iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 21h

#FotoVorschlag - Leere Straßen in Schwarzweiß Photo theme - empty roads in black and white A road on the northern shoreline of Lake Lovatnet in Norway. This point was about 40 metres up and 300 metres inland and the remains of a boat, deposited during a […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A black and white photo taken on a narrow road fairly high in a mountainous area. The sky has puffs of overlapping cloud and the sun is shining, casting shadows of small trees and bushes across the road that heads straight away from us, level, until it rounds a corner and heads right. The landscape here drops away from the road to the left and, after a shallow rise up a grassy area on the right it then rises more sharply up a tall mountain on the right whose top we can't see. Beyond the end of the road and over a distant valley that's mostly out of sight we can see the a mountain range sloping reasonably evenly from right to left, craggy in places.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Heiter bis wolkig Photo theme - partly cloudy Cruising north from Denmark towards Norway in 2022. #Photography #Travel #Cruise #Sea #Clouds

A view from a low deck on a cruise ship looking across open sea to the horizon. There are lots of white clouds in the sky but plenty of blue patches too and everything is brighter to the right of view where the sun is just out of sight. The water is flat but rippled enough that it doesn't provide a perfect reflection of the partly cloudy sky above, instead appearing to have stippled stripes of light and dark on its surface. It feels like we're barely moving, it's quiet and peaceful here.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

Popped down to the Guildhall today to take a look around the Portsmouth Pride Community Event. Basically a chance for the stallholders who lost the chance to sell anything when Pride was cancelled due to the weather this year to try again. Some events going on […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

Interior space of a large hall, some seats in the foreground and a curtain covering a stage at the back. On the main floor there are dozens of stalls set out selling all kinds of things from stickers to t-shirts and flags. It's not super crowded but there are plenty of people looking at the stalls.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

For #SchiffsSamstag here's Orange Friendship, a Singapore-flagged bulk carrier sitting in Gatun Lake in 2023 with us as we both await clearance to transit the Agua Clara locks out of the Panama Canal and through to the Atlantic side. #Photography #Travel […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a fairly dull day with a sense that there's been rain recently and may be more to come. We're on a large lake, the far shore of which looks to be a series of overlapping land masses and islands filled with tropical trees rendered a dull grey-green with the distance and sense of misty drizzle in the air. There's a bulk carrier ship in the lake ahead of us, around 225 metres long, with her bow pointing to the right of view and slightly towards us. A white block superstructure containing the bridge is at the aft of the ship while the length of her contains a series of large square openings for cargo, their tops only just above the deck level. The hull is mostly black except for a red band just above the water line, and the words "Orange Friendship" are painted on the bow.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

Southsea Castle, built in a style to take gun warfare into consideration and to defend Portsmouth from French invasion threats under the direction of Henry VIII in 1544. That attack came a year later when the French landed on the Isle of Wight. It's said that […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A bright, sunny day with very little cloud in the sky and that only on the far horizon. We're on raised earthworks with short grass on in by the coastline and we can just see over to the sea behind the walls of a small fortification on the water's side of the raised ground so that it sits slightly lower than us. The small castle is built from large grey stone blocks and has angled walls around a central square section which is raised slightly from the protective area around it. We can see a cannon mounted on the far wall of the fort pointing out to sea on one side and on the other there's a lighthouse sticking up with thick black and white hoops on its cylindrical tower.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

My mum's side of the family for #ThrowbackThursday this week. This is likely late 1930s, either Mayo, Sligo, or Galway. The woman on the left is Norah Boyle which probably means the young girl in the middle is Anne, my mum's aunt who came across to England ahead […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

Scan of an old black and white photo. Two women and two girls are standing in a field to have their photo taken. The pale sepia tones of the image and possibly some ageing of the picture suggest it's an overcast day but the clothing tells us it's not that cold. The two girls have light-coloured, pale-patterned knee-length dresses on, and the girl on the left has her hands clasped in front of her. The woman next to her has her arms on the shoulders of both girls either side of her and she's wearing a cardigan and striped skirt down past her knees. A similar length but spotted skirt is worn by the woman on the right whose arms are behind her back. Everyone's got a fairly serious face on them.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

For #MeerMittwoch here's somewhere we'll be heading back to next month: A Coruña in Galicia, northern Spain. It'll be the last stop back on our cruise down to the Canaries for a couple of weeks and it's a lovely port, so easy to explore on foot and spend money […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

There's not a cloud in the sky and there's barely a ripple on the water's surface of the sheltered harbour we're gazing out across. It feels like early morning, but hot already. The shoreline consists of large rocks gathered to form tidal protection, and it curves around to a long raised wall area that leads outwards to a small, grey-stoned fort on the left, obviously to defend this access point to the city behind us in times past. The water is very clear, a translucent green to the sandy surface of the harbour just in front of us before it gets deeper and the sea gets darker away from the shore. Far away to the right there's more land of this city stretching out and beyond the harbour entrance behind the closer fortifications. Warehouse and small cranes for loading ships hide a more distant city of small tower blocks and houses.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

