Bleak, chilly, full of mist and birds, it could be said that I'm adapting to the Orkney lifestyle quite nicely.
We had a party pretty much all day today, so this was all very nice indeed, and we had a barbecue in the fog - if it's not raining it's a nice day here.
Here it is, and here I am - Orkney. I have been here seven times before now, but it's been about four years since my last visit.
After a short trip to Aberdeen from Birmingham this morning, I then sat on the small Saab turbo-prop affectionately named 'the islander', and with a single seat to myself, I watched out of the window as the islands loomed.
It's bleak here, but nonetheless nice, right now I have a view over the sea which can only be a good thing, and I have a small house to myself, which is even better! I can't say how Stoke got on, as match of the day hasn't started yet. Actually, I'm off as I don't want to miss it.
Today was one of those days where there wasn't quite enough time to get anything substantial done, but just enough time to feel like you're wasting it.
What with everybody leaving tomorrow and Sunday, everything feels rather temporary right now, I'm off to Orkney tomorrow, my brother goes back to school tomorrow, and my parents go on holiday on Sunday - it's all go here!
Today was a first for me, albeit a rather strange first experience to talk about I suppose.
Never in all my days, and all the places I have been to, all the things I have seen, never, have I seen a rag and bone man. Today, I saw three.
It's an odd thing really, something that doesn't quite seem to belong to my generation, but with the rising price of scrap metal, I think we'll probably be seeing quite a few more of these guys. The man driving the van was shouting something unintelligible, I am told that it probably was 'old iron', but it sounded more like 'uuuuuhhhhghhuuuuuuhhh'.
Also, as promised, I went to see the new Batman film today, 'The Dark Knight', and it was, as expected, really good. Heath Ledger, who is now sadly no longer with us, played one of the greatest villains ever as the joker, a psychopath like we've never quite seen before. So, I'm glad to recommend it to anybody who is thinking of going, although with all the hype about it I'm surprised you haven't been already!
Shamefully, I know cock all about plants. I can recognise some, and I know generally how they work, but that's about it.
That's why I forgot to tell anyone to water my house plant whilst I was in France, and now I don't know if it's completely screwed or not. The leaves are drooping badly, anyone who saw the first picture of it will see the difference, but they are still mainly green. Well, greenish anyway.
Whatever the problem, I watered it and hoped for the best, although I am told there has been little sunlight - bad news if you're a plant.
There's not been much to talk about today really, I watched a load of Top Gears I taped over the break which was nice, but it's not particularly interesting to talk about.
Tomorrow, there's a chance we might go and see the new Batman, The Dark Knight, which I'll tell you all about if I go.
This is it, my final picture of France for the summer. It's not flashy, not interesting, it's just my house and it's where I've been for the last two months.
Now, it is from Britain that I type this, the sky isn't blue like in the picture, but I'm not drinking eight pints of water every night.
I don't ever get homesick, and I don't ever really miss much at all about anything, but I must say I am glad to be back. It's been a long time to have been gone, and I was wondering if they'd let me back into England at the end. Anyway, the flight was terrible, you get what you pay for with Ryanair, and I really need some sleep, so goodnight.
Oh, just as a footnote, you can now access this site by typing www.benspictureoftheday.com into your browser - neat, huh?
This is the last night I am spending in France this summer. Having spent a touch over two months here, it feels somewhat strange to be leaving.
Tomorrow's flight is in the evening though, so it doesn't quite feel all over yet. My holiday is far from over though, as I still have a month to go before I go back to University, and I'm off to the Orkney Islands on Saturday. I know, you don't have to tell me, it's a hard life.
The Olympics have left Beijing today and the metaphorical 'baton' has been passed over to London in preparation for the next four years.
There was a little show on Britain's behalf at the closing ceremony, Boris Johnson was there, but he wasn't one of the dancers. There was a big red bus and some dancers with umbrellas all around it, the bus drove in and stopped. They actually put a real bus stop in the stadium, and there were people waiting for it to arrive! It wasn't that real though, only one bus came after the wait.
Anyway, the bus roof opened up revealing a skyline of London, and some more dancers, then Leona Lewis, X Factor winner turned international superstar, rose out of the bus on a plinth and started singing, well, at this point she wasn't really doing much. Then, Jimmy Page rises up along side her playing the intro to 'Whole Lotta Love', and they carry on the song with her doing it.
