private sink with a view
camping at Sainte Martin Vesubie
I have always preferred brushing my teeth under the stars rather than in front
of a mirror. It gives one the opportunity for serious contemplation about
eternity and time to pick out the constellations: Orion, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia.
While I was brushing a meteorite storm showered the heavens with bright falling lights and I wondered about the people who connected up the stars to create the animals, zodiac signs etc.
As a small child I had a picture book showing Arab shepherds lounging around a campfire with their lambs and pointing towards the night sky. I had never considered that there would have been learned scholars applying mathematical equations and recording their findings on cuneiform tablets.
We are brainwashed at such an early age by irresponsible illustrators.
The "truth" is that:
the oldest catalogues of stars and constellations are from Old Babylonian astronomy c1830 BC.
the Book of Job c 700-400 BC makes reference to a number of constellations,
including "Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades"
the Greeks adopted the Babylonian system in the 4th century BC and twenty Ptolemaic constellations are directly adopted from the Babylonians while another ten have the same stars but different names.
My lovely Italian campsite neighbour on his way to Spain.
We stayed up long after the last tent had been zipped tight,
whispering under the showering stars and drinking herb tea.
Fountain 39 Roquebilliere
I watched a man set up his restaurant.
He pushed a tea trolly across the pavement, salt cellars and china rattling and clanking.
In a careful hand, with one eye, he rewrote his menu board.
The other eye was on Louise and I.
The Breakfast
The View
The Winding Road
The Stairway to Heaven.
Although it was locked.
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