Towards an answer to why I blog

Pilings at Foreshore Park, originally uploaded by The River Thief. Copyright Ruth Seeley 2008.

I'm just about to register for Northern Voice for the second year in a row, despite having had just about the most miserable experience one can imagine at the 2007 event (more about that later).

I can't resist posting the banner ad - if nothing else it'll be yet another experiment in what some refer to (rather vulgarly, I've always thought), as 'link love.'


But before all that serious stuff, a little about this photo.

I've made a point of finding Foreshore Park again after one hot summer night when my friend and guide to New Westminster took me for a drive after we'd been out to dinner. I love it when she takes me places: for one thing, they're almost always places I've never been, and for another, she isn't kidding when she says she loves to drive. Having just taken up the sport again, it's actually really nice to be driven every once in a while. When you trust the driver, it can be an incredibly secure and relaxing experience.

It's an odd park, in many ways. There aren't many wide open spaces. Instead it hugs the curves of the Fraser as it prepares to leave Burnaby and enter Vancouver. There are a lot of pilings close to the eastern shore, of various shapes, sizes, and patterns. They look particularly good during the 'golden hour' and I made a special point of going back there to take at least a few photos of the river at this time of day. The setting sun is just to the right of the photo, and I deliberately excluded it so I could create what I now think of as the silver hour.

I wanted to focus on the blacks and blues of the rocks in the foreground, the pilings, the water, and then the naked trees against the skyline. I guess that's part of what makes Foreshore seem familiar to me. It reminds me a bit of the canal in Ottawa, in some strange way (maybe just because you can see across the Fraser so easily here).

Today I've also discovered this totally kewl book site. Or at least I hope it will be totally kewl. I never know when I discover these things if everyone else has known about them for years and is going 'well, d'uh' when I tell them about them or whether they're true gems only I a have mined (at least among my tiny perfect circle anyway).
http://www.goodreads.com/

Oh and my point - and I do have one. One reason I blog is because I love the idea of people I don't know reading my blog. By tracking readership through Google Analytics I'm able to make educated guesses (some of which are, I think, remarkably accurate) about who's been reading my blog, whether any of the family has checked in on me or not, which of my flickr contacts is curious enough about me, based on my photos (probably not so much) and my constant and occasionally ribald commentary there, to read the blog.

My final note of the day. I've seen a painting I want. Perhaps I should say, I've seen another painting I want. And seen is a word whose meaning should be interpreted figuratively, not literally, as the painting isn't finished and I haven't yet made arrangements to buy it. I'll do so now, if I can. Here's a sneak peek of a work in progress by my amazing friend, Suffolk artist Paul Jackson:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92943860@N00/2241629505/