: A Visual Response…

I am reunited with my hometown, Cleethorpes. I have been here for one month after a very long absence and under the strangest of circumstances. Details are unnecessary. The month of July has seen a chaotic and confusing lifting of some lockdown restrictions. I headed for the beach most days, usually at either sunrise or sunset.

My photographs are sparsely populated. In the mornings I share the place with joggers, keep fit enthusiasts and their personal trainers, dog walkers, the odd photographer and those who simply sit and watch the spectacle of sunrise in silent reverie.

The evenings are slightly busier with the addition of fish and chip shop queues, skateboarders, pub crawlers and those who simply want to make the most of their day out. Sunrise watchers are replaced with those who can enjoy the sunset over the outline of what remains of Grimsby Docks further down-river. The odd detectorist scans the beach for treasure.

During the day, particularly if the weather is fine, Cleethorpes remains busy. Not as busy as would be expected under normal circumstances, but busy enough. I have photographs but I am not showing them to you!

I have always considered photography to be a very solitary occupation. I have enjoyed days out with a buddy or two, but at the end of the day I am trying to make sense of my world – by myself. Forty-five years of it have taught me a thing or two.

I anticipate the path of an approaching roller skater.

All photographs were made using an Olympus camera. Many thanks for looking at my blog.

Diversionary Tactics: Offsetting the Lockdown Blues (and Reds and Yellows)

At the moment it is complicated. For some months prior to the lockdown I have been pursuing some art therapy. Painting. To try and address an issue that arose from a life-changing episode that occurred last summer and which is irrelevant here. It has been a great success, my mental health is slowly improving and it has breached a gap in my photography; I am currently in the planning stages for two big projects and am working on the material from a current project and which is scheduled to be exhibited in the UK in 2021. On top of this I am in the process of relocating back to my home town of Cleethorpes and have already shipped a lot of my resources back there.

The Covid-19 pandemic had another impact. I had booked flights in order to begin one of my projects, which was to compare a port in the UK with one in Europe that shares many similarities. I won’t divulge any more, suffice to say the flights were cancelled. Not only would it have been a start to some work, but also a chance to take a break. Never mind. So I find myself at home. Unable to go out and make photographs as I would like to, I decided to make some pictures with my not-so-great phone. As a further challenge I decided to make them in colour – a real diversion for me.

I started off by noticing little things I had previously not paid a lot of attention to: after all, my office wall is just a wall, the dining table and chairs are just that and anyway, who cares about the relationship between my feet and the front door? Yet in a – for want of a better word – meditative state, I gradually discovered another facet to the familiar world I lived in. And light was the catalyst.

The small garden, in which I sit to smoke, is full of potential too. Not that I have particularly done it justice, but that’s not the point (if, indeed, there is a point). It is high-walled, small. Claustrophobic, sometimes. Depending on the weather.

Since I first began making photographs back in the 1970s, family photographs have always been important to me and, interestingly, I haven’t done much of that recently. My daughter often comes with me on an exercise walk around the block. And she enjoys having her photograph taken.

The streets around me, usually insanely busy with traffic, are oddly quiet at the moment. As I have said elsewhere in this blog, my favourite time of the day is first light. When the streets are empty. But this is different. Just very strange.

And then there is the ‘selfie’ a modern art form in which you can realise yourself the way you want. I haven’t resorted to an app that puts cat’s whiskers on my face…

Ok, the confinement is slowly sapping away my motivation. I admit it. Soon it will be over and I will be hard-pressed to find some peace and quiet. And I will want some. Anyway, I’m going to the garden to smoke a cigarette and check out the shadows…..

Thanks for reading. The phone used is a lower range Vivo model. The selfie was made with my Olympus mirrorless camera….

Catering for cat lovers: should we have reservations?

As far as I know there are around a dozen ‘cat cafes’ in Bangkok. My teenage daughter had been wanting me to take her to one for some time. She likes cats a lot. An opportunity arose during a school holiday and well, I like cats too…

I chose ‘Caturday’ as it was the most accessible, barely a hundred metres from the Ratchathewi ‘skytrain’ station. An unremarkable building – a modern shop unit – houses the cafe; it has a small porch with a rack on which you have to leave your footwear. There is a small hand basin; the list of rules advises that customers must wash their hands before entering. Once inside you are faced with a decision as visitors can either sit at tables or opt to sit on the floor. I chose a table. A fairly cramped experience as the owners certainly make the most of the available space. My daughter and I ordered a token drink – there is a basic menu of Thai food and the special Caturday cake was enthusiastically promoted – because we were there for one thing only: cats. And there are some…

The place was pretty much full and negotiation in order to make photographs required a bit of skill and agility. But I enjoyed the experience (of making photographs) and my daughter did too (being able to pet a variety of cats).

‘There must be some kind of way outta here…’

I recalled the ‘rules’ as I watched a customer share her food with a cat. This is prohibited but appears to be allowed. The cafe does sell bags of cat ‘treats’ and some of the cats did look a little on the weighty side…

The trip was worth it just to see the enjoyment my daughter was experiencing. I enjoyed it for the rather bizarre diversion. Before we left, I remembered to retrieve the bag I had left under our table and which a ginger tom was investigating. As I reached for it I caught the acrid smell of cat’s urine. I left with reservations…

Thanks for visiting my blog. Camera used was an Olympus OMD EM5 Mark II.