Five Hundred Yards

An elderly couple sits down in the shade for a while.

They take the weight off their feet and watch the world go by.

His leg gently rests against her knee.

Years ago they walked La Croisette a small hand each between them.

A little girl lifted and swung every ten steps along the way.

Just ten minutes sat here and off again.

five hundred yards
of bonjours
an espresso
at Bar 72
and then home

Little Onion

Photograph: Paul Conneally, Cannes, 2016

Kiosk LE 8 La Croisette - Cannes - France

The promenader on La Croisette in Cannes is prone to get hot, thirsty and sometimes even hungry as one walks, jogs, skates or cycles up and down this most famous of seafronts.

It's a good job then that there is a series of food and drink kiosks along its length and beyond right around to the public beaches of Cannes La Bocca. Each kiosk is numbered which is useful for meeting up with others or as an aide memoire to where you parked your car.

Kiosk Le 8 is situated near the merry-go-round at the Palais des Festivals end of La Croisette.

It's hard to resist something cold and sweet on a hot French Riviera summer's day:

the ice-cream seller
points out the way to me
with an ice-cream

Little Onion

Photograph and text: Paul Conneally 2016

Early Morning Bathers - Cannes 2016

Between around 7.30 and 10 in the morning is primetime for bathers, many of them middle to old age, on the public beaches of Cannes. It's fairly quiet at this time and the sun is warm without being burning hot. They come without ceremony and if getting changed do so under a handheld towel. Grandfathers and Grandmothers sometimes with their grandchildren but most often alone wading out into the warm shallows and beyond. And then it's up on to La Croisette for a coffee before a visit to the bakery for the first baguette buy of the day.

morning shadows
a swim first he thinks
then home for a shave

Little Onion


Photographs: Paul Conneally, Cannes, 2016

Candy Sculpture No. 2980 by Laurence Jenkell 2015

Laurence Jenkell's large candy sculptures have been a feature around Cannes, especially along La Croisette, for a few years now. The artist has had an obsession with the 'candy' form making many many variations on the same shape. She works from a studio in Vallouris, which is just outside Cannes and which plays host to many other artists too.

I like Jenkell's candy sculptures and don't tire of them but this presentation in the gardens of the Grand Hotel in Cannes is for me blighted by the over large text plaque featuring the artist's name and the contact for her gallery / agent. But then again this is Cannes.

Paul Conneally
Cannes
July 2016

Summer Haze

After a long journey to the Port of Dover due to traffic chaos caused by 'increased security measures' put in place by the French border forces we are waved through without showing our passports and straight on to a waiting ferry.

summer haze
a gull crossing the channel
on a ship's mast

Little Onion

Photo: 'Onboard the Pride of Burgandy Cross Channel Ferry' Paul Conneally 2016

#haiku #boat #ferry reading #photography #sea #sailing #poetry #mindfulness

Little Onion - 30 Dollars and You

Little Onion - 30 Dollars and You

from

'Beneath the Pavement the Beach'

Little Onion 

2016

Coach Karl Brown at Shenton Primary School Leicester

Coach Karl Brown

Was great to be working with Coach Karl Brown, a legend in English basketball, on To the Hoop a transition workshop with Year 6 pupils in Leicester Schools. A collaboration between Leicester City Council Community Safety Team, Leicester City Council Raising Achievement Team, Leicestershire Police, the PCC and Leicester City Schools. The sessions use sport, performance art, philosophy for children and best practice PSHE and Citizenship education to explore going up to secondary school and specifically knife crime and the law of joint enterprise.

Paul Conneally
Shenton Primary School
Leicester 2016

Venture Theatre - Ashby de la Zouch

It's good to see that at least some 'little theatres' and their ilk continue to exist in some communities across the UK. I had the pleasure of giving a performative talk here at the Venture Theatre in Ashby de la Zouch before the first public community reading of the new audio drama 'The Winter Garden' by Matthew Pegg.

The theatre is tiny, cosy, and welcoming with a bar in the auditorium itself.

I hereby 'big up' Venture Theatre and the dedicated group that help run it for, in and with the community it sits in!

Paul Conneally
July 2016

More photographs from around the theatre:

This Hedgerow

this hedgerow

strung with stars
elderflower wine

Little Onion