laicite – IJM Photography

Rest and recuperation, or R and R for those who know, is so underrated in these modern times where being busy is seen as being a virtue and shows how very productive you are, and yet it is vital and something we so badly need. Yes, I’m talking to you burnt out millennials who are just seeking validation by being so into your careers to replace the love you didn’t get from your baby boomer parents. You’re still not as screwed up as Generation X who are experts in coping with mental health. When we were kids, we just didn’t talk about it and it has led to a generation of very “interesting” people.

Anyway. Rest and Recuperation. The clue is in the name. For those who don’t know me, I’ll bring you up to date. I suffer from Arthritis in my right knee and have been limping for what seems like forever, and it hurts like buggery. I gradually have got into CBD oil in a big way and enjoy the relief it gives me, but it’s just enough to keep me vertical. I know I’m rambling, but I want to give you a little context, or even a large context, for the rest of this article. I also live in France and we enjoy quite a few public holidays, a majority of them being religious holidays, which I always found a tad strange for such a fiercely secular country where “laïcité” is the national religion! So the 1st of November is All Saints’ Day, where the French will go to the cemeteries to put chrysanthemums on the gravesides of the dead, and remember what the people were like and reflect on their own personal histories. Note to self, if I ever get flowers for my mother in law, it might be wise to get anything but Chysantemums… I might be sending the wrong message otherwise. In the UK, they’re a flower like any other but here they’re just for dead people. Halloween isn’t as big over here as it is In Ireland, the UK, or the US, but Gen Z have worked out the trick or treat thing and are well into it! So it might decide to stay after all. In the John Mc Byrne pub, they had a right old knees up and were all dressed up! I decided to decline. I was resting.

Now we’re getting to the crux of this article. As of Thursday, I have been suffering from a cold. That’s bollocks, I’ve been dying of Man-Flu. My nose turned into a water fountain, and for two days the tap was open and I felt awful. Thank you brothers for your solidarity and good wishes. But I was able to get into the car and get to work and therefore not dead, and able to work, even off my head. Fortunately, I wasn’t working on Friday afternoon, so, was free. My wife had left on Thursday morning to go and see her mother, minus the chrysanthemums, and would only be coming back on Sunday. Feeling like death I thought the best thing was just to go to bed and stay there for as long as possible. Fortune shone on me again, and there was no Friday night OHC rehearsal (insert plug here for our concert “the Planets” on the 14th of November, tickets still available here, and don’t forget the comfy seats…) I had my dog sleeping next to me in her basket on my bedroom floor. I would go down from time to let her do her two p’s. Pees and poops.

I had a call from my son asking if he could come home with a couple of friends for a soirée. I agreed on the basis that there would be no noise and they would leave the living room (which was to become the drinking room) spotless the next day. The friends would kip on the pull out sofa in the living room. At least nobody would have to drive. I drifted between sleep, going to the loo in the middle of the night, and then back to sleep. I had a Vicks vapour stick, and by then my nose was leaking less and was staying relatively dry. I took the dog down at 10 am to let her do her business and saw two of my son’s friends asleep on my sofa and I could not get into the kitchen. The huge sofa bed takes up quite a lot of space. It’s always delicate when people are staying over…

I went back down at 3pm feeling a little peckish, but they were still out for the count. There was only one thing to do. Get in the car, and go to MacDonalds to get my lunch. I got back and saw my son coming out of his room looking somewhat delicate, he asked where I had been and explained why, and he just said, oh yeah and went back into his room. I must have gone back to sleep because when I woke up they had taken the dog with them but the living room was spotless! #DadGoals!

My wife and daughter arrived on Sunday at what seemed like mid-afternoon, and so it passed. The house was no longer quiet. I still rested though. My daughter went out with some of her friends in the quest for sweets, and my wife filled up a whole bowl with sweets for children coming ringing at the door. I was shouted at for eating some of those sweets but the return to childhood was immediate. Emotion and food isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Monday came around and I was worried about going to work, and not feeling up to it.

Monday came and went, and on Monday evening that I wasn’t limping and hadn’t taken any CBD. Maybe Rest and Recuperation go together

Hello. I have a friend called Julie Dodge and she is a photographer in Brooklyn NY. I have asked her to mentor me and maybe put me in a different direction with my photography and help me develop as a photographer. She’s full of talent and is somebody that I admire greatly. She suggested that I write this article.