Leona Lewis singing Led Zeppelin admittedly felt rather odd, and any other time it would have been simply ridiculous, but on that night in Beijing, it was pretty cool. In fact, we managed to out-cool the Chinese three-hour effort with that simple one-song gig. Good job; it shows you don't have to spend a whole economy to get results.
For some reason I can't explain, a feeling has come upon us all that the holiday is slowly grinding to a halt, which it is, but it is still nonetheless interesting that you can almost smell that it's nearly time to go home. It's probably purely psychological, but I wonder sometimes if some things do change towards the end, like small things things in our behaviour that we subconsciously pick up on, which in turn makes us feel a certain way.
Anyway, it's all very deep and complicated, and far far out of my depth - for all I know I could be talking tripe, but it does seem to make some sense to me. Some.
So, there's been a nineteenth gold medal for Britain today in boxing, our brave lad apparently got awarded some penalty point in his favour because his Cuban opponent bit him in the chest. Honestly, the things our brave boys go through to bring gold back home... It's the final day tomorrow and I should think that the UK is pretty pleased with its recent upturn in the precious metals business, let's hope it carries on to London 2012.
In other sports - STOKE WON! That's right, a last minute Sidibe header meant we beat Aston Villa at home 3-2. Following a crushing defeat away to Bolton last week in their first premiership game, the second match went somewhat better. Again, they've already matched Derby's win record of last year, who only one once the whole season - let's hope the potters keep it up and stay in the big boy's league for next year.
So, in a bored, some would say 'low point', I decided to play the trumpet in a sombrero. Please, do not judge me for this.
In other news, Team GB has won yet another gold medal, this time in K1 1000m. That involves a boat and a paddle of some sort, I assume the 'K' stands for 'Kayak'. It has to be said that just at the point I thought I had grasped the difference between a canoe and a kayak, the French television service have got me all confused again about it. As it happens, they keep getting it wrong too, saying that 'when someone says kayak, they often mean canoe so don't worry'. Thanks for that then, I know France has won sod all this time round, but there's no need to keep us in the shade about what other countries are up to!
On that note, I should mention again that the French are doing rather miserably, so I try to hold back from talking about the Olympics too much in front of the locals. They were being rather upbeat about it all on the TV, talking about medals to come, and dwelling on failures for only a brief few minutes.
Actually, there haven't been that many failures on the French team, just not many victories. Out of 34 medals, they have 5 gold ones, including one in Greco-roman wrestling and one in the BMX race - both of which they are reluctant to count as sports. It's a shame for them, but I don't care about them - I can sympathise though, Britain has had her fair share of failures in the past. It's just that in Britain, we cynically expect failure, and are pleasantly surprised when we win anything. In France, it's the opposite, they are so sure of victory that when failure occurs, the disappointment is far greater.
The Team GB gold bonanza continues today, with our latest exploit in Beijing owing its success to some sailors. From what I hear, it's the best British Olympic regatta ever - whatever that means.
For fear of treading on my mother's toes here, I took a picture of a flower; this is not because it's my new passion, but because I'd never done it before. I couldn't say what it is, but I rather like the look of the picture.
A while back I mentioned that I've been trying to watch a load of films, perhaps one a day, that I haven't seen before, this is going well. I have seen a lot, and very few, perhaps one, weren't anything but brilliant. Today's, Michael Clayton, was far better than I expected; I thoroughly enjoyed it, whether you do is up to you I guess...
No gold medals gives me nothing much to talk about today. Yet again a day where nothing happened, I did go on a stroll this afternoon, mainly to get a picture more than anything else.
So, I took the local 'cercle', a sort of bar/pub which is quite often filled with old folk playing boules across the road. Sorry the picture's a bit weird, it wasn't a very good day light-wise and I couldn't do much better.
Today was a clone of yesterday, that is to say, nothing happened.
From a sports point of view, this was once more not the case. Britain managed to bag another four gold medals in what has become the greatest Olympic Games for 100 years.
The medals started this morning with Paul Goodison's sailing victory, followed by more cycling prowess from Victoria Pendleton, and a record breaking third gold medal from her colleague Chris Hoy. This was followed by a victory from Christine Ohuruogu, who beat off the favourites in the 400m run to take the fourth gold of the day.
