Ray's Photos

[Rayge]

Part one, November, Deep Devon, you know the drill. In part two, a stoned evening in Penrhyncoch in the first months of 1987, featuring me, Clive, Baby Em and a whole lot of things that were hilarious at the time


Oooh, Look! Trees! How Original!


Mean, Moody, Magnificent


Road to Nowhere (in Particular)


Bridge Over Not Bovvered Water


Afternoon Tea


Shine
On the road from Tiverton to Crediton

...

[Rayge]

Part two

NME and Corduroy


Innocent Bystanders


He's Behind You


Angst Gurn


Eyes Like Roadmaps


Emma: What the Fuck Have I Let Myself in For?


Dude
Tom

Tomorrow, here come the new pics, similar to the old pics

[Rayge]

In Part Two, the last of the offerings from last November, which goes out, if not with a bang, certainly a bit more than a whimper: first though, more from Penrhyncoch and environs in the early months of 1987


Dude
Tom, the future DJ Blunt, gets his swagger on


Fingerprints of the Wind


The Big Almost-Empty
For scale, full-grown adult male in bottom left


Beardies
Nick and Clive.In those golden days, beards meant weird, pongophiles had something to hide - true in Clive's case, a horizontally cleft chin that he covered up by giving up shaving the moment he left school, where facial hair was verboten. which was hard on someone like Tariq, who had to shave twice a day just to stay bristly. But I digress...


Unimpressed
Local felines give it some Zs


Monstrous Regiment
Tomorrow, back to London for a bit of springtime

...

[Rayge]

I've barely taken any pictures this month, let alone edited them, so we're on a double dose of archive; the first continues the sequence from early 1987, and the second emanates from my favourite place, Planet Random.


Wise
Pussa/Ursula gives it the sage look. Carlton Mansions.


No Ducks
Gladstone Park, Dollis Hill


Heralds
First bulbs pic of the year nails this as early March. As above


The Rooftops of Old Willesden
Trellick Tower on the horizon


Intricacy


Setting

More sunsets across the duckpond, and a trip to Saffron Walden, tomorrow

...

[Rayge]

Part Two


Sweet
Carlton Mansions, 1980s


One Tans, the Other Doesn't


EyeBalling
Me and Reg, Mansions, mid-1980s


Petal
provenance unknown


Translucence
Likewise


Pelargonium
Likewise again


The Emergence of Colour
Late 1980s

more from here tomorrow. Toodle pip!

[Rayge]

Another archive bonanza today, with both parts from the early spring of 1987, with Dollis Hill, Cricklewood and Wendens Ambo in part one and Saffron Walden in Part Two. To start with, three more of a rather spectacular sunset over north-west London, using the pond at the top of the hill in Gladstone Park for foregrounding








Oops
Who says nothing exciting ever happens in Cricklewood?

And a trip to deepest Essex, for the purposes of architectural exploration and picture taking. A train to Audley End station (which is actually in Wendens Ambo, whence, I think, the next two...


Church cottages


Snuffer Spike
This style of spire so called because its diminutive dimensions make it suitable only for snuffing a candle

...

[Rayge]

Part Two


Catkins
Another seasonal indicator


Stately
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audley_End_House


Colour and Name
Walden got its soubriquet Saffron from the fields of saffron crocuses that grew all around, especially in the 16th and 17th century


Jettied Town House


Nave

And to finish, three bits of pargetting, the decorative plaster technique for which, along with the crocuses, the town is famous:


17th-century Architectural Bling


Gogmagog and Corineus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogmagog_(giant)


Ecodiversity Run Riot

More from Archivia next time

[Rayge]

Part one today continues the narrative of 1987, while part two is brought to you from Randomia


Sky Net


Faversham Skyline


Oak


March


Chip and Nicky


Blank Slate
Chip and Nicky inspect the 'garden' of Chip's new house in Mangotsfield, Bristol, Nicky was an old friend of Chip from her 20s,
but I have the feeling this is the last time they saw each other


Nature Comes Back
Industrial ruin on the open land to the north of Mangotsfield

...

[Rayge]

Part Two


Dreamboat
Forest of Dean, early 1990s. Pic by Chip


Winning Smile
As above


Lollop
Sal was a cross between a whippet and a Jack Russel terrier: she could really shift when she put her mind to it. Late 1980s, early 90s.


Shirts Speak Louder than Bombs
Geoff Ward, as above


Damp
Sal gets a toweling and an snogging from Chip, early 1990s


Home Comforts
Which home, I'm not sure

Back Thursday, dog willing.

[Rayge]

The dog has willed it, so here I am.
Part one has some shiny golden pictures from the continuing unfolding of the chronicles of my 38th year (early 1987), while part two features some murky brown ones of the soggy start to this very month here in Devon.


Getting Jiggy


Gantry


Terminus
Brighton, I think


Up River
The Thames in West London, I think


Chelsea Bridge


Explosion in a Fur Factory
Tallulah, typically unkempt


Black Power
A slab of prime Afghani hashish


Power Cut
As above, through and through view

...

[Rayge]

Part Two
December brought deluges


Gone
Not only Creedy Beach, but also the sloping banks leading thither.


