A couple of nights ago Chris and I moved upstairs to the biggest bedroom. Now that all the children have fled the nest (not wishing to make it sound like they were all desperate to go) we tend to do this every year when it starts to get cold enough for icicles to form under our noses whilst we sleep. The drop in temperatures coincided with another little nighttime problem I’ve been experiencing recently – I hardly know how to put it – several times now I’ve awoken to find red irritations and fang holes in my skin! Not big holes from big fangs (it isn’t a vampire bat), just small ones, uniformly about three millimetres apart, but they itch and stay for days or weeks. We didn’t find an enormous hairy spider when we pulled out the bed and hoovered up the dust – he must have been clinging on for dear life to the underside of the bed. On the plus side, I found a lost ring, a sock, a pair of thick bed-socks and half a packet of paracetamols (proving that I really do have a headache at bedtime on occasions!).

Upon awakening yesterday morning I looked out of the window only a few feet from my bed and saw the men in orange working on the sea wall below; it is a different view from the third storey bedroom – it’s slightly more remote than our usual ground floor bedroom. Many people would say that the higher vantage point affords a better view but we really prefer to be down where the action is. Although it has to be said that last night and this morning the upper bedroom had its fair share of action… from the storms outside, of course.

Who would have thought that the scene outside could be so different within a matter of hours? During the mid-afternoon yesterday (while I was eating my curds and whey) Chris called me out onto the terrace to see the beautiful golden clouds above the sea, which I photographed with my new, and speedy, Smartphone (of which I must try not to get addicted); it was a bit windy but nothing like the high winds that sprang up overnight.

This morning we lolled in bed for longer than usual; we heard the storm and we waited for some light before daring to open the curtains on the miserable day. The South Westerly gales made whistling sounds as they battered the windows and sneaked in through every tiny crack or airway. Huge waves, assisted by the wind, rose up and hit against the window near my bedside; I thought better of opening the window to photograph the scene.

After dressing I decided to go down to the bottom floor and venture into the open air in order to take more awe-inspiring shots of the waves as they crash into the sea wall (the water rises up like monumental crepe curtains). Having opened the double-glazed door I couldn’t shut it behind me for fear that the handle would break off in my hands, and even so, I may not have been strong enough or even heavy enough to do so (in spite of needing to diet). Drenched by the waves, I came back inside and fought for some time against the force of the wind in order to shut the door; the door mat had flown ten feet from its normal spot to the bottom of the stairs; the same wave of air-pressure had surged through the house and sent all my birthday cards flying from the bookcase in the hall and the mantelpiece in the lounge-room.

Hence, I didn’t manage to get those brilliant shots I had envisaged; and later, when I came out into my studio, I found an email awaiting me from my friend Sally in Cyprus; she was concerned for us because she had read about new damage to the sea wall at Dawlish. Luckily, the crack isn’t on the section of newly repaired wall in front of our house – I’ll attach the photograph featured in the “Mail online”.

“Did you find it a bit hot last night?” Chris asked me as we began to make the bed together.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Shall we take out one of the duvets?” I responded.

So we dismantled all the bedclothes and replaced the two duvets, which had been co-joined in the duvet cover, with a medium weight duvet; and at last the bed was to our liking. The upstairs bedroom is perhaps finer and grander than our bedroom, and yet, there was something on our minds. We both felt the same.

“You know, I could get hold of one of those trickle-heating heaters for not too much money – they don’t cost much to keep running constantly,” Chris suggested.

“So we could move back downstairs without freezing and without it costing a fortune to heat?” I asked.

“And we wouldn’t have to bring all our clothes and things upstairs,” Chris added with a man’s practicality.

We shall be moving back downstairs soon. I do so miss the exhilarating fresh air in our own bedroom but I’ll admit I’m a tad nervous of the fanged hairy creature that likes to ravish me at night – and I’m not talking about Chris!

Everything was coming up roses at book club this afternoon because baby Rosie, just eight weeks old, came along too (well you can’t start education too early!). During our book talk the darling girl was passed around to all and she didn’t make a peep. For a good while she snuggled up under my chin and had a nice sleep. I’m very comfy – no nasty hard bones to poke into her, which reminds me… the diet is no longer working.

