An Alternative Writing Retreat
Between the villages of Dinmael and Tŷ Nant in north Wales, there is a half-mile stretch of road that has been closed to vehicles since 1997. It winds along the side of a short leafy gorge above the river Ceirw, and remains open to visitors without advertising its considerable history…
We’d arranged to meet in front of the Whitworth Art Gallery and head onto the baths from there. Being a time before mobiles, the plans had been made on landlines back at our respective houses – of course back then we didn’t call them landlines, we just called them phones…
In 2006, the city broke ground on a brand new airport: Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport. It was a project which would swiftly become a civil engineering nightmare…
Turn off Seafield Road onto Marine Esplanade, past the sewage plant’s entrance, and you quickly come to the edge of the Firth of Forth. A wide expanse of water with the glittering lights of Kirkcaldy on the other side. There’s a grass walkway here, sandwiched between the treatment works’ chain fence and the sea wall, that leads down to the edge of what then becomes Portobello beach…
I used photos in these two series as prompts three days in a row. The first two days were pure joy. Facing the third day, though, I couldn’t imagine finding the task easy. What else was there to see? I realized that I just didn’t want to face the photos in the same order…
During its almost 30 years of operation the Camelot theme park in Lancashire had the slogan “The land of great knights, and amazing days.” Visitors could ride a selection of flat rides and rollercoasters, play games and buy snacks at battlemented stalls, and watch knights both great and not-so-great battle it out in the jousting arena…
Sometimes as he walked, taking long and meandering digressions down side streets and across squares, through underpasses and over raised walkways that spanned like triumphal arches the segments of silent motorway, the architect liked to think that the very formlessness of his wanderings was a kind of pattern in itself…