Winter | The Daily Norm

Mar 2

Beauty and the Beast from the East

They call it “the Beast from the East” – a Siberian shock wave of icy blasts and perilously wintery temperatures which has swept onto the shores of the UK and shows no sign of budging. Yet with the “Beast” has come the snow: a transformative blanket of pure, frosty white which has proved to be the very antithesis of beastly, as a very chilly but utterly mesmerising walk around my local park was to prove.

I have seen Clapham Common in every season, and have often obsessed myself over the light filtering through its lush summer leaves, or the auburn tones of its autumn face. Yet I don’t think I have ever been so stunned by the beauty of Clapham Common as when I was seeing it dressed, like a blushing bride, in an unbroken veil of white. Covering metre upon metre of grassy planes, and managing to find its way onto even the tiniest of tree branch, lamp post and railing, the snow rendered Clapham Common completely transformed, and the result was divine. I have never seen a familiar place so changed, nor the local residents so equally dazzled by this new manifestation.

It’s incredible what nature can create when left to its own devices. Take the pond for example. It wasn’t just frozen, but some effect of the water underneath had created large circular patterns all over its surface like a retro design from the 60s. Meanwhile, the way in which white would gather at the trunks of trees, but leave green and orange trunks and branches revealed, lent an ever better contrast to the colours, like a freshly daubed application of unmixed paint on a white canvas.

But of course beauty is fragile, and within an hour of taking these photos, the sun disappeared, and a fresh gale of blizzards took its place. The Belle of the ball had left the dance floor, and the fearsome Beast had returned to dominate the airwaves once again.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2011-2018. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Feb 20

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One morning in Zürich

Last weekend was joyfully sunny, despite being spent in London during the midsts of its Winter. Sitting on Clapham Common, enjoying coffee on consecutive days reminded me of another winter weekend we enjoyed as 2017 turned into 2018; when in the pristine clean air and surrounded by the magnificence of tall snowy mountains and glistening mirrored lakes, we enjoyed a winter’s day which exhibited all the joyful qualities of Spring: one morning in Zürich.

Zürich enchanted us right from the outset. Expecting something of a super-urbanised banking city metropolis, we were surprised to find a town which was so quaint that it could be the setting of a nursery rhyme, with its gothic spires, cobbled streets and oversized clocks. Yet perhaps the best feature of Zürich is its location: nudging the shore of the Northern tip of Lake Zürich, and surrounded by pristine mountain scenery, it is a place to behold, whatever the season.

That morning in Zürich showed off the city at its best. With the sun high in the blue sky, all thoughts of winter were swept away as locals took to the gentile path which borders the lake and takes those perambulating on a broad sweep along shallow waters and past progressively green parks and residential enclaves. At the end of the path, and with the city far behind, the view of an uninterrupted mountainous Elysium was ripe to behold, and with the sun beating down on the path and the glassy lake beyond, we stripped off winter layers and breathed deep of the purity of nature that only Switzerland can bring.

That day still lives strong in our mind as we look forward to Spring. Gradually, as each day passes, the optimistic summertime draws near. But occasionally days like that one remind that there is hope even mid-Winter. That’s the transformative power of sunshine.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2011-2018. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Jan 10

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Paris by Day

How time flies… it’s something on which I comment often. But who can help but do otherwise when already we find ourselves 10 days into a New Year with not a single post on The Daily Norm to bid you all welcome to a brand new year! So in doing so now, I am choosing to start the year as I mean to carry on… by featuring photos of what must easily be the most elegant city in the world, not to mention one of history’s most important cultural bedrocks. Just one glimpse below this text, and the familiar geometric lattice work of the Tour Eiffel will reveal that I can only be talking about one city…my beloved Paris.

Ever since my first encounter with Paris at the age of 14 I was inspired to an extent never repeated by any other city. It was as though cupid’s arrow unfurled itself from the bronze casting of one of the city’s many streaming fountains and lodged its way firmly into my heart. Since that first trip, I have made it my intention to visit Paris as often as I can, recharging my batteries in the Rues of the countless arrondissements in the way that a mobile telephone needs a frequent reconnection with an electricity socket. When, a few days after Christmas, I made my most recent voyage to the City of Lights, almost two years had passed since the last. Too long a separation for this Francophile, but oh how absence made the heart grow fonder, as on this most recent reacquaintance, the cobbled streets, palatial apartment blocks, flowing fountains and grand tree-lined boulevards inspired me like never before.

