A stub today: it's way late. A game of Scrabble - I won - messed up my usual afternoon schedule.
The day was mostly gloomy and cool again. The high was in single digits. When I went out for my exercise this morning, it started sleeting almost immediately, but stopped pretty quickly.
I'm back on track with my audio book. Today it was all about the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation. The government authorized the use of black soldiers soon after it was passed on January 1, 1863.
Douglass spent the first half of 1863 on a whirlwind tour, speaking to black audiences, exhorting the men to enlist. He was eventually hired as a recruiter for the first all-black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts. (It's the outfit featured in the 1989 movie Glory with a young Denzel Washington.)
Two of his sons, Louis, the eldest, and Charles were among the first to enlist. The blacks were promised equal pay and provisions, but weren't allowed to be commissioned as officers. Louis Douglass was a non-commissioned officer in the 54th.
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In the afternoon, I went for a walk around downtown. The sun briefly came out. My theme today was the works of nature and the works of man: new spring growth set off against iconic buildings.
I found time earlier in the day to begin working on my 2012 winter-away pictures. We had stayed in Valencia, Spain the year before, decided we liked the city a lot, but didn't care for the flat we'd rented. So before we left that spring, we found and booked another place, in a much better location, in the Ruzafa neighbourhood, near the the centre. That's where we came in the middle of January.
The pickings are a little slenderer than they were in 2016. I've been over this archive a few times before, searching for overlooked gems. But I did find a couple I thought worthy of more work.
The first I shot at night from our Juliette balcony on Calle Cadiz, looking down Cadiz towards the centre. The second is at the City of Arts & Sciences: a streetscape of sorts, with a very modern-looking sculpture in the foreground, part of a temporary outdoor exhibit, one of the odd architectural features of the City and an ultramodern high-rise apartment block in the background.
I can't decide if I like them better in colour or black and white.
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