For #TrainTrackTuesday here's a vintage locomotive restored to use in Uruguay by amateur enthusiasts. We rode this 35 kilometres from the capital city to a vineyard north of it back in 2016 where we proceeded to get absolutely bladdered on wine. #Photography […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a sunny day with a few patches of white cloud in the sky and one's just covering the sun so the view is bright but flat with few shadows. We're standing on grass, just to the right of a single railway track that's stretching directly ahead of us, sleepers half-buried in the gravel underneath the rails. On the left side of the rail there's more grass, short with dirt patches in places, and with a raised shed of corrugated iron sheeting, mostly white-walled with a rusted red roof. The grass on our side of the rail track is narrower before it reaches bushes that are partly hiding some more buildings further along, and there are at least a dozen people milling about, middle-aged for the most part, in short-sleeved shirts, and quite a few with cameras. The attraction is a vintage steam locomotive on the tracks facing us. It's black with a cylindrical body topped with headlamp and smokestack. There's a pointed cowcatcher at the front just above the rails and a red identification board behind it reads "No. 120". A yellow flag is mounted on the right of the engine and the Uruguayan flag in on the left.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

From this day in 2017, and our first visit to Amsterdam where tourism law dictated we must take a canal ride (amongst many other things). The tower here belongs to the 17th century church, Westerkerk, and it's Amsterdam's highest church tower. #Photography […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a partly cloudy day, the clouds looking like they could be persuaded to rain at some point while the patches of blue sky try to part them. We're on a boat on a canal in Amsterdam so we're low to the water and looking along the length of one of the canal routes. A low bridge crosses the water just ahead of us, supported by four thick brick pillars and with a slight curve to it so that the central part of the bridge has enough clearance for the canal boats here, of which there is one approaching from the other side. Buildings are up on the banks either side of the canal but they're mostly hidden behind trees that crowd in from either end of the bridge, framing the scene along the water. A tall tower of a church rises up further down the right bank, mostly dark brick until the upper parts are in lighter stone with a red clock face low down and ornate crown and globe decorations at the very peak.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Objekte die mit "I" beginnen oder so aussehen Photo theme - Objects beginning with or resembling the letter I This is the island of Nordfugløya in the far north of Norway. #Photography #Travel #Norway #Island #Snow #Landscape

We're at sea looking across the relatively calm surface to a steep-sided, rocky, mountainous island in the distance. The slopes and upper parts of the blocky, rocky land mass are covered in deep snow and it's clear even from this distance that there are no buildings or signs of human habitation on it. The island and water are in shadow although the sky above is mostly clear and pale blue, dotted with a few small clouds. It has the feel of late evening, perhaps with the sun behind clouds bubbling on the horizon. It's very cold, but fresh and invigorating.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Finished off the day at #Portsmouth dockyard with some time in nearby Gunwharf for some shopping, a drink in the Old Customs House, then a wander past some of the street art before catching the bus home. #Photography #Gunwharf #SpinnakerTower #StreetArt

Collage of four photos. Top left there's an almost tropical-looking fancy retail outlet with palm trees, old brick buildings, and a stretch of water reflecting it all. People can be seen on chairs near bars. The other three photos are of street art painted into the bricked-in arches of a walled section, part of the historic maritime quarter of the city. One piece is a blue-skinned woman with orange hair and a smirk on her face. One piece is a colourful pink and brown artwork with some flowers and a bearded man speaking in a happy emoji. The last piece looks like Alphabetti Spaghetti in tomato sauce. The words "Choo Choo" can be made out amongst the contents.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

One of the main reasons to come down to #Portsmouth Historic Dockyard today was to see all the lions together. They're been in locations around the city for the last couple of months, all decorated by artists and sponsored by businesses. #Photography #StreetArt #Art #Lion #Sculpture #Dockyard

A collage of four photos featuring identical lion sculptures painted by artists for charitable causes. The lions are lying down with heads raised and all are shot from a similar angle, pointing to the right slightly. One lion is painted in an abstract pattern of orange, blue, and yellow, while another is black and white, both of them geometric. The other two have more artwork on them with one mainly in blue and with the old sailing warship HMS Victory across the chest, while the other features Tudor elements of the design of the local football stadium and the imagery of King Henry VIII.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Photos from inside Boathouse Number 4 at #Portsmouth Historic Dockyard today. There's a lovely exhibition dedicated to women working at the dockyard here and elsewhere in the country, and a restaurant and bar where a spiced rum-based Espresso Martini found […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A collage of four photos taken inside a boathouse. It's a vast, cavernous space with yellow girders supporting the roof. In one picture we can see a concrete-walled channel with sliding door that allows boats to be brought inside the boathouse. A view from the upper gantry then shows the size of boathouse with half a dozen boats being worked on next to benches. Photos of women working in the maritime industries decorate a wall in the third photo, and the last shot is of two Martini glasses on an old wooden bar with windows and bottles in the background. The glasses hold some form of Espresso Martini in them.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

