ThePlagueYears: Gloom blooms

Spring proceeds apace, but today was gloomy, with some, though not a lot of, rain. We're not used to gloom in these parts.

Nevertheless, it was the same range of activities as every day, starting with a run in the morning in the company of my man Frederick Douglass

Today's passages were all about the first couple of years of the Civil War, Douglass's frustration with stubbornly pro-slavery - or at least not-anti-slavery-enough - public opinion in the North, and the propaganda efforts in his newspaper and orations to make the war about slavery, and to make northerners fear and hate "the slave power" and want to crush it.

In the early going, Lincoln publicly keeps the lid on Republican tendencies towards abolitionism, but privately seems to see it as inevitable. Douglass doesn't know this, though, and continues to hammer at the Republicans, urging that black enlistees be allowed to fight and that escaped slaves who reach Union lines be protected and freed.

Today's reading ends with the lead-up to the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.

The middle of the day was taken up mostly with working on my winter 2016 photo project, including creating this slightly bizarre panoramic photo designed to give some sense of the immensity of one of Lisbon's many many churches. This one is Graça Church, not far from our flat in the same neighbourhood.

This one is of the front window of a shop in the centre selling mostly religious do-dads. It was just off a square with several restaurants that Karen and I kept coming back to. I stuck my head in the door one time and tried to take a picture of the cluttered scene inside, but the proprietor angrily waved me away.

And then there's this one, of a driveway not far from the religious toy store. Not sure why it was decorated in this way, or what it leads to.

The rest were shot at another museum that we really enjoyed the Museum of Marionettes, with displays of puppets and marionettes from all over the world.

In the afternoon, the sun appeared briefly and I went out for a wee ramble. It was mild in the sun, but the sun didn't stay out for long. Here are some of the pictures I took.