Splitting up my photos from this recent trip into both day and night, we start with those shots taken during my three December days in the city. While we spent much of our time inside some of the best art exhibitions of the moment, these photos were captured during our strolls from place to place. For as the odd glimpse of myself and my partner thoroughly wrapped up clearly suggest, the temperatures were crisp and low, and did not lend themselves to prolonged perambulations. But in those moments when a sun trap was found, whether it be on the vast steps of the Madeleine church, or alongside the riverbank where the sun bounced across the gentle ripples of the River Seine, there were some spectacular winter moments to be had.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 20136and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Feb 17

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February in Paris – Part 1: Sunset in the Tuileries

I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles – so sang Ella Fitzgerald in a song with which many a Paris-lover can identify. For Paris is truly a city for every season, even in the wintery rain. And it was precisely because our weekend in Paris was destined to be a wet one (according to some forecasts at any rate) that upon our sunny but late arrival there at the end of last week, we thought we had better rush out and take what photos we could while the city remained dry. With a mere hour to go until sundown, this meant photographing what we came upon first, and for us in a lucky location staying alongside the Palais Royal, our pre-sundown photographs were taken in perhaps one of the most beautiful of Paris sites – the Tuileries and around the Louvre.

In the yellowing light of a dying day, the carefully manicured hedges of the Tuileries melt into the distance behind the subtly glinting statues which stand all around the gardens. Behind it all, the imposing palatial magnitude of the Louvre complex dazzles with its sheer magnificence and complexity, a scale which is seconded only by the equally majestic buildings which extend the full length of the Tuileries running alongside the glamorous Rue de Rivoli.

The Tuileries are not only beautiful in themselves, even in the winter when their leaves are much depleted, but they also provide for the perfect place in which to study the perfect vistas of Paris, whether it be the masterfully crafted symmetrical view down the across the Place de la Concorde all the way down the Champs Élysées and along to La Defence, or the ever omnipotent site of the Eiffel Tower silhouetted against the sky. For this reason there could be no better place from which to start our most recent reconnaissance with the city, nor indeed this Daily Norm photographic tribute.

: The ultimate Paris shot

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Feb 9

Winter in Madrid

For somewhere as relatively far south by Europe standards as Madrid, it’s a city which gets incredibly cold in the winter. And I mean incredibly cold. True, I have become acclimatised to the balmier climes of the island of Mallorca, where in a mere 3 months of being here, I have begun to believe that there is no such thing as a minus temperature. But how wrong I was on that front. For when the need arose for me to jet off to Madrid last week for work, I experienced temperatures that made me feel as though I was facing an attack of daggers from all sides.

It was my first trip to Madrid for several years, and I was therefore keen to spend the little free time I had exploring the city streets and remembering past memories of walking around the Prado, the Retiro, through the Puerta del Sol and along the Gran Via. But no sooner had I stepped out of my hotel I realised that a few blocks of walking was all I was going to manage before I had to duck inside a warm tapas bar for shelter.

Ice cold streets, a bitter wind, and temperatures which made my gloved hands feel not just cold but broken… these were the sensations I suffered in this short dip into winter in Madrid. Yet just as clear skies bring a fierce winter by night, in the day, those cold temperatures are tempered ever so slightly by the presence of sunshine, and the photographs you see on this post were taken on a brisk morning stroll as I headed from my hotel to my place of work near the beautiful neoclassical monument, the Puerta de Alcalá.

Those photos are very evidently characterised by the grandeur of the city – the beautiful roof tops of the Gran Via in the distance, the architectural details of the Puerta de Alcalá and the Plaza de Independencia, and the large palatial buildings and parks which fill the area. Everything is brightened by a pale winter sun and clear blue skies, but as you (hopefully) enjoy these photos, please remember the pain which I had to suffer to take them – they involved taking off my gloves, a sensation which brought to my hands a thousand daggers of pain. Oh what I suffer for The Daily Norm…

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Jan 28

Winter Weekend in Ibiza | Part 3: The beach at Talamanca

While to all intents and purposes, a winter weekend in Ibiza may not have found the island at its best (it was after all almost completely deserted with only around 10% of businesses open and even fewer people left remaining) there was one part of the island which lacked nothing despite the time of the year. Just minutes from our hotel at the Marina Botafoch lay a sensation in waiting – the beach at Talamanca.