We've had a great afternoon down the historic dockyard here in #Portsmouth where a free event has opened it up to everyone for the day. Hazy sunshine and almost zero wind kept the temperature perfect. We've been on boats and pontoons, seen lion sculptures, and […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're in a dockyard, looking across still water to a number of vessels berthed either at nearby pontoons or more permanent pier structures behind. There's a haze in the air and the sun's in the sky above, rendered as a pale white glow in a colourless sky as a result. The nearest vessel is a small landing boat with grey and black camouflage paintwork on it. Behind it there are a number of overlapping vessels of different ages, some of them with tall masts reaching into the sky. The more distant view of the Spinnaker Tower fits in well amongst the real masts in front of it.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

For #SchiffsSamstag this is GNV Rhapsody, an Italian cruiseferry in the port of Zadar, Croatia in 2023. In 2012, as Napoleon Bonaparte, she broke moorings in Marseille, hit the dock, and sank. She was refloated and sold. #ShipSaturday #Photography #Travel […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're on a cruise ship heading out to sea from a port area. It's a bright day with the only cloud that hovering over very distant mountains and light that suggests it's late afternoon heading into early evening. The sea is calm and our view is back towards a few piers jutting out from the low land of the outskirts of a city. A ship is docked at one of the piers, its bow pointing out to sea and to our left. The ship has a white hull and is quite stocky with two funnels next to each other towards the ship's rear. Large blue lettering GNV is on the ship's side.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Bought new slippers today. As it's October I bought some Nightmare Before Christmas slippers. These replace my other Nightmare Before Christmas slippers which were a little worn. Also changed the duvet cover over from our sugar skull set to our Nightmare Before […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A pair of slippers are on a duvet cover. The slippers are mule types with open backs, they're black, a bit furry, and decorated with the figure of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, a skeletal figure in pinstripe suit with wide collar and a round, grinning, eyeless head. The duvet cover underneath is in shades of orange, green, black, grey, and white, and depicts characters from the same movie. Near us is Sally, a large-headed, slender female with stitched mouth and huge eyes, a dress of lime green and long red hair straight down her back. Jack Skellington is behind where the slippers are situated.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Latest jigsaw puzzle completed, and appropriately enough for the subject matter, a bit of a nightmare with all the dark areas. #Jigsaw #StrangerThings

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

PS Waverley was launched on 2nd October 1946, so happy 80th birthday to the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world! We've had the pleasure of sailing on her twice out of Portsmouth and to and around the Isle of Wight. Great experiences and lovely to compare […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're standing to one side of the paddle wheel shields on a paddle steamer ship docked at a pier on a partially cloudy day. The black casing of the wheel has the word Waverley written in yellow around it. Behind, on the deck of this old vessel there are two prominent, cylindrical funnels, both mostly red but with a thick band of white then black at the top. The hull of the ship is black near the water line, then white where a series of square porthole windows are set.

We're in a compact lounge on a vintage steamship. The laminated flooring almost looks like large, square quarry tiles and there's a slight curve to the deck with it bowed up ever so slightly along the centre. There are a mix of upholstered benches and small round tables with padded stools around them and the room is bright and airy with lots of light coming in from windows either side. The lounge bar is about a third filled with passengers sitting around with drinks.

A fairly dark and claustrophobic view from a narrow metal walkway on one side of the engine room of a vintage steamship. A thick pipe emerges from below and runs along the low ceiling while down in a recessed pit area between this walkway and one on the other side there are greased and polished gears, levers, and pistons.

We're on the wooden deck - possibly teak - of a vintage steamship on a bright and sunny day with thin sheets of patchy cloud in the blue sky above. There are passengers standing around, gazing in different directions, and with raised room spaces and mountings for ventilation and funnels running along the central spine of the deck it feels a little crowded.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Three windows for the price of one for #FensterFreitag today. The upper storey of some of the high street shops in the main commercial centre of Portsmouth, post-war build with a nod to earlier Art Deco style. #Photography #WindowFriday #Architecture #Portsmouth #Symmetry

A view looking slightly upwards at the upper wall of a concrete building, part of a series of large shops in a commercial precinct of a city. The concrete might once have been white but it's grimy, streaked with rusty dirt in places around the features on it. At the bottom of the view there's a fixed glass and steel awning, tilted slightly back to the wall, providing some shelter for anyone below and allowing any rain to run back to guttering against the wall edge. The glass, as you'd expect, isn't the cleanest. The main focus is on three windows centred in the wall above. Each is a tall rectangular form with six panes in the lower section, a filled black central block that almost makes it look like a sash window open (but it's not), and more panes above. The central window is a larger version of the outer two, its width about 50% greater, and with two extra rows of panes of glass on the upper section, giving it eight panes in total there as opposed to the four that the other windows possess. There's a simple symmetry here and a fairly minimalist composition.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

The late 1970s for #ThrowbackThursday and a makeshift tent in the back garden of my childhood home. That's me with Samantha in the middle and her sister Tracey on the left. I have rarely spent any time in tents since. I am not one of life's campers. #Photography #1970s #70s #Seventies

Scan of a colour photo taken in the late 1970s on a bright, sunny day. It's the back garden of a terraced house and the grass is cut short with some signs of patches in it to suggest it's been a hot period with not too much rain around. Three children, all under nine years of age, are sitting inside a makeshift tent formed from blankets wrapped around a sloping frame, possibly of a garden swing. A flap held open shows the kids posing for the photo. There are two girls on the left and a boy on the right, all with just shorts, socks, and sandals because of the heat and because they're young, and they're all shaded from the sun inside the tent. An upturned plastic box is on the ground in front of the youngest girl on the left.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

