Grainy Abstract

Abstract Thursday: Mono - Grainy Abstract

I'm not too sure how this one is going to come out on Blip - it looks great at full size on a large monitor where the grain is rather lovely, but I suspect it may look like a very poor bit of newsprint when condensed down.  It should be fairly obvious what it is ...

Needless to say, it started life as an ordinary enough looking photo until it went through the Affinity Photo playbox.

Its been a bit of a strange day today.  I went to the memorial service (at St Mary Redcliffe) of a round the world yachtsman who died in the Southern Antarctic ocean in December having been swept overboard from his yacht, the cleat of his safety harness line having given way at a critical moment.  I did not know Simon as a yachtsman - to me he was a partner in one of the major Bristol legal practices who specialised in the same area of law as myself.  He was someone I did deals with, or met at networking events to compare notes and commiserate with, as we each worked the room trying to promote our separate practices - on one notable occasion in Cannes.

Simon had retired only recently at the age of 60.  A keen and very experienced yachtsman, the round the world clipper race was very much his dream and he had retired early in part so as to fulfil that dream.  

While he was a competitor of mine in business terms, he was always a fair and honourable competitor. He had enormous integrity and it was always a pleasure to find that he was representing the "other side" on any deal - I knew that he would do his best for his clients, but I also knew that he would want to find commercial solutions to the problems that inevitably crop up in any deal.

He was an enormously self reliant and determined individual, to take just two examples: on one occasion he cycled from Lands End to John o' Groats solo and without backup, on another he circumnavigated the Isle of Wight solo in a Lazer dingy, stopping only to telephone his wife to explain that wind and tides being what they are, he was going to be a bit delayed ...

A mark of the respect and esteem in which he was held was that today's memorial service at St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol had standing room only. 

It must have been enormously hard for his family - he leaves behind a wife and 4 children, as Simon was actually buried at sea.  The race itself still continues even now and there was no easy way to bring his body back from the opposite side of the world.  It must be hard too for the other members of his crew, who are continuing to race.  Simon, of course, would have wanted it no other way, but it cannot be easy for them.

RIP Simon Spiers