"Have a beer , it is solstice.. just lay in the sun all day, it is solstice" the guy told me offering his can as if I were one of his neighbors and not even wondering how I had found my way through the boatyard. Then he went again to taste the sun..

For some kind of magic the sun was still warm at something around seven in June, 21st of June in London outskirts of Twickenham. Which is in fact a much less poetic way of calling this lost pearl of countryside suspended nowhere in time and space that was baptised Eel Pie Island.

What else than magic could I call this tiny piece of land which is linked to greater London by a small foot bridge. When you cross the first house has written on the small panel Kuala Lumpur ,which adds to the already well settled state of dreaminess one brings on from the bridge. Looking around it seems that there is no public path to walk among the country house,but a small tiny way brings to the boatyards. I sneaked in into two almost closed doors, to my fascination with sea and boats the large titans parked to be repaired or repainted made me feel like inside this dot of land were larger worlds , as a game of boxes.

I always feel like a child in front of this lords of the sea, able to cut waves and cross horizons.

I went on trying to discover hidden corners , I was in total awe thinking of the time this place had a hotel well known as ballroom , that misteriously burned down.
The memory and the warmth of that summer solstice came to me in an another propitious sunny day when at la cite de la musique , the passionating class about rock history held by Olivier Julien brought us back to the days of the british rock . 

Pete Towshend had in fact his own recording studios opposite the island and called them inspired by the island itself.
Life goes and summer withers and ends: still some dreams linger on and can revive through a small foot bridge. The warmth of the solstice light can feed a whole winter time

a winter fairy tale city

a glimpse of San'a in a brief stopover ... I entered the city with a half charged photo camera and the large smile of Hussein , the taxi driver and his big smile showing his children .

I was almost tiptoeing into the streets as old as history, as old as the sand: the peace of the town were making me wanting to be silent, not to break this enchanted sleep.  

San'a is a dream dreamt by children and shares its same sweetness , as if the houses were made of gingerbread and coated in sugar. 

On the other hand , this was a true fable and no witch was lurking in the dark, but in the gentleness of the air it was as if you could hear a distant music of children and crickets. Maybe it is the sound of the happiness of the holiday. 

 The city was like a bubble suspended in another world, a world before that our world became a popart object.

The town slowly was waking up and the people gently coming out

I did not remember this girl , i did not remember her as this picture, I remember rather when she burst out laughing and ran away, to friends or family I do not remember either

 

I was hesitating to enter the Mosquee, I was so unexpecting this encounter that i did not even have any shawl to cover and yet the people invited me inside and urged me to take pictures, and even then they did not pose , they were just being who they were , giving the gift of self as generously as their town was letting me wander.

then the pictures ended with the battery of my camera and I cannot tell other than with my words the colours of the bazaar, the laughs and jokes with some merchant and his scared little son, while waiting for the taxi to get unblocked, the break at the tiny square to have lamb and lemon juice, the benevolent looks and smiles.

I just wonder now; in this world in turmoil , that these dear friends are doing fine and are doing better than some years back when we briefly crossed our ways for a short afternoon... I just long to see them again

 "you are a good person" Hussein said when i got out of the taxi , I could not feel more proud of the sincere love I felt for this city , for its people ..."not as much as all of you , I should have said "

the day after saint patrick's day

after the big party, one comes back to the family and family is the sea and every sea...so to spend the sunny post saint patrick day I went to the suburbs to enjoy the fresh air 

I did not find the people coming home from sunday mass with a tray of sweets as it could have been in the place i come from

rather the common point was the sweet slowness of the movements of the people approaching the sea and the grace of the empty streets

sleepwalking at sea, the air gets fresh and one hopes to find a hot cup of coffee, warmth and reconforting in this moment of exposedness to the wind and the silence

.....some say we all are islands, drifting apart 

maybe we all are islands, romantically heading for the large sea

i would yet add that islands can make earth tremble and shake when they want to get closer

One Saint Patrick goes

"Kick off too soon , or stick around too late" went a verse from Okkervil River , it seemed slipped out of my  sighs.. a" stick around too late" case scenario is what I have done, purposedly let me confess audience, when I went to Dublin last year for St Patrick's Day.

In fact I managed to arrive after the parade right in the middle of the drinking phase to enjoy streets reeking with beer and echoing with jokes.

I make here a second confession, it is that I secretely and discretly enjoy and taste the moments in between , the before partying expectation and excitation and the afterparty when make up has gone off, where everybody is too drunk with beer or tiredness to remember his or her lines..there I try to catch the most beautiful humanity I have ever known, those of the men looking themselves in their mirror and hesitating whether to recognise the image in face... off balance

So it begins with this weird and surreal flashlight from the night to move into the day after St Patrick

 The party is general, still some shops go on as any other day of the year

I enjoy this take, I shot it the day after where I managed to get lost in close to suburbs , in the pub at 2pm these guys were drinking and they did not miss to make friends with me, when I entered to look for a toilet. Of course all of them could speak the basics italian to charm a girl, old tricks I suppose for dubliners. Of course they all made perfect courtship .

I like this shot also because I think it comes from a more gentleman like time, it could have been taken by Chatwin in any obscure off the road pub.

The small figures for wedding cakes is one of the saddest picture I have ever taken . I cannot resist to put it here, because in this walk through Dublin it reminded me of some of my thoughts about one of my greatest scare ever; to be trapped in a life that may look sweet but it is frozen forever in a cage.

Still walking through the suburbs , looking for something that is not something usually looked for...

At some point, on the day after St Patricks, along the river the music filled the air, it was this girl dispensing happiness in the siesta time.

When I went to Dublin last year, it was not a glimpse of St Patrick but also the afterdays of one very difficult time that is now haunting almost every place in Europe, the terrible pitiless and not too clear as-a-matter-of-fact like economic crisis

Whether the gloomy looks exchanged are the consequence of this crisis or of just the universal moment of anguish and loss we all experience I cannot say...

There goes this walk through the Dublin of the after party, I do not know whether what I caught is a scale off the skin of Ireland or just a speck of my image of a tender , traditional warm and tough place. Like everywhere, one travels with itself as its largest baggage.