Rainbow Journeyman’s diary

You can never tell, when you take a camera out to do a shoot, if you are going to find some interesting subjects. After all, being qualified nurds, we always carry our cameras in our cars, don’t we?.
Now, here, you may have seen through my unsubtle subterfuge and noticed that I am telling you Porkies. What I should really have said is: we always try to carry our cameras in our cars. You know and I know if you don’t, sods law says that there will be a dream of a picture that you are guaranteed to miss. And I did!

It was one of those routine daily journeys when we were travelling the back ways into Holsworthy, Devon. Always a pleasure as the countryside aroud here is as it should be, unspoilt. In itself a very pretty route but, hey, we have done it a million time (More porkies! Probabley a couple of hundred.) “Get on with the yarn!” I hear you say. Ok, Ok, give a fella a break.

As we rounded the bend at the hill that leads down from upper lane to the river we had to stop for one of those delights that you can always find if you live in the country. Animals. Well sheep really. I think that they qualify don’t they? Fifty or sixty sheep to say the least. “So what, you say, sheep is a sheep is a sheep, in’t it?” Well, yes, normally. But this time it was one of those occasions where the sun hadn’t climbed too high and was slanting though the trees back up the lane that we were travelling down.
The sheep filled the road; wall to wall, like a wandering persian carpet. (And not a drop of Mint Jelly in sight.) Basically wooley white, black nosed with ripples of colour from their farm owners markings, interlaced by the blue where the Ram had had a “chat” (Talkative fellas these Rams) with them at some time. These were your conventional, low mileage, farmyard sheep. Oh, and a couple of sheep dogs. Bless. Working their black and white socks off, keeping the animals on the move, as only they know how!
But the incredible part wasn’t just the coloured patterns of their bodies, it was the effect the dappled sunlight was making shining through their ears. Ears, I hear you say. Is there an echo? Ears I said. Their ears were sun coloured like ripe grains of corn. Yellow browny gold and translucent, with the back light that was shining from the Autumn sun turning them to a a living montage of colour.. And……you don’t need me to tell you the rest. You do. OK!
It’s a picture that I cannot show you, ever. It would have been a picture in a million. Ask any fisherman. The one that got away. Why can’t you have the picture? You know the answer. No camera!

I would say a rude word here but I am not into that…. other than a few weeks back when I got “flashed” by an undercover PC hiding inside a covert police van doing people for speeding. (Or was it another agency employed by the Police?)
Now, first lets be completely honest about this. It was my fault. Honest Cop Govenor, banged to rights and all that old twaddle.

My excuse? Very feeble. We had been using a hired Camper Van for a long journey and having taken it back I got into my own car. After the weight of the camper it was like a ballerina on ice. Oh incidentally do you want to know our average speed on this journey from Devon to Lytham St Ann’s recorded by sat NV was 13.7MPH. Wonderful!! Anyway I slid past the speed limit signs covertly covered by aforsaid PC or Agency’s undercover bobby, by 12 mph and got booked!

But…..and there’s always a but, I can’t help feeling that the fine is just an excuse to gather money. There was no admonition in the paper work. No words that….. Thou naughty fella, thou didst travel on Her Majesty’s Highway in a contravention of Highway Code, rule No xx in a manner unbecoming of a stupid easily fleeced motorist.
No mention of a motorist (me) ignoring said temporary rule NO xxxx of the highways traffic control that tells of the need for a red flag to be carried at all times by said pedestrian person walking in front of the vehicle. And that I might be guilty after they had carefully studied my response. No…………you are guilty………..pay up or else we will issue a warrant.
And of course there’s more. If…you were stupid enough to believe that you may have a case based on circustances beyond your control, and took it to court…”The Judge has a right to increase your fine and add to your points.” No mention here about a fair hearing.

No wonder the motorist is up in arms about getting ripped off. When you live in the West Country cars are an essential part of life. There are no buses to compensate. Enough said!

Anyway, I digress, lost opportunities with the camera. It nearly happened again a few days ago.

For those of you that know Widmouth Bay near Bude (See the pictures on our WEB site) you will know about the Black Rock Beach. It’s famous for its surf and for its changing moods. The sand itself is special and is like a wandering nomad, drifting as it does from one end of the beach to the other in the span of the season. Tis true, honest. No two days the same.

This day in mention was a “long dog walk day”. Poppy, our New Zealand cattle collie insisted. Teddy, the Sheltie, popked his long nose in and agreed.
Poppy, looking me straight in the eye gave me one of those “or else” stares that dog owners are all too familiar with. Followed by a playfull tug on my hand towards the car keys.

The weather. Lousy. Wet and windy with a little peaks of sunshine bravely trying to show its face through the cloud bursts. And the rain was playing catch up. “So you think that I have stopped. Huh, how about this lot then.” Over all, pretty miserable. Not a day for cameras.
But, hey, I learned my lesson with the sheep. And I thought Ba, I’m not getting caught twice. So, dogs and cameras went into the car. Dogs into the boot cameras into the foot well.

Now I have got to talk about our dogs and cars so you understand a bit more about Journeymen. Do you remember those brilliant TV films were they showed you lava boiling out of an under sea vent. (Fumerroles, is it?) Well Poppy and Teddy both get a bit hyped when they get within striking distance of Widmouth Beach. We don’t know what it is.
Try driving near the beach, with no intention of going onto it, and they sleep in the back. Snoring quietly to themselves, and all within our earshot.
Go, with the intention of going to the beach and they start to bubble just like a volcano ready for the big bang. And that is what it is like when we get to the beach. The moment you open the tailgate they are both off like a tidle wave of boiling lava.
They travel with us on most Rainbow journeys. Mostly, on the principle that if we run out of fuel I will have someone to talk too whilst my wife sulks. (She doesn’t really. That’s another porky)

(This year we think that she will qualify for her own Rainbow Jouneywomans badge (Bit like Blue Peter, without the TV backing) and a womans section on the site. No doubt she and Helen will have a hand in that process.

Dogs went walkabout, left us buttoning up against the weather; intemittent rain and then sunshine, and wind.
We hoiked the camera bag over our shoulders and followed the footprinted destruction of what had been a pristine tide washed beach; led on by the rapidly disappearing tails of two dogs as they dwindled in the distance, obviously believing that this was to be their last walk…………. ever.

Gradually the sunshine prevailed and lit the beach in what can only be described as ethereal light. That’s the posh stuff that comes from everywhere at once.
The silica in the sand lit by this effect glowed warmly and changed colours to suit the amount of sunshine that tripped through the cloud strewn sky. Surrounded now by the remainder of the tide wash each mound of sand looked like coloured islands.

By this time the dogs were bombing us, running in circles seeking attention, but we were busy trying to capture the moods of the moment. So whilst they were distracted by large lumps of flotsam hurled down wind, with arm wrecking efficiency, I managed to set up between thirty or forty images that you should soon see on our site. Some of them are quite dramatic. The effect was like moonlight in the middle of the day. The sea too was wind whipped and glowing with an early winter light. Magic in the making.

Hey, whilst we are talking about whips. my friend Greg thinks that this is a family site. (He is an ex London Firefighter, Git Biker and a Great pal to have. And a really loyal friend. But, hey, you’ve got to have a pot hav’nt you?) Greg and my other reader are becoming like family so I suppose that he may be almost right. Except on the odd occasion I happen to have feed back coming from some lass in Canada and other parts of the world. Hey ho. That’s the life of the Journeyman. Fame at last!

Anyway, if you have been reading this, thanks and that’s yer lot for now as supper calls. Got to keep my sylph like figure in trim.

More soon.

Mike T
www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk