The third of our black and white pictures

I’ve already shared more about the first and second pictures which now hang framed on our bedroom wall, today the image choice turns away from holiday memories and is a much more day to day image, or it was until we moved.

We’d lived in our London house in Blackheath for just over twenty years before we moved to rural Nottinghamshire, and we were keen to have some of our Greenwich life represented in our four black and white picture choices - it had been a big, infact the biggest, part of our lives together.

We wanted something that represented the area, rather than our old house, but something that wasn’t quite the usual shot of Greenwich. Greenwich Park was an obvious choice as we both enjoyed using that space but choosing a single image was tough, so we needed something else.

We regular walked along the Thames Path, and more often than that MOH spent many weekend mornings cycling that way too - I did too at times, but the uphill route home wasn’t a favourite of mine!

This is a photo that I’ve shared here before, and was taken on one of those longer (and permitted) lockdown walks, which explains why there’s few people around - a time when the world was just as crazy (if not more so) than it is today. In the original post I also shared how that walk had revived memories of when MOH proposed, it wasn’t in this spot, but it was on a jetty further along from here. The weather wasn’t like this on that day, it was February and snow was forecast - which of course wasn’t in his plans, and snow is rarely in my plans at all!

In this photo I think there’s more detail in the coloured version - you can see the white twisted columns of the cable car more clearly, but in the black and white version I think it’s the Thames overall that is most prominent.

It’s a great image to have of our long time home, it evokes so many memories of living there and of the area’s heritage, so it’s another great inclusion in our series of four black and white pictures.

The second of our black and white pictures

Last Monday I shared more about the first of these photos which now hang framed on our bedroom wall, today I’m revisiting another holiday memory and strangely also from 2014.

It was also a place we were revisiting, but somewhere we’d first visited together in the autumn of 2012. We’d booked a walking holiday on one of the new holiday’s offered as the Rota Vincentina in Alentejo had only recently opened. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but a week away in the relative warmth of Portugal’s sun in mid-October sounded like a good plan. And it was, we had a great holiday in 2012 and fell in love with the region as a whole, and actually with Portugal too.

We vowed to come back, and two years later we did just that. This time our visit was in June, rather than October and instead of walking between hotels we hired a car and based ourselves at the mid-point of the route from that original trip, using that as our base to revisit many of the places we’d visited before, and even retracing our steps along some of the coastal path.

We’d seen some storks near to our hotel on our first trip and we were mesmerised and amazed, and a little bit scared of walking too close! On our second trip we weren’t expecting to see such a fantastic sight as we drove back along a quiet road to our hotel. So we pulled over and had our own personal photo shoot with the, what I imagine, are the proud parents.

Again the photo is great in colour, and it’s full of warmth from the sun but somehow in black and white the main subjects stand out even more.

Portugal is such a beautiful place, and we’ve been back to visit other parts of the country - including Lisbon, Porto and the Douro valley - many times since, but the Alentejo region holds a special place in my heart, and I suspect it’s about time we made another visit there.

But in the meantime we have a second great holiday memory right there on the wall as part of our series of four black and white pictures, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

The first of our black and white pictures

I can’t believe that I shared our four black and white pictures last June, I’ve no idea where the time has gone - but back then I planned to share more about why we chose the pictures we did, so finally here’s the first in that series.

It seems right to start with the rock formation in Cornwall, a picture I snapped on our holiday back in 2014, which despite being almost eleven years ago remains vivid in my memories, or most of it does, I think!

We had an AirBnB in Newquay which turned out to be in an ideal spot, and in the week we were there we certainly packed things in visiting some great gardens including Bosvigo gardens and the Lost Gardens of Heligan, and some pretty towns such as St Mawes and Tintagel. We visited National Trust properties - Lanyhydrock is a stand out memory, and the castle at Tintagel managed by English Heritage.

As well as the sunsets from our apartment we enjoyed natural spots such as Carnewas and of course Rough Tor and Brown Willy Tor where this photo was taken. And while I’ve shared a lot of those places here, there’s some that I never got around to - let’s be honest after eleven years, I’m unlikely to now aren’t I? Though never say never as if we revisit these places it’d be interesting to do a compare and contrast - but please, don’t hold your breath.

Brown Willy has always raised a smile here, for its schoolboy humorous name and also because it was a regular place to visit during MOH’s childhood family holidays. It’s a hill in Cornwall and is the highest point in Bodmin Moor. It was great to revisit one of MOH’s childhood memories with him, though if I’m honest I was much more interested in the rock formations and the rugged natural beauty!

The surroundings were great in colour, but actually I think they’re much more powerful and dramatic in black and white.

And it definitely looks even better framed, and on the wall in our new house as part of our series of four black and white pictures.