For #MeerMittwoch this is Manta, Ecuador earlier this year. Don't let the picture fool you: it was baking hot and the sun behind the thin cloud was fierce. We both got sunburnt despite factor 50 protection. The danger of being so close to the equator. #Photography #Manta #Ecuador #Boats

Portrait orientation view taken on the shoreline looking out across a bay of water with low land on the horizon. The shoreline is mostly pale rock with tufts of long grass sparsely popping up. The water is calm, rippled gently, and a greenish hue of grey picking up reflections of the largely lightly-overcast sky ahead which has patches of palest blue just cutting through some of the upper atmosphere haze. The bay of water is acting as a parking lot for dozens of small boats. Most of the boats are nearly identical with yellow hulls and blue interiors, a few benches, and an outboard motor. Several have a small sheet of shelter material over some poles mounted at their rears. Many boats are anchored in the water more-or-less apart from any others but there's a grouping of over half a dozen together not too far off shore. A handful of men are in some of the boats and they almost appear to be wearing a similar uniform of yellow hooded top, most of them with the hoods up, not because of any rain but because despite the light cloud cover the UV index is high.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

For #TravelTuesday a look back to 2023 and Cartagena, Colombia when I gave in to the constant pestering and agreed to take a photo of two palenqueras, the women descended from slaves in traditional, colourful dress who balance fruit and other foods on their […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're standing within the arcade of a shopping area in a colonial, South American city. We're looking out between two of the yellow-plastered pillars that support the sheltered, arched walkway, and across a narrow street there's a bus and some trees behind with a vibrant blue sky and just a few, light clouds in the sky. Posing for us here are two Colombian women, reasonably old and wearing colourful layers of clothing is yellows, reds, blues, greens, blacks, and whites. Both stand next to one another with one arm holding out their voluminous dresses or skirts to the side to create a fan effect. Both women are balancing bowls on their heads; the woman on the left is carrying bananas while the woman on the right supports a variety of foodstuffs protected by cellophane wrap.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

Portsmouth is the only city in England not on the mainland, separated by Hilsea Moat. To the right in the picture you can see the M27 motorway on the mainland while Portsea Island and some of the new sea defences are on the left. There's been a lot of climate […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're on a bridge over a river-like stretch of water about thirty metres wide that runs in almost straight line, practically calm, away from us. To the right there's raised land and a motorway running parallel to the water. To the left the land is a little lower with trees and grass set back beyond sea defences in the form of large boulders plus space set aside for cycling and walking paths. It has the look of something still under construction.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - See oder Teich Photo theme - sea/lake or pond Lake Bled, Slovenia, from a visit in 2023. #Photography #Travel #Slovenia #Bled #LakeBled #Lake #Landscape

It's an overcast day with lots of layers of bubbling grey and white clouds but a brightness behind them that suggests the sun is ready to break through and bring with it more of the cloying warmth we can feel. We're standing at the edge of a very large lake. The bank of grass at our feet that stretches a couple of metres to the still water's edge is filled with daffodils in bloom, all at the same height and with their flower heads turned slightly to the left. The far side of the lake has a few, large hills, covered in trees and backed by a more distant range of higher hills that appear fainter in tone and with parts of their tops lost in the low cloud. Directly centre, far out in the lake, there is a small island rising half a dozen metres from the water to a flat top on which there is a small grouping of buildings, white-walled and topped with terracotta tiles except for a square tower, taller than the other structures, which has a black turret.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

Today's #SchiffsSamstag features the original 1998 Grand-class vessel Grand Princess on the left, and the 2012 Solstice-class Celebrity Reflection on the right in St Maarten last year. Both ships have capacities of around 3000 passengers, the ideal size for us […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're in a flat cruise port, looking across a paved area to a very low wall of rocks built up to provide some sea defence protection, although they're not needed now as it feels like a still day with the sea looking nearly flat. There are clouds in the sky, thin with hints of the blue sky behind, and it feels sticky and warm, typical of Caribbean island countries. Our focus is on the two cruise ships that are docked at a low pier that emerges from just right of us. Both ships are facing in towards land so our view of them is one partly obscuring the other, both next to each other with prows pointing towards and to the right of us, and a stream of passengers walking along the pier between the vessels on their ways back to their ships. The ships are similar in size but of different designs. The ship on the left is mostly white with a stylised blue female form with wavy hair painted on the hull. The prow has a slight curve to it and a split that runs around it which contains a covered wraparound promenade deck but also lends the vessel a semi-dolphin-like appearance. The ship on the right looks more traditional with a sharper prow and dark blue hull beneath its decks of white balconies.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Protz und Prunk Photo theme - ostentation and pomp If I dress up for formal or black tie night on a cruise - and I don't always - then the Tuxedo comes out, the EU cufflinks come out, and even though I don't normally wear a watch at all, the […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're looking down at an arm resting on the edge of a table with the carpet visible below. The table is a black granite top with flecks of gold in it reflecting some recessed spotlights above us to create some glows and sparkles on the surface. The carpet visible to the right is also black and gold with a straight geometric pattern of gold lines giving the sense of luxury. The arm is wearing a Tuxedo jacket showing off some of the white cuff of a shirt underneath. A gold cufflink with blue inset and small gold stars representing the EU flag just pokes out from the jacket sleeve. Also partly visible is the watch being worn on the wrist. It has a sense of understated luxury with tones of silver and gold in the metal case and strap picking up highlights from the lighting above us, and has a dark face.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