Checking it Out
That pool between us is a piece of path usually half a meter above river level


New Gnashers
After nearly a year of hiding it, I can finally unleash the grin again


Domestic Chaos I


Domestic Chaos II
An impending move, and preparations for it, have created some strange indoorscapes


Drying Off
Some of the critters have just had their annual bath...


Grrr
...and not all of them are happy about it

More from both tomorrow

[Six String]

Do you ever come upon holloways (hollow-ways) in your walks? I've been reading Robert McFarlane's book The Wild Places and he mentions them a bit. His writing is very poetic.

[Rayge]

The first part of today's selection is from the 1987 sequence, while the second is from earlier this month, and features a very high critter count

Unless otherwise stated, all Carlton Mansions, Cricklewood, probably early April (?)


Indoor Gardener


Slitted


Squatting
Tallulah makes a nest in my chest.


Floral Tribute


Midnight at the Mantelpiece


Michael Gets Down
Ed's place, Ladbroke Grove


Hooray!
As above

...

[Rayge]

Part Two


Survey
Scrap checks out a new arrival on the block, or the living room carpet, as it's generally known


Not Fooling Anybody
Scrap hasn't quite got the hang of his black Lab cozzie


Tails Up, Arseholes on Display
Forebearing Scrap meets an importunate pug


Sad-Eyed Laddie of the Low Downs
Pug puggers off just too quickly for my shutter speed. But the sorrowful face still shines through the blur


Afternoon
Crediton High Street


502572 - A Portrait


First Great Bovine Moo-in
Community cud-chewing

more from near and far past tomorrow: but fewer quadrupeds

[Rayge]

Part one today features more from the immediate vicinity in the middle-ish weeks of this month (and rather more kine than I was counting on), while two is all air and water, plus a little fire, from April-May 1987


Big Business Gets a Perm


Message from Hathor
The cowputer in action


Ciaroscuro


Still


Thin Red Line


Old Friends


Away from the Herd

...

[Rayge]

(This) Part(y Fears) Two


Pointers
Mangotsfield, I think


Nested
Moorhen improvising in a canal. (Grand Union, London, or the Welsh Back, Bristol)


Dangerous Pier and Rubbish Fish and Chips for a Quid
Brighton, as are all those following in this post


Sparkle


Drive-By


Tangled Up in Blue
Sorry, couldn't resist it


Hovewards


Dolphin and Tudor Rose

Tomorrow Wemberleee and other disappointments

[Rayge]

Do you ever come upon holloways (hollow-ways) in your walks? I've been reading Robert McFarlane's book The Wild Places and he mentions them a bit. His writing is very poetic.

I only just noticed this, Les, sorry. Yes, there are a few around here that qualify, although they are more likely to be mediaeval than prehistoric, as I imagine McFarlane is describing. These ancient tracks, not just the holloways but also the ridge-top paths and tracks, even the remnants of Roman roads, give you the sense of moving through thousands of years of human history, which tends to incline the mind towards poetizing.
There is actually a short stretch of holloway just that starts about 40 yards north of my front door: although my house is now at the end of the lane, up to the 18th century Mill Lane was part of a well used road/trackway from the north of the county south to Exeter. Like most roads of this vintage, it kept to high ground as much as possible, to avoid swampy and muddy ground in the valleys, and the road wound up the hill along a wide holloway and continued along the tops before dropping into Crediton to cross the Creedy.
And, of course, I was actually born in a holloway, or at least in the North Middlesex Hospital, in the North London district of Holloway

[Rayge]

In part one today, May 1987, beginning with a date I actually know, 16 May, and the FA Cup final at Wembley, the first of Spurs' eight finals I attended, and the first they lost. In part two, mid-December in Devon this year


White Horse on Wembley Way


Twin Towers


Coming Out


On the Edge
With the money she got from selling the wreck in Cricklewood where she lived with her sister, plus a small mortgage,
Chip bought a house across the road from the parish church in Mangotsfield, a former village that had just about been
swallowed by the Bristol conurbation, but still had open country to the north and west within a couple of hundred yards
or so: former farmhouses and country roads on the verge of becoming back lanes. Doubt any of this is there now.


New Girl
Chip had moved to Mangotsfield in March or April, and her friends in Bristol, Ruth and Pete, soon fixed her up with a dog to
'replace' Toots. Sally was a cross. Her mother was a Jack Russell, and when Sal popped out they took one look at her and
decided she would be one, too, so, as was the barbaric custom at the time, her tail was docked. When her whippet genes
started asserting themselves, her original owners abandoned her to a dog's home, whence she was 'rescued' by a serial
rescuer who kept her in her garage for a few months as she had no room for another dog in the house. By the time she got to us,
not yet a year old, she was timorous, especially around men, but desperate for affection. This is the first picture I took of her.


Leaping Whippet
And here she is back at the Mansions on a first visit


Reassurance

Tomorrow, Ed's place

...

[Rayge]

Part Two


Blue Boy 302507


Found Art: Meaning Elusive


Fanny's Lane, 4 p.m.

And now, just to prove that I do occasionally interact with people: the Xmas quiz at the Rose & Crown


Whatever
The name of the team in the foreground


Dom


Sumo
That's him in the red


Full Flow

Tomorrow, on to the solstice

[Rayge]

Double Post