Monday morning, Jan 7. Up very early – it was too hot to sleep anyway – and just as I stepped out to catch the bu? Thunder & rain. The thunder went, the rain didn’t. It was already over 30 degrees and raining. It wasn’t cool in the slightest. It was like being in the tropics! Much as I love rain, this was a little disappointing – no photos of the flowers in the city orchard this morning! Would I be able to take any photos at all?
When I stepped out of the air-conditioned bus in the centre of the city, it was like stepping into a hot, dripping wet blanket. YUCK!
But – there were photos to be taken.
These tall buildings on the corner of William & Hay streets leaned together under the heavy skies like conspirators, and their customary proud gleam is dulled in the heavy light of rainy early morning
I risked getting wet – & worse, my new camera getting wet – to get this shot:
As I walked down Hay Street Mall, I noticed things I’d never noticed before. Many, because of the rain, I couldn’t photograph, but these 2 I could: an artfully painted wall at the entrance to an otherwise dingy alley, and a detail on the wall of Piccadilly Arcade.
The view down to the end of William Street – which has lost its beauty because of the unpopular work to remove open space from the river front and add more corporate high-rise – is silenced by rain and filled with reflections on the road rather than the buildings.
I found a cafe that was open (my normal cafe is closed until the end of January) in Hay Street Mall. I tried to capture the wet reflections and the rain. The green of the leaves is intensified – washed free of the fust over the last weeks of very hot days.
& as I took photos of corners saw something I hadn’t noticed before: a remnant of older architecture:
looking east up Hay Street is all quiet reflecting roads and grey skies and looking down Barrack Street to the river and the ‘Bell Tower’ is just greyness, except for the washed green of leaves.
Then it was time to head for the college. I played some: a reflection in a shop window: mask over the building across the road. It didn’t really work as the building is too blurred, but it intrigued me nonetheless.
& this building, normally so stark and white against the sky, is as grey as the sky, it lines not as stark.
It was a strange morning, so hot, so humid, and this was Monday. I am posting on Wednesday, and it only began to cool down last night. We are in for a horrendous summer. As I drove past Hyde Park yesterday afternoon, I saw that one of the ponds is almost completely empty of water.
Global warming is going to have the most heartbreaking effects.
mtlawleyshire 