Two of my wife's great great grans for #ThrowbackThursday this week. One had a nickname that was then adopted by my wife's sister for some reason, despite the nickname not really relating to either of their names. #Photography

Scan of a very old, faded, black and white photo with some signs of damage in the form of scratches and tears around the edges. The photo is a portrait of two women standing in a garden against a brick wall that comes up to their torsos and is topped with diagonal trellis work that reaches head height. The two women are standing next to each other, one with her arm around the shoulder of the other. Both women are old with short, lightly curled grey hair, and both have similar dark clothing on. They could almost be taken for sisters.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

Formerly part of Clarence Barracks, an 18th century fortified area providing victualling duties to the Royal Navy, the last remaining part of the structure from its rebuild in 1890 and bomb damage in World War II is these days Portsmouth City Museum […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're looking at the face of an impressive red brick building across an open space of concrete paths and very dry-looking grass dotted with picnic benches. It's a hot and sunny day although there's a fair bit of white cloud in the deep blue sky. The red brick building is symmetrical, broadly over three storeys in height, but at each end and in the centre, either side of a central, taller section, there are circular towers topped with steep, conical, tiled turrets. Windows line the floors, well spaced-out, sashed, narrow and tall. The central section of the structure has a doorway on the ground floor flanked by pillars which support an angled, bay window area above over two storeys. Within an arched recess above that, in line with the roof area either side of the central towers, there are small windows, and set back from there, rising towards the rear of the building, there is a taller section, higher than the towers although appearing slightly lower from our position this far back and looking up.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

For #MeerMittwoch this week, the evening view to the sea from Plymouth just over six years ago this week during a relaxation of the COVID restrictions that allowed us to get away for a week's break along the coast. #Photography #Travel #Plymouth #Devon #Sunset #SeaWednesday

A very tranquil scene, feeling silent with an overall cool temperature all around but our face is being warmed from the weak sun across the sea falling towards the horizon. We're standing on a hill on a meandering coastline, with the steep, grassy slope falling away near our feet and down towards a promenade that follows the contours of the land and the shore a few dozen metres lower down. A small bay is formed near where we are as the land to the right curves around then doubles back on itself, all the time with a hilly landscape running behind it. With the sunlight in our eyes we only get impressions of buildings and walls dotted on the land but there's a domed structure near the hill's apex on the right. The sea is an elephant's hide, darker on the left but brightening to the right under some of the reflected sunlight on its textured surface. The horizon is a little hazy where the only-just blue sky fades into the palest of orange-whites. A few large, low islands sit far off towards the centre of the view, each a slightly lighter silhouette on the sea's surface than the one in front.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

The Cliffs of Moher, as seen from our July cruise aboard Borealis around the coast of Ireland. The sandstone and shale cliffs run for 14 kilometres, ranging from 100 to 200 metres in height. #Photography #Travel #Cruise #Ireland #Geology #Landscape #CliffsOfMoher #Ireland #Cliff #TravelTuesday

We're at sea on a bright, sunny evening with a little haze in the sky turning it pale blue edging towards white. The water is a deep blue and largely calm, and we're gazing across it towards land several hundred metres away. Sheer cliffs over a hundred metres in height span the middle third of the view, slightly higher on the left side than the right. Rock strata can be clearly seen running parallel to the water's surface with the lower and upper halves of the pale stone cliffs separated by a distinct boundary that bulges out slightly. The face of the cliffs undulates and is ridged slightly creating a few spaces with deep shadows but the cliffs are largely flat-fronted, with a slight green tinge of growth from about half way up where the inward slope of the bulge allows plant life to gain a foothold.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

Farlington Marshes, on the outskirts of Portsmouth, a popular spot for birdwatching or just having a nice long walk or cycle with mostly nothing but nature around. The marshes were reclaimed from the surrounding Langstone Harbour in 1771 and during World War II […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a lightly overcast day, feeling quite cool, partly because we're quite exposed here. We're on a wide expanse of marshes. Right in front of us there's a small pond, curving around a low bank of grass and flanked by a bushy ridge that stretches to the left away from us behind the water. Part of a wooden fence can be seen to the left of the pond. The marshes stretch on into the distance, firstly over green grassy areas, then, beyond a long strip of a lake, pale yellow-coloured reeds to more distant greenery. Low hills barely rise above the horizon.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Objekte, die mit "H" beginnen oder so aussehen Photo theme - Things beginning with or resembling H A helicopter hovering off Hayling Island and undertaking sea rescue training in 2022. #Photography #Helicopter #Sea #Beach #Coastguard #HaylingIsland

