Sunday 12 November 2023

Passport Portraits of Yesteryear no. 53

Continuing the series of passport portraits in my collection.
Peruse and wonder.

Celeste Grijo Junquera in 1955 is a theatrical artiste known as, 'The Spanish Betty Boop'. In reality she is not Spanish but Portuguese, having been born in Lisbon in 1920. 

 

This is her portrait in her Mexican immigrant passport which allows her to stay in the country to exercise her profession of, 'vedette of theatre, radio and television; recorder of discs and performer in cabaret and in cinema'.


She stays in Mexico for eleven years, eventually leaving for Argentina in 1966.

Monday 6 November 2023

Broken crockery in Beverley

 

The ceiling light in the dining room at the Beverley Arms Hotel.
An explosion of broken crockery and cutlery. 



 A petrol pump dating from the 1920s, still in place a century later.



Saturday 21 October 2023

Aviator Hotel at Sywell

We needed somewhere to stay between my delivering two talks in Northamptonshire and we made this discovery.

 


It started out life as the Northampton Flying Club on the land of Hall Farm.

It has been extensively renovated, retaining and enhancing its original art deco architecture.
 
 
(left) Entrance to the hotel. Note the large doormat which appears to be a diagram of the runways.
 
 
 
 
(right) Stairway to the upper floor. Note the inricate metal bannister screens which upon closer inspection resolve themselves into outlines of aeroplanes in a clouded sky.


 
 
 
(left) Direction signs to the rooms.
 
 
(right) The dining room in the terminal building. Decorated with many aeronautical images, it flaunts a stunning mural of a 1930s plane flying over the field.


Saturday 2 September 2023

Cattle and Sheep

 

 

 

 

Sheep in the mist at Upper Hardres

 

 




Cattle on the Minnis at Stelling.

Monday 21 August 2023

Mist on the Minnis

 

Well, actually, more like fog.

That lovely breeze from the south is laden with moisture which turns into fog when it reaches the warm land mass.

Sunday 20 August 2023

Sunrise on a calm morning.

 

The breeze is a gentle southerly. The squirrels are scampering from under my cycle wheels which are crunching and pinging over a patchy carpet of fallen hazel nuts. Some of the corners are treacherous with a mixture of mud washed from the fields in the recent rainstorm and loose chippings from the potholes.

Sunday 30 July 2023

It did not fall on my head.

 

 

This bough fell 

 

from this tree 

 

and blocked the lane.

 

Luckily, I cycled along later.