Did you see what I just wrote there? I said the holidays, not Christmas but the holidays. Does that mean that I’ve become all woke and don’t want to offend? Not bloody likely. Christmas has come and gone and now we’re in that holiday limbo, before New Year’s Eve but just after Christmas.

Even during winter I sleep with the window open so as not to be too hot in bed (and don’t go reading anything unto wards into that statement, this is not that kind of blog!!) and we have just come out of the other side of Storm Bella. At least according the noise of the wind. and not that wind either!

When I think back to two weeks ago, Christmas felt so far away. I had 36 hours left at work and the whole holiday thing just hadn’t sunk in at all. Christmas could have been 6 months away and it wouldn’t change a thing. 2020 has been weird like that for everyone. The Christmas tree was up and running at the very end of November as was quite common. Maybe just a way of people trying to find a modicum of normality since normality just ran away with the light beer virus and some guys getting freaky with a bat in China.

I listen to the radio at work which is a wonderful and a great way to stay up to date with things happening at home back in Brexit land. On BBC RADIO 2 (that I can’t help hearing the jingle in my head when I say it) they had decided that they would play only Christmas music on the 1st of December to usher in the Christmas Season. Best day ever at work! I love it. You’re constantly listening out for Whamageddon or All I want for Christmas is You. That music would accompany me throughout December and keep me going.

The factory was going to shut for Christmas and I would finish work on the Friday lunchtime of the 18th.

I had been doing a whole load of product photography for the company. They have an excel file showing all the references of all the hardware that we use and a photo of each article. However the photos they have are not up to the required standard. Crap would cover it too. I told my boss about this and said I could do a better job of it. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and it would allow me to learn something new. I went onto Google, YouTube, and then on to Amazon to get a light box, which is a box of light which allows you to get a well lit photo of each screw, hinge, and other things that I don’t know how to translate into English. That’s not as bad as it seems. Everyone talks French at work. Strange isn’t it. The only English they all know is how to ask where Brian is. Brian is invariably in the kitchen. But not when I looked for him!

This also explains why I had my camera with me. As of the 15th of December we had finished with confinement and had now entered a new phase. No confinement but a curfew. They also said that the curfew would no be enforced for Christmas Eve which meant that people could spend Christmas together, but would be enforced on New Year’s Eve. This is despite our dear President’s love of secularism or the infamous French concept of Laïcité. Go figure. Maybe it’s a sick joke, or could it be that he knows that he won’t be voted in next time if he cancels Christmas.

But I digress, or in French, je diverge, parfois je dis bite! It was Friday afternoon and I was freeeeee. Yes. Freeeeeee!! I’m free, I do what ever I want, any old time…. I decided to head into Nantes to make sure that my family would have the same amount of gifts and therefore not be jealous. It was wonderful. This new found freedom and all I had to do was to be home by 20h! I of course had my camera with me and it was the closest I had been to normal for ages. My last stop would be the HAB Gallerie, which is on the Île de Nantes, and where there is a massive crane, but don’t forget that size does not matter. And a crane can be grey or yellow and that is fine too. It felt wonderful! This is where the photos in this article are from in case you were wondering. I think the photo of the huge crane give it away.

Christmas came and went as did the food, my son, his girlfriend, quite a bit of drink, and some great laughs. We are now in the Christmas anti climax. No church this year. Maybe Covid is laïque as well. All a bit strange really, but it was good to be able to celebrate as a family. But “strange” has been the bass continuo of this year 2020. 2021 is just around the corner and people are putting way too much hope into it.

With vaccines, time, and the continual social distancing, things will get better. Things will gradually become less strange. I even dare to think that people with rediscover social interactions and above all discover how important they really are. Some will look back and think I did well to get through this, some will regret not having done enough to help others. Some will have toilet roll till the ends of their days. But when we come out of the other side of this period, we will have all changed. Society will have changed. There will be a new normal, and not necessarily the one that that the hippies are hoping for, but a new one anyway, in which we will need time in which to find ourselves.

Thank you for still reading the drivel that seeps out of my mind on a more or less regular basis. There will still be photos to look at. Until that happens, I wish all of you a very Happy and Peaceful Christmas. May your God bless you.