A portrait orientation view taken along a shingle beach on a bright, warm day. The golden shingle forms a small triangular form at the bottom of the view, with the beach heading away from us to the right. The sea would be fairly calm and a blue-grey reflecting the sky with its patches of hazy cloud overhead except that a coastguard rescue helicopter is hovering about ten metres out from the shore and about twenty five above the surface, its downward wash from the rotors churning the water below into expanding, foaming chaos. The helicopter has a red nose and tail with white main body and the camera has captured its four rotor blades statically. A cable hangs below the helicopter and a rescuer is attached to a person in distress as part of this training exercise, in the process of winching them both up. They're only a couple of metres above the surface at the moment. We can see the low, distant landscape of an island filling the horizon.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Körperlandschaften Photo theme - Body landscapes The abstract sculpture "Reclining Figure: Bunched" by Henry Moore, as seen in Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2010. #Photography #Sculpture #Art #HenryMoore #Yorkshire #YorkshireSculpturePark #Abstract

An abstract bronze sculpture rests on a granite plinth in a field on a lightly overcast day. The plinth is a rectangular block in dark stone while the sculpture is green-tinted with its exposure to the elements. The overall shape is that of a human figure resting on on its side with body raised up slightly, but the abstract nature of the work introduces a lot of warping to the overall shape with some holes through the form and some merging of body parts, such as the legs melting together on the right. The field behind has green grass, kept short naturally by sheep, one of which can be seen chewing in the background. A small fence and a tree line separates this field from others beyond rising up a hill in the distance.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

HMS Warrior in Portsmouth for #SchiffsSamstag today. Not the first time I've shared this historic vessel, and it won't be the last. She was the first of the iron-hulled warships built - like much in the 19th century - to face a threat from France that never […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A portrait orientation shot showing a historic, masted ship docked in a quiet harbour at dusk. The sky is pale, almost devoid of colour, with just a mere hint of blue at the top of the image before it meets a light bank of cloud that's forming towards the horizon. The harbour water is almost perfectly flat and grey, and the area is quite wide and backed by buildings along the low waterfront. That distant landscape and the historic ship in the foreground along with assorted small boats anchored in the water are all largely in silhouette. The ship is facing almost towards us, just pointing its prow over our right shoulder. Several tall masts rise up four or five times the height of the deck with spars jutting out from them and ropes angled off and down towards the deck with no sign of any sails. It's a peaceful scene.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

A #ThrowbackThursday to just ten years ago, the first time we ever cruised in the Mediterranean. We hit a lot of ancient sites on that trip because there are a lot of them about and this photo from Mykonos was taken after exploring ruins on the nearby island of […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A minimalist shot in portrait orientation, broadly featuring just two colours. It's a hot, bright, sunny day with not a cloud in the piercing blue sky that brightens to a white-blue glow near the top left, close to where the sun is throwing a few lens flares into the scene. The bottom of the image contains a building, typical of Greek islands with its thick walls plastered and painted white. The building is a rough-contoured wall at the back of a small church with a set of steps up to a flat area that leads to a doorway barely visible behind another wall in front. Two young women are standing on the flat surface, one mostly behind a wall but clearly posing for her friend who's aiming a point-and-click camera at her. The wall of the church is about twice the woman's height where she's standing but it rises up twice that to a small niche that opens up and appears to hold a bell within its space.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Jedes Schild hat seine Bewandtnis Photo theme - There's a reason for the sign Seen on an empty tank in Singapore on our honeymoon, and advice we've followed to this very day. #Photography

A small white sign is stuck on the top corner of an empty tank, apparently usually filled with water and perhaps crabs but currently decorated only with a backdrop image of coral in shades on green. The sign has a closed fist in a red circle with a line through it, the name of the restaurant above, and writing below in Chinese with an English translation of "Please do not touch the crabs."

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

Portsmouth has a street artist well-known enough to warrant his own Wikipedia entry. You'll see the work of My Dog Sighs all over the city with his eyes being his most recognisable designs. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Dog_Sighs This piece was in Southsea […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a bright day. We're looking at street art painted on a wall on a street. Pavement and a bollard form the foreground and bottom quarter of the view. The bollard is iron, fairly thin, black with a white top, and fortunately doesn't obstruct the view of the artwork. The wall isn't flat, but rather has a shallow recess in it framed centrally as we're looking. The left side is painted blue and the right side is an orange-red, but the artwork is in the recessed part of the wall against a brown background. The upper quarter of view is a more neutral, old, plastered wall colour and marked off from the coloured blocks below with a thick black line lending the whole scene the look of a Piet Mondrian painting. The art itself has two faces facing out towards us, both with eyes closed in a peaceful state, but oddly overlapping almost in a Venn diagram style so that they share an eye. The left face has a horn-like shape emerging from the left of its head, and the right head is a mirror image. You could almost see a bull's head here. The bodies are similarly reflections of one another but both are simple, narrow, black-and-white hooped tubes rising from the ground and curving into the sides of each neck, both with a white-fur-like wing arrangement on the outside too. In the space between them there's a red heart, dripping paint towards the artist's name, My Dog Sighs.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