This has placed Britain firmly in third place, with Australia trailing by quite a bit now - we have a total of sixteen gold medals - brilliant! Considering I am in France, I should talk about the French effort too, as that's all I see on TV here, but frankly it's pretty grim. Four gold medals isn't quite what they were hoping for at this point, but there is still some time to get a few more.
Anyway, yesterday I went to bed breathing a sigh of relief, today, I shall go looking all smug - it's not often we enjoy being the third greatest nation. Actually, it's not often we enjoy much success at all really and whether it lasts or not, these games shall go down in history.
Since I did nothing, and I mean nothing more than just tie up a few loose ends work-wise and watch the Olympics today; I thought it wise to get a picture of the GB cycling team, who won us another gold medal today. That makes twelve, so we're still third in the rankings.
Like I said, there's not much else to talk about really. Oh, except that there's been an explosion at the nearby refinery. I think I have mentioned before the high pollution levels in the area, well today they have just gone up a notch. I received a phone call telling me to keep the phone lines free, and if the emergency siren sounds, close and tape up all windows and doors.
Luckily, it all came to nothing. No siren sounded, no second call came; research on my part has since found out that a small explosion caused a fire in the chlorine production facility, but it was quickly and safely put out. There were no injuries or fatalities.
So, I can go to bed breathing clean air, and a sigh of relief - goodnight.
The sun, the heat, the sweat - this is most definitely Provence.
This morning was spent getting back here from the Pyrenees, which took around six hours, although we got here in time for lunch.
Some bad news on a sports level, Stoke City have lost their first game in the Premier League 3-1 away to Bolton Wanderers. From all the reports I have heard so far, including one person at the game, the performance was shamefully bad. Bummer.
Anyway, that aside, Britain has won yet another four gold medals, on top of yesterday's four at the Beijing Olympics. Today, a team of ladies sailed their way to glory, as did a solo man, a pair of rowers won their race, as did a female cyclist, who beat a team mate in the final.
That makes eleven gold medals, putting us well into the top ten countries in the ranking. Actually, we're third! Behind the well out of reach Chinese and Americans, we are actually the greatest nation at the moment! I can't say it'll last, but it looks like the cycling guys may have a few more tricks up theirs sleeves yet. Go Britain!
The chainsaw in the picture was never used to massacre the picture-taker here, but when used to chop some trees it broke down, so it wouldn't have held up very long in a horror flick anyway.
That aside, the dinner I mentioned yesterday with the odd couple has just ended, weirdly of course. Actually, the dinner itself went fine, some would even say swimmingly so, we talked for most of the time about, no joke, the price of cheese. Boring but harmless.
Then, upon leaving and taking the outside steps, the woman says, 'oh no, I won't take these stairs, it's too dark.' Fine, it was dark, lit, but still dark. Then she adds, 'my brother died falling down some stairs you know.' It may be morbid and tragic, but it's a valid reason. 'Oh yes, it was last week, he fell down, smashed his head, never came out of the coma in hospital' and this part I quote precisely, 'we burn him tomorrow; see you soon then!'
Last week? What a weird time to interject with that bombshell! It's not nice, I know, but I couldn't help instantly seeing the awkward hilarity of the whole situation. Here we are, all smiles, kissing goodbye as you do, when she announces the sudden death of her 48 year-old brother. Weird.
From gory to gold, I must mention more victories for Great Britain in Beijing today. Rebecca Adlington, winner of one gold medal last week in the swimming won another today for us, cyclist Bradley Wiggins bagged a gold too, as did his colleague Chris Hoy, who was part of a cycling gold-silver finish, and last but not least the coxless four rowed their way to a victory, coming from behind the Australians to cinch the gold.
There were other medals too, but gold ones count first in the rankings, and we have climbed up fairly high, higher than France; despite having less medals then them in total, a lot less in fact, we currently have seven gold medals compared to their three. So there, rule Britannia; for now.
As much as I complain about Provence, the permanent internet connection there has tempted me back for the next week before I go back to Britain; that'll allow me to tie up some unfinished projects I started before I got to the Pyrenees. My dad leaves tomorrow, as he has to get back to work, so I shall leave with him; leaving my brother behind with my uncle, not a particularly nice thing to do, but he'll live. Hopefully.
