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| Complicated use of River Kent by James Cropper plc |
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| A few hundred yards further up it is more tranquil, but the river is still restricted by the weir effect of Cropper's infrastructure |
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| This and the next two pics show the old mill premises at Cowan Head that have been converted to luxury apartments |
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| "First Seat" in the cast list |
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| "Second Seat" |
Lives of great men will remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And,departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Longfellow
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I saw a jolly hunter
With a jolly gun
Walking in the country
In the jolly sun.
In the jolly meadow
Sat a jolly hare.
Saw the jolly hunter.
Took jolly care.
Hunter jolly eager-
Sight of jolly prey.
Forgot gun pointing
Wrong jolly way.
Jolly hunter jolly head
Over heels gone.
Jolly old safety catch
Not jolly on.
Bang went the jolly gun.
Hunter jolly dead.
Jolly hare got clean away.
Jolly good, I said.
Charles Causey - (24 August 1917 – 4 November 2003) was a Cornish poet, schoolmaster and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness and for its associations with folklore, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.
I don't suppose it's much comfort to you but these semi-urban walks offer a whole new photographic sub-text of straight lines and artefacts that would be missing if an improved knee had taken you to the lower slopes of Buchaille Etive Mor. I mean, when did you last willingly point your camera towards a block of luxury apartments and when was I last presented with the opportunity (via your blog) of querying that phrase: luxury apartment. Other than that the adjective is taken up thoughtlessly by the builders who build them and the estate agents who sell them, just what constitutes such an apartment and how is it detected from the outside? And does living in one change the resident in any way: Had to get rid of the wife, she didn't match the decor, sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I would be regarded as shockingly arriviste if I started insisting that I lived in a luxury four-bedroom detached house. "Oh not the furniture, that's mere eye candy. What we strive for is an elevated intellectual atmosphere so that our guests, taking time off from a set of much humbler aspirations, leave with their lives immeasurably enhanced."
I don't think one lives in a luxury apartment, one dwells there, the mind perpetually on finer things. Yes, fine - the adjective that Henry James virtually took over - must play a prominent role in the conversations of luxurialists.
So it's ironic that the luxury apartments you have captured appear to be toppling to the right (it may be an optical illusion), their fine (finer? finest?) occupants carried away like Ophelia to a better after-life.
Have you ever thought that someone on one of those balconies was photographing you as an example of someone dwelling at the other end of the luxury spectrum, having seen through your ploy of investing in half a dozen bean bags.
NOTE: I've had a poor record with comments to your blog in recent weeks, showing an unerring tendency to become (in PS's words) "lost or misconstrued". If so, don't neglect the little dustbin icon.
RR -You may be surprised to hear that I am embracing these “semi-urban” walks - they give more scope for creating interesting posts, not directly from the photos, but more the material provided on which to hang a sub plot.
ReplyDeleteBecause developers award the “luxury” definition, it implies it is something they included like granite worktops, or electric windows and the like. Luxury is only definable by the recipient, so it is nonsense for developers or estate agents to award that accolade where potential dweller’s tastes may vary from minimalism to a passion for Victoriana
I think the dwellers could only become more snobbish from such an environment, but as they were probably ultra snobbish before they bought, I wouldn’t predict much change, unless they had arrived from a ghetto after winning the Lottery, in which case they would likely be miserable misfits in alien surroundings.
I think the dweller’s minds will be concentrating on how to operate the Bang and Olufsen home media complex, and writing round-robin letters to send to their friends at Christmas, and God save you from any of them descending on your abode.
As we passed by, there was a small gate leading from the apartments onto our countryside path bearing “strictly private” notices. I imagined some dwellers emerging for a country walk, not dressed in the usual Berghaus or North Face kit, but in strange looking jackets, designed for no specific purpose, with suede leather trim and probably made to measure by a London tailor, and sporting tweed flat hats, breeches, and knee length stockings, with snatches of conversation about the imminent return of offspring from boarding school.
Luxury for me is a gin and tonic, and a long hot bath, which MUST have been justified by a particularly harrowing or stressful experience that I have managed to battle my way though, or else a particularly strenuous day in the hills.
Addendum to my comment. Yes, I've just noticed incorrect apostrophes for possessive plurals.
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