Rural Massachusetts

It's been a rather frustrating day in many ways, from having to get up at 4.30am for a teleconference, to making slower than hoped for progress with work, and then losing a rather expensive goretex jacket from my back pocket while out cycling this afternoon. With having to face my long journey back home tomorrow, I've been a bit out of sorts this evening.

As I'm writing this an electrical storm is passing to the north, lighting up the sky every few seconds or so. It's some distance away, though, because the thunder is only just audible. Holly has come into join me and is seeking a little reassurance. She's an utterly adorable dog, a mix of Pyrenean Mountain Dog and Golden Retriever, another gentle giant. I may have to let her sleep with me tonight if the storm doesn't completely pass through.

Darren and I found yet more deep and unusual similarities between ourselves today, and that begged questions of whether we both inherited or picked up these traits from our Dad. We agreed that seems likely to be the case. We can see that our personalities all have a lot in common, and our sense of humour is certainly very much the same.

My Dad passed away all of 31 years ago, but over this last few days I've come to realise just how much he still lives on through his children. I'm sure it is his original love of photography that is now expressing itself through this medium of blipping. I found out from my mother today that Dad's first job after leaving school at the age of 14 was as an assistant to a newspaper photographer. I'm sure I did not know that before.

The interest must have been there at a very early age. When he got called up for his national service he signed up as a photographer, but the war was almost over and the demand for photographers (for reconnaissance presumably) not great. He drifted into other things and photography was destined only ever to be a casual hobby for him. I do wonder how different his life would have been had he been able to pursue his first love. I wonder what he'd have made of this whole digital revolution. I have a feeling he would have embraced it and loved it.

I've taken a lot of pictures of farms and barns this last week so it was about time I blipped one. This is an old farm not far from Sunderland on Route 47. There are a lot of old tobacco farms around here, with the characteristic long barns used for sorting and drying the leaves, but this field is for corn. It would be fun to take a shot from the same place in a couple of months time. I was rather drawn to all the horizontal and vertical lines.