Don’t worry about my sanity, you’ll see what I mean when you look at the photographs taken a little earlier. The “Orange Army” vanguard had taken position along the sea wall directly in front of our house even before we went to bed last night (this night – it’s still night) and the blazing lights outside cast an ethereal glow through our heavy curtains; the sounds of generators, men and machinery – thrumming, humming and clanking – though usual now, still prevented me from sleeping for an hour or two. Instead of counting sheep I tried to think of the sounds as music and eventually, I was lulled to sleep by the even closer, and more rhythmic, sound of Chris’s stentorious breathing (or snoring).

At four o’clock I was awoken suddenly by the invasion – I thought it was Judgement Day, Revenge of the Machines (as in the Terminators films). Our bedroom had become filled with an even greater light, which emanated from an enormous machine moving slowly along the railway track. I went to the window and saw perhaps thirty or more men, all wearing helmets and orange uniforms, and all turned my way, from their positions on the wall on the other side of the track. By the time I had returned with my Canon camera, the machine had moved on and the full regiment had dispersed into smaller marauding groups. Wearing only my convict-style onesie, I braved the elements to take these shots whilst Chris slept on, blissfully unaware of all the excitement.

I’m rather sad for it really is time to say goodbye to my faithful companion, although, to be honest with you, she hasn’t been particularly faithful of late; you could say that she’s been well and truly going her own way, furrowing her own field. That might sound okay to some people but, believe me, she did her furrowing in a most harrowing way. Where once I knew how to press all her buttons the right way, recently she just stared at me blankly; it wasn’t simply a case of insolence or even a slowing down in old age – I think her brain had gone. I still plugged her in to the life-support machine… but to no avail, she kept going in and out of consciousness.

Yesterday morning I thought she might like a trip out with me on my bike to Cockwood harbour. She seemed to perk up when I mentioned it, and seemed not to notice how cold and windy it was. The sun was shining, which was a blessing – she normally responded well in the sunshine – but that North-Easterly wind against us all the way proved to be too much for her. Before reaching Cockwood I stopped and coaxed her to look at a pretty pastoral scene – and she snapped. It was her penultimate snap. I didn’t hear the last one, which she did quite silently, in her own good time, in my bicycle basket. Somehow it was fitting that she was in the casket basket, and not simply because she was a bit of “a basket case”.

To mark the occasion of her passing I shall attach the results of her final efforts. The last one showed a touch of genius that a normal mind such as my own would never have considered.

On Monday, or even tomorrow if I’m lucky, I hope to have a much smarter companion.

Inspired by watching the film Blow-Up (1966), about a photographer who thinks he has witnessed a murder through his camera lens, I thought I would treat you to some blow-up photographs of the men in orange who work on our sea wall. This afternoon I was kind of like an annoying fly on the wall, out with my Canon on our terrace wall; I hoped the workmen wouldn’t see me while I clicked away.

In fact, I hoped they didn’t see me yesterday morning either, when, after my shower, I streaked down the stairs to our bedroom; Chris said that the sunlight would have reflected from the glass door back into their eyes, had they looked up from their machinery at that moment. I don’t mind if they saw me run down the stairs on any of the during-the-night occasions – sometimes one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock (rock)… well you get the picture. Our bedroom is so cold at night now that I scamper up and down in warm onesies, my favourite being the grey and white striped one that makes me look like a very long-bodied convict with short legs (the crotch nearly reaches my knees). My other onesie is a very normal, pink and grey, leopard-skin print so I don’t think the men in orange would have been too shocked to see me in either of my outfits during my insomnolent wanderings around the house on noisy sea wall repair nights.

Anyway, I don’t think they saw me with my camera today; I kept low and rested my Canon on the top of the balustrade on the terrace, and when I was downstairs I attempted to hide behind the wooden railings – hopefully, the bright paintwork was a distraction – they are very thin railings. I remembered how in Blow-Up David Hemmings tried to hide in the bushes so as not to make the couple he was shooting secretly in the park feel self-conscious – I thought that was particularly realistic – and I could see myself behaving similarly; of course, at that point in the film, the trendy photographer had no idea that someone else, also hiding in the bushes, was really shooting the man he had photographed.

Funnily enough, Chris and I both remembered the film as being rather good (he saw it years ago at the cinema whilst I saw it many years later on the television – he’s older than me); I say, “funnily enough”, because we didn’t find it that good upon second viewing all these years later. Groundbreaking films often become dated, and this was no exception; however, it made us think.

