A recipe for one exhausted boy.

Take:
a cab, a train, a tram, five airports, four countries, twenty two thousand kilometres and a suprise return.

Blend them in over fifty two hours.

Served best when accompanied by various sleepless nights, anxiety and a sparse scattering of future plans.

What now?

When things happen in this life, they are normally, never to be expected. Receiving a letter explaining the rejection of the renewal of my residency status here in Spain put me into a spin. Within the space of two days I needed to make plans to cancel my trip to Turkey, quit my job and organise my way back to Australia. Tomorrow is my last day in Spain and I have quite a list of things to do. There is a box to be sent and things to be thrown out or given away. I am , at present, scrabbling to find something to cling to and there seems to be no certainity on the horizon except uncertainity. Things have just changed far too fast for my liking.

This next step, this fast approaching turn along the road, is not very well signposted. I will spend Christmas with my family for the first time in years and go from there.

Nostalgia

Last night I sat at a table with my peers. It was the work Christmas dinner. Wine was consumed in healthy (or not so healthy) doses and seated next to me was a coworker who I have worked with for about six months, but we have never really talked. He told me about his wife and daughter and he asked me about my plans for Christmas. I told him I was going to Turkey. He said that he had never been there, although he had travelled quite a lot. Elaborating, he told me about his travels in South East Asia. There were stories and within my mind a book opened and a page turned. It is always interesting to talk to someone you don’t know very well and discover that you actually have a common past or interest. He then went on to speak about my country, Australia, and how he and his then girlfriend travelled around it. Describing a mountain range that I have visited since I was a child was a catalyst and I began to visualise the rock formations and the lay of the land as he spoke. It seems that they had visited a lot of places near where I come from and I, probably aided by the wine, was awash with nostalgia.

I asked him if he had the opportunity to experience summer evenings where the air would become electrified and it would rain with lightning illuminating the vastness of the land. Where thunder shatters the stillness and you gain a perspective of how small you really are as a dot on a great, terracotta brown canvas. He said yes and then the main course arrived.

Projects Projects.

Today it is raining and my friend had continued on their journey, so I thought I would get cracking.

I´ve divided my life into four squares. Each one has a focus (i.e social or health) and something that I want to do , change or fix. For the first time, there is a lot of emphasis on the creative square. Stashed away at the moment are about seven short stories either completed or smuldering away. My aim is to have about twenty for a collection. Here´s hoping that these pictures that I am taking can conjure up a few more ideas.

Have you ever looked on the street and found random things discarded? Stepping out earlier in the lashing rain to take some photos of the deserted streets , I came across this shoe. There has to be a story behind it.

A city and a friend in black and white.

A friend´s visit was a great opportunity to take some photos of my new city. Like a chance to view everything again through the eyes of a new arrival - I got to see a lot of things in a different light.



It was also great to see how grown up we have both become. I used to be worried about the idea of getting older, now I embrace it. It seems, somehow, things are sorted in a way I didn´t really expect. A pleasant suprise.


Work is wrapping up soon and then I am off to Turkey. It is a country that I really love . It will be a great place to pratice my budding photography interest.

There are hundreds more photos to post. I´ll will try and work through the ones I like and then add them as I go along.

Restart

This beginning is actually a false one.

Ten years ago some friends of mine and I wrote blogs for a while. Mine didn´t amount to much. A perfect reflection of my life at that time.

There were some very awkward times. Like a lot of people, looking back at photos of school , I don´t really recognise myself. A lot has changed in years that followed it . So much so, it seems hard to even trace the path to the point where I am now.

I left my school, my university and my country.

Maybe that is why I wanted to try again.