The banality of modern architecture

Little to report today. Our Covid patients over the pond are still reporting mild or no symptoms. Bob has had a slight fever on and off and has felt a bit lethargic, but is otherwise functioning normally. Caitlin at one point said she was feeling a little dizzy. She also admitted she felt short of breath at one point, but then  realized it was just anxiety. And who can blame her for being anxious? Louis is fine.

I went for a fast walk under clouds this morning: Blackfriars, over to Empress, up the stairs at the end of Empress, Woodward across to Riverside, up Riverside and home - about 4K.

By the time I went for my afternoon walk, the sun was out. I just wandered around downtown, shooting whatever took my fancy. I've thought of doing a series under the title "The Banality of Modern Architecture." The first in the series, the one that made me think of it, was this, which I took yesterday, about a half a block from home - about the time I was also working on renovating the 2015 picture of the beautiful Maison Carée in Nîmes.

You could see how these next four could fit in the same portfolio. The challenge is making (somewhat) interesting images from really boring buildings - of which London has an abundance.

I ended up walking down Waterloo, between Dufferin and Pall Mall. There are some lovely houses on that stretch. And some sidewalk puddles the size of small lakes.

The two of the houses were made by "stitching" two images together: one with the house, the other with the camera tilted up to catch the top of the house and the tall trees surrounding the homes, which are typical of the neighbourhood.

I also photographed another of my personal "places," a house I lived in when I was a toddler: 649 Waterloo. It looks a little rough. 

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I long ago noticed that the amount I read changes on an irregular basis. I first noticed it at the time "biorhythms" was a thing, and I assumed that the fluctuations in my reading habits had something to do with that.

Sometimes I'll have two books on the go, read the newspaper fairly comprehensively and be cherry-picking magazine articles scooped from the Web via Pocket as well. A few weeks ago when I started this blog I was in one of those heavy reading phases. Now I'm in a fallow period. 

I've only one novel on the go - Maggie O'Farrell's excellent Hamnet - and can't seem to get myself back into Jennifer Ackerman's The Bird Way, which I was really enjoying. I've been reading only the bare minimum in the newspaper. I had reached overload on Covid news, and Trump's departure seems to have reduced some of the urgency to keep up with political news.

It'll change. I'll read more in a few weeks, I predict. In the meantime, I've been listening to podcasts while exercising, mainly CBC Ideas podcasts. So I'm not a complete slug.