A two-in-one blip?

A lovely lazy start to Sunday began with being woken by Helena with a cup of tea and Bomble then wanting to sit on my chest in bed, to rub his face against mine, which of course we did.

I checked the potential weather on my iPod Touch, having not been convinced by the rain pouring down the window. I was right to check because now, a couple of hours later, it is snowing, though sadly it won't last nor settle.

I looked at an app which shows a five day forecast of the pressure systems across the North Atlantic and Western Europe, and was amazed by the unusually large pattern for next Tuesday/Wednesday at midnight, with these odd shaped massive fronts looking a bit like an omega symbol. I rather like correspondences, which sometimes can be synchronistic.

I thought the map might provide an indoor blip today, if I could find a way to extract the web page, but I wasn't very successful. I imported some snaps of the screen, which added their own moiré effects. I then thought I might try and liven up the screen by adding a favourite picture I took last week, which I hadn't been able to blip on the right day.

As you might notice it was beautifully sunny then and I was taking pictures of reflections in the canal near the centre of town. Sadly a picture of a picture on a screen of reflections isn't going to be very impressive. But I don't think I will ever be able again to reproduce such colours, tones and the shapes, which had at the time reminded me of some of the impressionists' wonderful gifts to us all. I am a great fan of Pissaro, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Manet, Caillebotte et al..

I think this plan of action was triggered when I saw a print of Caillebotte's 'The Floor Scrapers' hanging in Lansdown Hall's office last week. This morning while scanning the Blip front page and sipping my tea in bed, looking at the latest posts that I saw a photo taken in the valley of the Oise, just to the west of Paris. I used to visit that area when I stayed on a friend's peniche, a french canal boat, at Pontoise, whilst I was researching an idea for a film about the Impressionists about twenty years ago. I must go back there soon and take Helena, who has never been to Paris. There are so many good reasons to visit France.