I went to see some other old friends today, following from yesterday's events this wasn't quite as extreme - I have seen them in the last four years or so.
I say friends, I think we may be related, but it doesn't matter - they are somewhat odd though. The visit was dull and filled with inane chatter, I went with my uncle who hadn't seen them for over ten years; he talked about how to cook different types of fish.
It is safe to say that this couple are screwed, constantly arguing and bickering amongst themselves, they have often been on the brink of divorce and now probably only the fear of what society would think of them holds them together as a married couple.
These are harsh and somewhat tragic things to say, but I tell the truth here simply to convey the atmosphere in the house - awkward. So, with Burton and Taylor on my right and Rick Stein to my left, I thought it best to steer clear of the freak show and keep quiet - which I did with dignity I think, especially when the guy, the husband that is, asked me if I thought all women were lying bitches. What a twat.
Anyway, weird or not weird, they are coming for dinner tomorrow; upon accepting the invite, the lady of the house informed us that 'she f**king hates going to other people's houses; see you tomorrow then!' Oh joy.
Off topic, it appears that Britain, great as she is, has won herself another gold medal in Beijing today - the male cyclists did something, I couldn't say what, but there was lots of pedalling, and they beat the French in a velodrome. However it happened and whatever you did to get there, well done guys.
I have spouted far too much again, but I should mention that today's picture is of a small art installation on a path near us here, made from the local spare roofing slates. It's a tree stump in case you can't make it out, and it's by a Chinese artist called Yang-Liu. So there we have it.
This doesn't seem like much of a picture, and I don't usually use people for the picture of the day without express permission first anyway, but today was slightly different - at least for me it was.
Pictured in the middle here between my dad on the right and my cousin on the left is my godfather, who, incidentally, until this day I had never met. Well, last time I saw him I was one year old, and I think he probably remembers about as much of that encounter as I do - so it was just like meeting for the first time today.
He'd gone to Asia just after my birth and since then, he was always just a guy who, despite being my godfather, I had only vaguely heard of. Anyway, there he is - turns out he's a nice guy, which is good to know. He's back off to Asia soon, we won't see each other much again probably, if we ever do, but I'm glad to have had that brush with my past I'd never thought I'd have.
I apologise for being so self-indulgent and introspective here, I know that while I see one guy, more important things go on, but I thought it was an interesting thing to talk about. Besides, it's all I took a picture of.
A supposed day of rest was intended today after yesterday's world fair trip, apart from a lunch out to a friend's house it was pretty restful, it's just that I wasn't very tired. Goodness only knows why, I stayed up very late indeed to write the essay up and pick a picture of the day.
Today's picture is of something which has no real relevance to the day at all, but I think should be mentioned. It may be distasteful to say so, but my old French grandmother, God rest her soul, did have rather poor taste in decorations.
When she died a few years back, I inherited her room - no problem for me really, you've probably seen the pictures of the view from the window, and it's rather spacious; a nice place to stay by all means. Except for the cack on the wall (how do you spell cack? Cac? Cak? Cach? God knows).
Anyway, when I try to sleep at night, the two guys in this particular piece of cheap tack metal 'art' from the market look down upon me at night. Actually, it's probably worse for them than it is for me. This is just one of several cheap masterpieces intended to fill out the walls, which, incidentally, have embarrassingly effeminate wallpaper stuck to them. Yes I complain, but I happen to know sod all about decoration - maybe I should stop here then before someone teaches me.
I think I have possibly mentioned before that I am rather partial to Zaragoza, a pleasant city up in northern Spain.
What better place then, in my opinion, to hold a World Fair, or an International Expo as it's now called. For those amongst us who don't know what one of those is, it's basically a big show where loads of countries have a stand and flaunt their goods.
It was at a world fair that the Eiffel Tower was built, and that Picasso's Guernica painting was unveiled to the world. Times have changed somewhat since then, and now everything runs around one common theme - water in this case.
So, aside from the countries involved, there were loads and loads of different things to see with no attachment to any nation. The picture above being part of one of them, perhaps the most impressive. It consists of a huge tower, which looks like a tear drop from above, with a massive sculpture inside resembling falling water frozen in time. At the top, there's a bar. To get an idea of the sheer scale of this, those stripes you can see on the back wall are different floors on the 22 storey building - walkways ingeniously designed in a double helix, much a like a car park, one up, one down. The idea is to climb to the top, then walk straight back down again without ever seeing anyone coming the other way. What an idea it is, and what a success it is indeed.