Djúpalónssandur, a black sand beach in the Snæfellsnes peninsula on the western side of Iceland for #MeerMittwoch this week. Fabulous rock formations around this part of the country, and behind us in this picture, the towering form of a glacier-topped volcano […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a cool day with a mostly clear sky except towards the far horizon over the sea where a light bank of cloud forms a wall and high up where some streamers of puffy white cloud stretch across the view. We're on a beach of black sand looking out to sea. The surface is dimpled from wind and footsteps and it looks soft and awkward to walk upon. From the left, by the flat water's edge there is a rocky rise of land. The rocky areas are largely black and volcanic-looking and where they're not sheer or where the crags angle back enough there is short green grass growing. The faces of the rock are dotted with white, possibly some form of moss or lichen but it's difficult to tell as we're quite some way back from the sea. Separate from the main mass of rock there's another rocky formation just at the tide line. It averages about five metres in height and twenty five metres in length on the beach but a section stretches out behind it into the shallow water where it then rises to a thick finger perhaps fifteen metres tall. There are a handful of visitors on the beach walking around the rock formations and checking out the sand and views, all of them in clothing suitable for a cold climate on a relatively moderate day.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

From the travel archive for #TravelTuesday today, here's Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam from our visit here in 2018. #Photography #Travel #Landscape #Vietnam #HaLong #HaLongBay

We're standing at the water's edge on a humid day. The leaves of a palm tree overhang the view and frame it nicely. The water is a greenish grey in colour, mostly flat but rippled a little. The horizon is hidden behind dozens of rocky islets in the bay ahead of us. They vary in size but are generally nearly sheer-sided, rising tens of metres high, and covered in dark greenery where the craggy surfaces permit growth. Between the islands and us there are also several boats, each of them apparently doubling as fishing vessels and accommodation given the array of bamboo frames strung over the boats and filled with assorted human detritus: boxes, fabrics, and some Vietnamese flags - red with a yellow star. There is blue sky visible but most of the sky is covered with a light smattering of cloud.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

Forgot that I took a little video footage of the bats flying around us last night in the garden. I think this was just one of them, but at one point we had all three that seem to have lived in the area for at least a dozen or so years now. #Video #Nature #Garden #Bats

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

There's an easy, flat walk in Tipner, beside the harbour on the north west part of Portsmouth that provides views back to the port, across to Portchester Castle, and as here, the land that was formerly a Royal Naval rifle range. It's currently quite a nice place […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A tranquil scene set beside flat water and low land on a day with plenty of blue sky visible between the thin, almost transparent sheets and patches of white cloud overhead. We're next to a wide harbour but all the infrastructure and vessels associated with it are out of shot somewhere far to the left. We're looking out over the harbour water which has only the faintest of surface colouration differences to suggest there's any sort of tidal action here. The water is clear and very shallow near us and we can make out small clumps of black seaweed over a dark, sandy surface. A tiny strip of darkness on the horizon marks the far side of the harbour. On the right of us there's more land jutting outwards, reaching about halfway into the scene at its furthest point. The land is low with a shallow shingle shoreline that reaches back several metres until it hits grass that rises a little and is then lined with bushes that appear dry. There's a metal fence that separates off part of the land from where we are and partly dragged up onto the shingle behind it but lying half-submerged in the water still there's a small motorboat, clearly long-abandoned. On the furthest part of the beach area around this land there are the small silhouettes of a couple of people fishing with a pole and umbrella set up too.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Some Portsmouth history. The former Greyhound pub was where the first Duke of Buckingham was killed in 1628. An interesting character, very different from that in the Three Musketeers books and films, he was possibly King James VI's lover, corrupt, and a […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

A close view of a circular plaque mounted on the exterior wall of a building. The plaque has a stone frame and interior decoration in a light brown colour with writing that reads: "In this house George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated by John Felton, 23 Aug 1628."

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Ecken und Kanten Photo theme - Corners and edges A building in London, taken while wandering the streets of the capital to kill some time before an NFL game at Wembley in 2011. #Photography #Architecture #London

We're in a city street on a bright, cloudless day and we're looking up into the blue overhead. The sky forms a blue strip across the top and down the right side of view. The rest of the picture is taken up by a simple skyscraper block; it's not possible to tell if these are apartments or offices. The corner angles upwards from near the bottom left to the top right and is thick concrete. The two sides of the building we can see are repetitive columns of windows separated by thinner concrete strips. The lower half of the building - including where we're standing - is in shade while the sun catches the top half either side of the corner our eyes are drawn up.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

Seven weeks today we'll be off on our last trip of the year, heading down to the Canary Islands and taking my in-laws along this time. That should prove interesting. The first time we were in Tenerife we tried to visit a solar observatory near Mount Teide but a […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're at high altitude on a volcanic, rocky surface with stony, hilly slopes overlapping ahead of us. Cloud low enough to touch the mountainous height we're at is just dissipating, leaving a mostly blue sky overhead and ghostly sheets of mist clinging to some of the hard ground. On a hill ridge a few hundred metres ahead we can see some white buildings. Some are rectangular but there are domes on a few which shows this to be a cluster of observatories. On the highest part of the curved ridge to the left there's a tall radio antenna. There's a coolness in the air from the height and the vanishing cloud cover.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

