An antidote to Black Friday

Yesterday I was in London. I had to go to take part in an analytical workshop for user experience of using a website. The outcomes were to create an improved experience with a new site yet to be developed. I wondered about time to grab some pictures but popped the P6000 into my bag. It was a toss up between that and a Trip 35. I normally take that camera if I think London will be wet. I just love shooting B&W images of wet London streets.

But it was a dry forecast. I had been deluged  (sic) with almost spam proportion emails about spending money on Black Friday. I see no point in imported American traditions such as Halloween’s Trick or Treat or indeed this ‘post Thanksgiving event’ that has its roots lost in history. I was not to see how mankind had let itself down until I got home last night. I was horrified by the rank greed and commercialism of the scenes I saw on the news.

Compare that to my experience as I exited the newly (to me) refurbished Grand Union Canal exit from Paddington Station. Now this was something that I found quite humbling. That these narrow boats all moored up on a grey London morning in November almost stamped a degree of normality and in some ways social rebellion on the urban landscape. In some ways these vessels that were once workhorses of these industrial waterways  seemed almost sad but they were reality. The canal was hosting canal boats no longer plying their trade between the engineering heartlands and the capital but providing an alternative place to live in the madness that is London.

I could not help but smile to see these bags of coal on the cabin roof as I crossed the canal to enter a glazed business palace for my meeting. That barge or many thousands like it would have chugged up and down these waterways many years ago carrying a hold full of coal and other goods. I doubt their fuel would have been stored on the cabin roof.

Stocked up for the winter
Stocked up for the winter

I love to see the way the people that live on these vessels adapt what many consider to be rubbish and recycle these objects by putting them to alternative uses.

Tyred Garden

Mary Mary Quite

Herb Garden

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