There were so many of these exhibitions that we didn't end up seeing a huge amount of countries in the end - things like a simulator with wind and rain included and a giant walk-in water cage were all on the menu here.
From the countries' point of view though, there were some interesting ideas on the stalls there too. I say stalls, but each nation got a huge room to itself, most of them had massive queues to get into - the Germans and the Japanese were very popular, both were boasting two hour waits to get in.
Some were just reflections on a nation - France was unsurprisingly pretentious, with everything going on in the dark, Senegal had some African drummers and dancers battering away like there's no tomorrow, which was refreshing, and Belgium was just weird.
Actually, Belgium was, even for Belgium, really quite shit. First of all, they had recreated a 'Belgian horizon' which was just a big patch of field with load of mist being pumped onto it, then, as you moved into the second and final part of their display, there were a load of bath tubs, one with a bronze dead guy in. Wow Belgium, you really are pretty freaky.
One surprise was the Afghanistan room, which, although bare and devoid of many visitors, was one of the more interesting ones. Frankly, it was just loads of pictures of the place with a load of pretty nice carpets on show, but it was fascinating to get a different angle on a place known for being severely hammered by pretty much every western nation. Sure, I knew there were mountains there, but only because that's where they reckon Bin Laden was hiding.
Anyway, I've gone on a long time and it's excruciatingly late, but I must mention that it was a complete no-show on Britain's part, probably not such a bad idea mind you. The Americans weren't there either, but they're probably banned because they'd outshine all the other stalls, they are rather good at that kind of thing. Oh yeah, and they are also screwing all the money they can out of about every other country attending, that's the one's they're not bombing the living out of.
This apparently edible substance was my uncle's creation - admittedly never the French Gordon Ramsay, most attempts at food production on his part can be swallowed, some may even be described as pleasant. This was not one of those. Many of us have spent the afternoon in the toilet. Enough said I think.
On a more positive note, Great Britain are now the holders of two gold medals at the Olympics, with the female swimmers finishing first and third in this morning's 400m race. I really have to apologize to them, but with no internet and only French TV to go on here, I haven't been able to catch their names. In fact, I only heard of their exploits because they beat the French hopeful, Laure Manaudou, who, as a potential winner, shocked everyone by coming last.
Today, Great Britain earned her first medal at the Olympic Games in China, no less than gold.
The women's cyclist Nicole Cook opened the 'Team GB' score chart, hopefully with many more to come - not that I'll hear of many from here in France.
Aside from watching the games on TV, there's nothing much more to sat about the day really. I took the now almost standard issue picture from my bedroom window, then played about with it so it wasn't exactly identical to all the others. Clever.
Although the day was fairly bland, I did make a special trip out to take a picture and I'm quite pleased with the result, as it differs ever so slightly from all the other mountain pictures around, including all of mine.
Like I said, nothing much has been going on apart from the Olympic Games, with no medals for France so far, and, although I can't see how the Great Britain team are doing, I think no medals for them yet either.
From roaming the streets of Seville to rambling through the aisles of a French DIY store - how life can be both strange and cruel sometimes.
Hey, we bought a ladder though; so at least something came of it. Sadly, nothing else happened today. Oh, actually, I tell a lie, the Olympic Games opened this afternoon in Beijing - human rights are definitely called into question here, as China does not have the best track record on that front, no pun intended. Actually, it was quite a good pun that one, I didn't think such a thing existed!
It was with a mix of pleasure and regret that I left Seville this morning. On the one hand, I love travelling and I'm always one to enjoy the journey more than anything else.
On the other hand, the city was so lovely that you could not get bored of seeing the same things for weeks on end there. That, however, comes mixed with the heat. The intense, furnace-like 45 degrees centigrade is a common occurrence here. Anyone will tell you, myself included from having spent a lot of time in criminally hot places, that you can get used to this. Yes, I can adapt to be constantly covered in sweat, having to drink all the time and taking a shower every third half hour of the day, and the lack of sleep. The truth is though, I don't want to have to do all that on holiday, not if I'm only staying a day or so.
On a more permanent basis, given lots of time to do everything nice and slow, take the afternoon off etc... Seville has a huge appeal. If you want to pound the streets for ten hours like I did, you'll pay the price, like I did.