With a wide white sandy beach and sumptuously crystal clear waters, this was the kind of beach that seduces millions with promises of the summer in travel brochures every year. Yet here we were on a January afternoon, with an exquisite long beach before us, the sun shining in the sky, and barely a soul around to interfere with our utmost enjoyment of it.

What struck me most of all was how serenely calm the waters were, almost as though the sea itself had taken advantage of the low season and gone to sleep for a while. The waters were so still, that they managed almost a near mirror-like reflection of the low lying coastal houses alongside them – the kind of image you expect to see in a still mountain lake rather than the Mediterranean sea. I was also delighted by the abundance of natural scenery located so close to Ibiza’s capital. For just past the hotels and holiday houses lay vast rocky outcrops calling out to be explored. It was there that, up on a cliff top, we stopped to read and relax with the most incredible view back on Ibiza Town and the vertiginous plunge down to the azure waters below.

So once again the Balearics showed that the melancholy of winter would not defy their beauty. Here on Talamanca beach, we had truly found a reason for all the fuss that surrounds Ibiza every year.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Jan 26

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Winter Weekend in Ibiza | Part 1: The Dalt Vila

When I think of Ibiza, images of boozy beach parties and cocktails under the stars accompanied by the mechanical beat of Buddha bar and the chilled groves of Café del Mar spring to mind. And while for thousands every year, a trip to the Balearic’s most infamous island means, in the words of the Vengaboys, that they’re “gonna have a party, Whoa! in the Mediterranean sea…”, at this time of the year, the only party you’re going to have is with the shadows filling the deserted streets and beaches. For as I discovered when a business trip took me to Ibiza last weekend, Ibiza is officially in the midsts of its hibernation.

Ibiza’s historical old town

This is no more obvious that in the hilly streets of the Dalt Vila, or “upper town” as the ancient old town of Ibiza’s capital is called – an area packed with stunning little cobbled streets which twist and turn all the way up to the Santa Maria d’Eivissa, the church which towers across Ibiza’s main port. While the plethora of quaint little houses lining those streets suggested that in the warmer months, they would be a tourist’s paradise, in January not a single business was open. And so it was that my Winter Weekend in Ibiza was a rather bizarre affair. For the Med’s party paradise was punctuated with neither a disco beat, nor any other human sound, and the only action that could be found was in the modern extension of the city (the Eixample), where some locals continued to live on, despite the silence all around them.

Historical streets of the Dalt Vila

Of course this desertion was not all bad. For crowds are undoubtedly overrated, and while the town undoubtedly lacked the charm it would exhibit when open for business, I was at least joined by my partner, and together we were able to explore both the old town and its surroundings relatively undisturbed. And with the sun shining its winter warmest, this could not have been a more pleasant experience, not least when the steep roads out of the old town took us onto the vast ancient city ramparts and the natural rocky outcrops upon which the city is built.

Rocky outcrops and views of the stunning natural surroundings

So while this first set of photos is unlikely to feature much by way of people action, I think it aptly demonstrates what is undoubtedly a charming and unique historical centre and a feature of the island which undoubtedly falls unjustifiably within the shadow of Ibiza’s all encompassing party reputation. After all, the clubs and the larger louts form a very small part of an island which is otherwise both geographically stunning and historically rich – features which are no more obvious than in January when the drunks are safely ensconced a thousand miles away.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Jan 5

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London Calling

2014 was full of novel, exciting and previously unexplored experiences, the likes of which I was able to reflect on when recently looking through my photos of the year. And while the most significant of my year’s experiences is undoubtedly the total change which came about when I left London and moved to Mallorca, I was also given the opportunity to live out yet another novel change as the year drew to a close. I became a tourist in London.

After 12 years living in the city, I never thought it would be possible to see London as a tourist destination, and to discover it afresh in the way I would a new holiday location. Yet when I headed to London for two nights this Christmas, I suddenly felt like a stranger in my previous home city. The change was almost undoubtedly brought about by the accomodation: being able to stay in a hotel in the centre made all the difference, not least because it cut out the ghastly return tube journey which was an inevitable accompaniment of every trip to the centre when I lived in the suburbs. The hotel (we stayed at the new “Me” hotel on the Aldwych) also enabled us to see London from a new literal perspective too – our room was on the 9th floor and provided us with the most stunning of bird’s eye views. Suddenly I realised that atop buildings I thought I knew inside-out was a secret roof terrace full of plants; and from this viewpoint, the cluster of shiny new skyscrapers in the City finally made sense.