“What was the point of those mime artists playing tennis?” I asked Chris.

“I don’t know,” Chris answered (I think he just awoken), “let me think.”

“Do you think it meant that you can’t be sure what’s real, especially  when it comes to photography?” I spurred him on.

“Possibly,” he yawned (Chris hasn’t been sleeping well through the noise of the sea wall repairs).

My photographs of the men in orange (as I like to call them) were quite good, especially when I cropped them (as David Hemmings did); but then I wondered if my blog readers might be bored with photographs of our sea wall workmen – interesting and hunky as the chaps are – even when the shots are blown-up. Not wishing to bore or disappoint, I decided to turn the best of the photographs into drawings and watercolour paintings. I’m a fast worker, or am I? Did I really paint those brilliant watercolours in one afternoon? Do those men in orange actually exist? Are you dreaming this? Am I dreaming this? Oh, I’m so modern!

Here is some interesting material about the film for all you film buffs.

Blowup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the British-Italian film. For other uses, see Blow up (disambiguation).

Blowup
theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by	Carlo Ponti Pierre Rouve
Screenplay by	Michelangelo Antonioni Tonino Guerra Edward Bond (English dialogue)
Story by	Michelangelo Antonioni
Based on	“Las babas del diablo” by Julio Cortázar
Starring	David Hemmings Vanessa Redgrave Sarah Miles
Music by	Herbie Hancock
Cinematography	Carlo Di Palma
Edited by	Frank Clarke
Production company	MGM Bridge Films
Distributed by	MGM Premier Productions
Release dates	18 December 1966 (US) 29 August 1967 (UK)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Italy United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.8 million[1]
Box office	$20,000,000[1]

Blowup, or Blow-Up, is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni about a fashion photographer, played by David Hemmings, who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder on film. It was Antonioni’s first entirely English-language film.^[2]

The film also stars Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Tsai Chin and Gillian Hills as well as sixties modelVeruschka. The screenplay was by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English-language films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the others were Zabriskie Point and The Passenger).

The plot was inspired by Julio Cortázar‘s short story, “Las babas del diablo” or “The Devil’s Drool” (1959),^[3] translated also as “Blow Up” in Blow-up and Other Stories, and by the life of Swinging London photographer David Bailey.^[4] The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. The music is diegetic, as Hancock noted: “It’s only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record.”^[5] Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, Blowup won the Grand Prix.

The American release of the counterculture-era^[6] film with its explicit sexual content (by contemporary standards) by a major Hollywood studio was in direct defiance of the Production Code. Its subsequent outstanding critical and box office success proved to be one of the final events that led to the final abandonment of the code in 1968 in favour of the MPAA film rating system.^[7]

Plot[edit]

The plot is a day in the life of a glamorous fashion photographer, Thomas (Hemmings), inspired by the life of an actual “Swinging London” photographer, David Bailey.^[8] After spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos, Thomas is late for a photo shoot with Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and walks off, leaving the models and production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage girls who are aspiring models (Birkin and Hills) ask to speak with him, but the photographer drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. The photographer then meets his agent for lunch, and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Back at his studio, Redgrave arrives asking for the film, but he deliberately hands her a different roll. She in turn writes down a false telephone number to give to him. His many enlargements of the black and white film are grainy but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. He is disturbed by a knock on the door, but it is the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, he finds they hope he will photograph them but he tells them to leave, saying, “Tomorrow! Tomorrow!”

As evening falls, the photographer goes back to the park and finds a body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. The photographer returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. After driving into town, he sees Redgrave and follows her into a club whereThe Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar and Keith Relf on vocals, are seen performing the song “Stroll On.” A buzz in Beck’s amplifier angers him so much he smashes his guitar on stage, then throws its neck into the crowd, who make a grab for it as a souvenir. The photographer gets the neck and runs out of the club before anyone can snatch it from him. Then he has second thoughts about it, throws it on the sidewalk and walks away. A passer-by picks up the neck and throws it back down, not realizing it’s from Jeff Beck‘s guitar.^[9]

At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, the photographer finds both Veruschka, who had told him that she was going to Paris – when confronted, she says she is in Paris – and his agent (Peter Bowles), whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, the photographer cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone and finds that the body is gone.

Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As the photographer watches this mimed match alone on the lawn, his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends.