Horizontal

 

The keen-eyed among you will have noticed that at some point pretty much all pictures on clerkmanifesto began to come in a vertical format. This is not out of any particular preference on my part, but has to do with the peculiarities of how pictures get formatted here. I either have to make the images smaller than I like when they're horizontal, or they spill unfashionably over the sidebar.

But in my endless Seussification of flower photos, including some images dating back many years, I have on my hands yet again horizontal pictures.

I'd really like to show them.

I just wanted to warn you today in case this is too much of a shock. 

If you are sensitive to these things may I suggest that you lie on your side to view today's images.

Another post for bees

 

Yes, yes, I know it was all flowers yesterday. But because for some odd reason I decided to make them into super high resolution images, I really couldn't upload all that many. The blog gods only allowed for three flowers in a single post! So I still had quite a few of these new flower pictures left over.

Your mileage on looking at my seussified close up photography of flowers may vary, but the bees love it.

Come to think of it, your mileage on enjoying twee concepts like bees reading clerkmanifesto and getting super excited whenever I show pictures of flowers may vary too, although if it does, I'm a bit surprised you've made it this far on clerkmanifesto.

Maybe you're just an earnest, no nonsense bee who hangs in there for the flower pictures? If so...

Here you go:

In the final moments

 

As I write it is Sunday. This morning the worst heat of the city broke back a little, and we went out down to the beach to find a steady breeze blowing in. A bit of cloud cover helped too to keep us cool. It was even cool enough for us to sit in the famous blue chairs of the promenade to look out at the ocean. But it's not the same in the Summer as all the wildness and beauty of it gets covered over by the thousands of people frolicing on the shore, bobbing around in the tiny Summer waves, and boating about the sea in every possible size craft there is. When I'm not driven hostile by the heat I can see their good time and wish them joy in it, but I am always ready to walk on.

We went to the Cours Saleya market for some arugula at one of the sellers we like. I got a garlic, two onions, and some basil as well. At another seller I got an avocado and a surprisingly cheap french olive oil (8.50!), and at a third I bought a very nice looking lemon that was unreasonably expensive, but that's a little bit how they are out of season here.

We had coffee and I a pain au chocolat at the large italian restaurant/cafe on the market that we go to a lot lately enjoying its corner scene, large spaces, and agreeable bathroom. Afterwards we walked through the old town looking for assorted things we needed but didn't find to our satisfactions. With the old city exhausted we headed back through the long Paillon Park that was full of children playing in various spouts and sprays of water.

I took some pictures of flowers along the way in there, and since we've been home I've been playing with those. Though my modification style I developed for these pictures has lead me to employ it with all sorts of other images, I'll stick to my various flower pictures for today's display.

But tonight for me is The World Cup, and the truth is, a World Cup Final is a pretty big deal for me, and so some of what I'm doing today is simply waiting. I am curiously agitated and full of nerves. With the right attitude I could surely see this as winning either way. Although, alas, with the wrong attitude I lose either way.

I'll try to have the right attitude, but for whatever reasons I still have butterflies.

Predictions?

No thank you. If you've been following along in my World Cup coverage I started out with no predictions, developed predicting into a magic trick to alter the future, and now return back to no predictions. It's Schrodinger's World Cup after all. From my side, both teams won, but you, sometime on July 20th or later?

 

That is the winner that was always meant to be.

So let's just look at some flowers, and breathe.

Flowers and more flowers

 

I think all these flowers everywhere are making me sleepy. 

I think I might be in Oz.

Today we went all the way out to the Port to try a morning coffee in a well-regarded cafe there, but though pleasant, it was all a bit too hole-in-the-wall and far away. It is turning out that I am increasingly besotted with ambiance; calm pretty spaces, sprawling scenic patios, and quiet shady sidewalks, so the quality of the coffee has to be mind boggling to overcome any of these disadvantages in ambiance. This city, I am afraid, has no coffee with that kind of stature. Montpellier had something so amazing I still think about it, but the cafe that made it was still a nice place to be in.

To make up for it all we went for a second coffee in the old city on our long walk home. There is a lot of prevarication before we sit down at places, but once we do there is this kind of immaculate stoned feeling that overcomes us, a weird bliss. It's as if all the flowers here are intoxicating poppies.

Hmm, I think we already covered this.

It is starting to get hot here, with tomorrow in the mid eighties. I have a little bit feared Summer here since we arrived in the Fall.  But if we could possibly do even less, and sit in the shade more there is perhaps hope. If we are up to this stupefying spell, I am ready to go under it.

Flowering trees

 

The flowering tree situation in this city has gotten out of control.

Since we moved here in November there has always been one kind of tree at a time simply bursting with flowers. I don't know how to explain these trees. They're big. Sometimes they're standing with astonishing picturesqueness in front of some gorgeous belle epoque building. And they look like they are on fire with flowers.

One comes around the corner and involuntarily halts and cries "Holy crap!"

And then one carries on with their day, because that's just how you do it on the Cote D'Azur.

But it was merely one or two kinds of trees at a time throughout the late Fall, the Winter, and even the Spring. So it didn't come up that often. We could handle it.

But now, as we crash into Summer, all of the sudden it is happening all at once with many different kinds of trees. 

It is a bit much. 

Sometimes we are stopped dead in our tracks gawping until one of us says "Wait, are we seriously thinking of leaving this city?"

We are. But we may not make it.

The trees and the coffees on the beach may do us in.

Just lately, thinking about telling you all this, I started taking some pictures of these trees. So this is hardly a comprehensive list, just what I could come up with in the last couple of days. Also, they are radiant,  but in the teeming chaos and tumult of the city, it can be challenging to capture their sheer shock and awe.

Nevertheless, I have done my best and present just a few of the trees as they are now, around town. If they look a little ridiculous, well, believe me, it is even more overwrought in person.

And here, I have gone wide screen to give the full all-at-once effect

French flowers redux

 

More flowers, because the French Spring here is turning out very pretty. Admittedly, these are mostly the same flower pictures as yesterday, but given an alternative treatment that I also liked a lot. This one involves seeds and painted sticks, making for something like detailed wicker models of these flowers.