Whimsical Musings of a Loon

Flickering past the regimented tall blocks of the city, the train ploughs forward at speed, passing the rows of the building traffic on the roads adjacent. Like sterile dolls houses, the office towers are lit up in the horizon, ready for the drudge of the corporate facade that awaits.  I feel like I am watching the world from the outside, only not from above. I am very much deep within the dregs of the dark. Hidden amongst the faceless.  All these people whizzing by - in cars, on bikes, in buses, on trains. All with a place to go. A purpose. All have their story to tell; their tale, no matter how exciting or indeed, mundane. Everyone on their own trajectory heading towards their goals, their dreams, or just an aimless whim.  I am an aimless whim.  It is early morning and I am being taken to the airport. The ultimate hub of all things potential. All these journeys about to start, the possibilities budding and spreading across like a spilt liquid of ha...

Tentatively stepping past the strange woods where trees marry metal fences, the overgrown grass submerges the concrete pathway underneath my feet. Suddenly autumn has been switched onto 11, the leaves are golden and raining delicately around me, yet the sun is shouting down creating gorgeous colour pallets. Every now and then, you hear movement, but it never shows. The brambles shake, a voice worms through the air. It's that sensation you are being monitored. A small glacial ripple slithers across my skin. As I continue forwards, the branches part reluctantly like unveiling the curtain to the red and yellow bricked beauty that lies beneath. There it stands. Just. The red roofs and towers still tall, the distinctive 19th century architecture crumbling but still standing. Just. It is hard to imagine Heino Schmieden, the famous German architect, seeing his creation now. Watching his magnificent construction, once proud and grand, now decaying and withering away. The corr...

Auschwitz   The gate of iron, the outrageous lies; That work sets free, yet in truth? All dies. Endless horizon, eyes become sore; Claws of barbed wire, for ever more. Red brick, red brick; a sickening trick. Row after row, all the same; Horrifically normal; even mundane. Reality hits, slapped out of slumber. Terror, fear; it’s more than a number. Mountainous items- bags, clothes, a bowl; Each different shoe, belonged to a soul; A life that sang, laughed and cried; A life so taken, cruelly, and died. Wrong indeed, and without cover- To believe one life, more value than another. Cannot un-see; it won’t be rid; Tattooed right into, your closed eyelid. But atrocities we, cannot spurn; Even though it seems, we never learn. I recently visited Auschwitz and here are the photos I took:   I am still processing the experience. It was unlike any other. Something in the pit of my stomach was gnawing the whole time; I think the place surprised me in ways...

Architecture is one of my main loves. For someone who adores trees and countryside as much as I do, I find the aesthetic of buildings and structures as beautiful and intriguing as pieces of art. Cardiff has never interested me architecturally like other cities and places do/have done. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, Cardiff was ugly and unremarkable even to a child. Wandering through the city centre in 2018, which I do pretty much daily, I am always struck by the changes this small but sturdy Welsh capital where I was born and raised has undertaken. Rumblings began in the 1990s; a shape-shift exercise. The rugby world cup final in Cardiff in 1999 saw one of the main new developments - a brand new 74,500 seated stadium slap bang in the heart of the city. A spikey ship masted-like structure (with a retractable roof which sometimes reminds me of a giant bread bin); it seemed so space-age and giant. A burst of new bars and hotels subsequently opened - and as an sixth form student at the...