This weekend in Portsmouth the International Kite Festival takes place on Southsea Common. It's the UK's largest kite festival and is free to attend, plus buses are free in Portsmouth this weekend too. This was from 2012. We won't be able to attend this year's […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a bright and sunny day but there are plenty of big, bubbly, white clouds in the sky to break up the blue sky overhead. We're standing in a city's common space; a field of short grass that stretches for quite some way into the distance where trees line one edge, stretching away and to the left, the tops of a church tower and a few taller buildings just poking over the dark greenery. A far taller, more distant tower in the stylised shape of a spinnaker sail can also be seen about a third of the way in from the right but a lot of the activity in the foreground is blocking it. There are many people on the common with us, walking or standing in pairs and families for the most part, dressed for a warm day in short-sleeved tops. The people head in all directions as there are sights to behold all around, but particularly in the air where a few dozen kites hover in the air. The kites are all shapes and sizes and colours with some inflatable cartoon characters - a pig, Sylvester the cat, Tweety Pie, Daffy Duck - averaging four or more metres in length. From the way that the kites are aligned in the sky, angling up slightly and to the left, many with long streamers stretched out behind, we can tell the wind is blowing across the scene to the right.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

A car and passenger ferry on its route from Xiamen island to the Chinese mainland, taken in 2018 for #SchiffsSamstag today. #Photography #ShipSaturday #SchiffSamstag #Ferry #Xiamen #China #Travel

We're on one side of a wide stretch of calm water, looking across to a city skyline of skyscrapers on the distant shore backed by a more distant range of hills. It's a bright day with a little cloud and haziness in the air so the sky appears pale and the landscape over the water is similarly faint. Our focus is on a reasonably small car and passenger ferry passing to the left in the middle distance. The vessel has white upper decks over a hull that might once have been a deep blue but is now closer to a slate colour with lots of signs of neglect in the form of scratched paintwork and rust stains. The main decks are bunched in the centre of the ferry and there are four of them, tapering slightly towards a small bridge on the very top, and each with some open deck spots for passengers to enjoy the view. We can see a handful of people in gaps on the decks but more are gathered towards the aft behind a gap where the red container on a truck stands out for its colour.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

There was a lot of house rebuilding in Portsmouth after World War II for obvious reasons. In addition to houses there were many blocks of flats like these 6-apartment buildings pictured here in Southsea, designed to foster community spirit. Probably mid-1950s […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

It's a bright sunny day and we're looking at a block of flats built after World War II in Portsmouth. The building is three storeys high and contains two flats per floor either side of a central doorway. The brickwork on the building is yellow-toned and the building is detached from the surroundings with a chimney breast extending out slightly from the nearest edge to us. Each flat is nearly identical with two large windows facing the street and a smaller window on the side of the building back from the chimney breast. The upper two storeys have small balconies in front of their rightmost windows which are floor-to-ceiling height to allow residents to put plants out or possibly dry clothes or sit and enjoy the views. There's a very low red brick wall around the front of the premises with some well-maintained lawn and bushes close to the building and some larger trees and little further away. There's a small open area to the back of the building, possibly a park for those living in these flats or others around the area to use.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

#FotoVorschlag - Dampf und Rauch Photo theme - Smoke and steam The industrial complex at IJmuiden, Netherlands, at the entrance to the North Sea Canal that forms the waterway from the North Sea to Amsterdam. #Photography #IJmuiden #Netherlands #BlackAndWhite #Monochrome

A black and white photo of an industrial complex set close to a low waterway. We're some distance from the mass of tall towers, silos, and boxy buildings that sprawl across the full width of view and mostly appear as dark tooth-like structures against the backdrop of a flat, overcast sky. Huge clouds of steam or smoke rise from a cooling tower on the left and a set of chimneys on a building nearer the centre, the wind dragging the clouds in steps up and to the right. A smaller trail of steam from a thin tower forms a streamer to the far right.

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Mark H @neonbubble.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

For #FensterFreitag here's a 19th century shelter on the promenade at Southsea, Portsmouth, taken in 2008 when there was a free art giveaway taking place on this part of the coast. This work is by someone called Elmo although we ended up taking a canvas piece by […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

We're standing on a promenade in a seaside city, the pebbled beach somewhere to our right, a row of tall, Victorian or Edwardian seafront hotels and apartments somewhere to the left. We're close to a 19th century shelter set up on the promenade with iron benches painted yellow and arranged in an H-shape with the long bar running parallel to the sea. At the backs of each bench there are glass panes in painted white metal frames, all topped off with a metal canopy to protect people from the wind, rain, or sun, depending on the conditions. It's sunny today, with some bubbling cloud in the bright sky, and we can see that through the back of the shelter. We're close to one end with some bars of the yellow, metal bench seating taking up the bottom third of view, then two panes of glass above. Through those we can see to the opposite side of the H-shape where two people are turned towards one another talking, and beyond them, blurred, the promenade, the sky, and a hint of a pier stretching out to the sea on the right. There's a small, rectangular piece of artwork sitting on the top of the bench. The simple, painted imagery on this depicts the same promenade shelter, only viewed from the longer side and with the sea behind it. Two odd, pink figures with skull faces are close together on the bench in the art piece, hugging one another.

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