Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Spring cleaning

I'm in Rotorua for two weeks to see my father and to make sure he's happy enough in his new living environment. I couldn't come to New Zealand from Budapest (via the film festival in Sarajevo) without also visiting my family and friends in Australia, but it was definitely not my plan A. I'd been down this way for three months not long ago. But plan B reverts to plan A when I reach New York in a couple of weeks. Yay!

My life has continued to be hugely busy. After two months in Kuching (February and March), I spent six weeks in Hong Kong, staying back at the Helena May where my freelance life started 32 years ago. Around the demands of my workload, I ran with Paul, saw quite a bit of Polly and other friends, caught up on lots of films, and took about a thousand photographs. Photography is my new passion.

Back in Budapest from late May, after a week or so in Belgium and the Netherlands, I moved into Julie and David's apartment while they are away. I love my routines in Budapest, especially running with Rio, seeing friends for meals and films, and walking all over the city. I took a two-week trip to the UK (Devon, Cornwall, London and Hayling Island), which was so warm and sunny I thought I'd taken a plane to the wrong country. I ran a half marathon in Torquay. Great to see friends Polly (who was visiting), Linda, Peter and Amanda (who came up from Cheltenham so that we could spend the day at Kew Gardens), Michael and Eddie, and Wendy.

In late July, I went to Switzerland for a trail half marathon from Klosters to Davos. It was also a rendezvous with Maggy from Iceland, Susan from Amsterdam (she and I also ran a half in May in the Netherlands), and Julie, Gill and Chris from the UK. Davos was chocka with ultra-orthodox Jewish families.

I entered some photographs in an international competition a few months ago and was encouraged by the feedback: my strongest photographs have a narrative or pose a question of some kind. I've set up a Facebook page specifically for my photography. A visual complement to this blog, it's called "Robyn Flemming Photography: My Own Two Eyes". I also now post some of my photographs to a website for sale, and Getty Images has selected four of them for its library.

I'm making some progress on my book. I imagine a year or more of steady work is still needed to cut and shape it so that it's ready to show those who know about these things.