Although I was looking forward to the ride back on the swanky train, it was on there that I realised why I felt so sad about leaving - my friend there was one of the few, unrelated, friends I'd actually properly spoken to in about a month. For that, you know who are, I cannot thank you enough.
Now it's back to the mountains, where I'd never thought I'd say that 30 degrees is refreshingly cool! I've travelled just under 1400 miles by train in the last three days and been to a great place to see an even greater friend, and despite the heat - I wouldn't have changed anything for the world.
What better place to celebrate this five-hundredth picture landmark than in Seville.
Having got up very early this morning, due mainly to the heat, I decided to jump straight to it and hit the streets before sunrise. I wandered around, visited things, and made in the end a solid nine-hour walk. Now, having counted the blisters on my feet, I seem to have nine of those too.
It was, however, a great day - from morning to night time. If I went through everything I did, and told of everywhere I went and everyone I saw, the night would drag on and we'd never get to bed.
Maybe tomorrow, when there's another long but luxurious train ride ahead, I'll reflect on what I've done and write more here.
At the moment, it's hot, very sweaty and I'm still getting over the fact that I have done this, this very act that I'm doing right now, five hundred times. It feels like time hasn't changed much since the start, but looking back, I am wrong. Times have changed since then, and they have changed for good.
Watch out Seville, I'm here! Of course, only for three days, so I won't have much time to do much damage to the place.
Yes, the presence of a flatmate here drove me to take an epic ten hour train ride from the French border right down here to Andalousia. I have since spent an evening wondering around, stopping at a tapas bar for some tea.
The journey was exciting, going along mountain ridges, riding on the very brink, the very closest to the edge a train can possibly get. Until Zaragoza that is.
It is no myth that Spain, from here southwards, is pure desert - and my goodness am I glad I had a fast train to take me straight south in a few hours. The trains were good, no, really good. Bloody fast, more than a TGV, great seats, and a huge bar space to stand and have a drink or lunch in all made for a thoroughly pleasant experience - despite Clint Eastwood-style scenery.
Britain shouldn't be envious though, where on earth in the UK would you need to be travelling at over 260mph? Nowhere of course! In Spain, they have great fast trains because for about 900 miles in a straight line down there is nothing to see except sand and scrub. In Britain we move slower for a good reason, who would want to miss the wonderful landscape, changing every half an hour?
Today's big thing was a problem with the satellite dish - not a big thing for many but here in the mountains it's the only source of TV, the only contact with anywhere else.
Anyway, with that fixed, we went to Spain for lunch where it was really, really hot. I went to the train station, pictured, because tomorrow I leave for Seville. Not from here, but from further up the line right on the French border.
There's only one train from there, and it's early so I'd better get off to bed.
A morning trip up to the top of a mountain, by car of course, led to a rather nice start to an otherwise dull day. I took this sea of clouds as the picture of the day.
An afternoon trip to Spain to do some food shopping pretty much highlights the activity of the day. Shopping in Spain for food is much like shopping at Waitrose in the UK - that is to say, it's quite bearable.
That aside, I might as well mention that I'm giving up chewing gum as of tomorrow. I don't really chew much at all at home, but in France, I'm always at it for some reason. I sometimes wonder if I'd feel any better if I stopped - so I shall.
This first day of August interpreted the term 'head in the clouds' in a more literal sense than usual. At one point, I was so high (or the clouds were so low) that I managed to park so that if I crouched, there was a layer of cloud just above me, acting as a roof.
Then I went higher; ironically when you're actually in a cloud it's rather dull, everything just turns to fog and you get really wet. As I type right now, more mist is descending into the valley, it'll probably all be gone by tomorrow.
Anyway, at the top of the mountain I saw this Toyota 4x4 which at the time seemed cool, and since I couldn't see anything else I took a picture. Then I realised, it really is cool, you see, the truth is, I got to the top of the hill in about twenty minutes, nearly breaking the car on crap roads. This guy could have floored it and been there in five. Judging by the missing fog lamp and the flat tyre - he probably did.
Finally found some internet access today - it's been a while since I last went online, and although I'm supposed to say how Godly it felt without it, going back online was like taking a breath of fresh air - at last something aside from the four TV channels we get here!
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