Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red - poppies in the moat

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red by Paul Cummins © Caroline Fraser

Other Half (OH) and I made a rare weekend foray to town today.

We went on the DLR; which was entertaining. We had only been on the train for about 5 seconds when a very polite gentleman asked us if we would take part in a satisfaction questionnaire.

Having no reason to refuse, we answered his questions..........

How clean did we think the train was?

What about the information signs on the train? How comfortable?



And how valued did we feel?

Hmmmm.

How valued do you feel on a train?

£2.30 worth?

Well if it had been a free ride we might have felt very valued. Or if we had been offered free entertainment perhaps that would have helped. We were honest, and said it was difficult to answer after only 5 seconds on the train.

So why were we travelling?

And where from?

Income?
Postcode?
Phone number?
Age?

What were they trying to achieve?

We will never know.

Which questions did we decline to answer?

You can probably guess.

We visited the 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' at the Tower of London; the ceramic installation by Paul Cummins.

Poppies © Caroline Fraser

888,246 ceramic poppies will be planted and then sold in memory of the British and Commonwealth dead of the first world war.

Quite a feat, and very moving.

The title was inspired by a line in the will of a Derbyshire man who joined up in the earliest days of the war and died in Flanders.

Ceramic poppies in the moat at the Tower of London © Caroline Fraser

Walking back past the 'gherkin' we came across some of the benches from 'Books about Town'


I was tempted to photograph the  Dr Zeuss bench featuring "The cat in the Hat ", one of my favourite books from childhood, but given the serious nature of our visit felt that the "War Horse"  by Michael Morpurgo one was probably more fitting for today.

War Horse bench © Caroline Fraser

If you would like it, you can bid for it .

you can take a horse to water.............

border detail at Sussex Prairie Garden

This weekend has been a prime example of how making images has to come from the good feelings that lie within.

On Saturday I made my first, long anticipated visit to the  Sussex Prairie Garden. As one who is addicted to grass, this was something I had been looking forward to for months. It is a truly beautiful garden created with passion by Paul and Pauline McBride, and inspired by the work of Piet Oudolf.

Piet is a well known Dutch garden designer, and some beautiful images of his style can be seen here. Paul and Pauline have created their own garden over six acres in the 'naturalistic' style that Piet champions.

Mostly the colours are very subtle, but there were occasional splashes of bright colour hiding amongst the swathes of grass and herbaceous perennials. One of the lovely things about the garden are the wood chip paths encouraging visitors to stray deep into the plantings of the wide beds.

What a shame then, that our visit was on a scorching hot, blue sky day, when the light was harsh and the heat was challenging.

bison on the prairie

I took some photos, but I know that I can do better. I will return when the conditions are more conducive to capturing the softness of the planting, when the light is lower in the sky, and the grasses are turning to silver and gold from their current shades of green.

poppies

So different from the mood that caught me later  the following day; a day when half of the world came to Camber Sands to enjoy the beach. After they had all gone home I took myself down to Rye Harbour for a stroll, where a welcome breeze broke the heat, and I set myself a little project of seeing how many different views I could make of the golf clubhouse in the distance, across the dunes. Golfers have money.............maybe they would spend some of it on my images?

rye golf club from rye harbour

Maybe not; I don't think they would appreciate my take on their clubhouse, but by experimenting I got into that zone ..........the one that was missing at the Prairie Gardens............

An old railway carriage at Rye harbour

new tarmac caught my eye

At high tide the fishing boats went off to sea

gone fishing

And the red hut popped up wherever I went

down low amongst the wild flowers

shooting the breeze

Two hours passed in blissful oblivion to the rest of the world, and I returned home with my spirits lifted by the sheer pleasure of having being out making images.