London viewed from the “Me”

We also felt like tourists because suddenly we had time on our side. With no work to get to or no reason to rush home, we could indulge in many of the treats the city has to offer: We went to see the stunning musical Miss Saigon, we visited the British Museum (with what appeared to be thousands of other tourists) we drank mulled wine in Covent Garden, and we even went ice skating at the Natural History Museum – a first for my leg post-2008 accident.

A tourist in London – ice skating, Covent Garden and the British Museum

But of course being a tourist also brought with it the inescapable frustrations of London: the eye-watering expense, the unfriendly customer service, the rushed restaurant sittings, the 12.5% “discretionary” service charge, the packed tube, and the horrible, horrible cold. So for all of the excitement of being a tourist in London, I suddenly found myself relieved to be leaving again, and full of joy to return to my new home in Mallorca. I needed nothing further to confirm that in swapping London for Palma, we have truly made a change for the better.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Oct 7

The Daily Norm Photo of the Week: Sunrise above the Sleepers

Waking up on a weekday in order to go to work is simply dismal at this time of the year. As the season descends into autumn and then winter, and the days get shorter and shorter as they go on, the forceful ringing of an alarm clock before the skies are yet light seems like the most unnatural and cruel start to a day imaginable. Why can’t humans be as sensible as animals, curling up in their warm beds until at least the sun is out, and the start of our day coincides with the awakening of nature around us? Better still, can’t we just hibernate now until the cold dark times of winter are over? Nonetheless, despite this gloom, if you’re lucky with timing, there is one thing about the autumn that makes waking up before sunrise a real treat for the eyes – the skies. Just as the sun is about to rise (and when, of course, the sky is clear of clouds – not exactly easy in England) autumn’s gift is a sunrise so visually enriching that it could be mistaken for a neon light show out of an 80s roller disco. Shot through the sky, stripes of richly fluorescent orange slice through a peachy soft sky, while above, the fading exit of the night sky bleeds from dark blue, to lightening blue, through to a subtle shade of fragrant purple.

This week’s Daily Norm Photo of the Week shows one such sunrise, when the sun has just burst above the horizon and transformed the skies around it into a cocktail of colour explosions. I love how the urban silhouette in front of it responds with such fervour in a sharp relief of black, while reminding us that at this time of the sun’s early entrance, beneath the eaves and roofs of these houses, workers remain snuggled up in bed, fighting the eager alarm clock whose shrill warning reminds the snoozing sleeper that it is time to face the cold, long, busy day ahead.

Feb 19

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Finding the light in a gloomy wet winter

Gloomy short days which get dark before you make it home in the evening; a deluge of rain which has flooded areas of the UK whose residents didn’t even realise they had a river nearby; and a protracted season without leaves on the trees or flowers on the ground. The winter is a long, depressing period which I cannot stand. Days go by without any sense of hope or vitality of life; when you don’t even notice the scant daylight, and get used to a life without sunshine.

For me the only way to get through the winter is by taking a threefold approach: 1. To think, dream, paint and write about past holidays, and to book a load more for the year ahead; 2. To eat lots of delicious food whose flavours are imbued with the flavour palette of the Mediterranean and other sunny locations; and 3. Whenever the slightest glimpse of sunshine peeks through the clouds, to rush out of doors to soak in this rare glimpse of happiness.

The small collection of photos on this post were taken during my Winter-survival tactic number 3, usually over my lunch hour when I occasionally take a stroll through St James’ Park in Westminster to blow away some of the winter cobwebs. It’s amazing to see, during those walks, that despite the protracted period of winter, nature is still very much in action (that may be in part due to the excess of rain which has kept London temperatures pretty mild). In St James’ park for example, there is no sign of hibernation for the cute little squirrels who scurry tamely around London tourists in search of their lunch; and the huge resident pelicans are still out and about, preening their snowy white feathers before crowds of camera-happy visitors.

So in sharing this small set of photos, which also includes a glimpse of a 4^th way to get through the winter – cinema season! – as well as some of my Instagram shots taken out and about in the capital, I hope to spread some of the hope which these moments provided to all those of you who wonder when this gloomy season will ever end. Let’s hope it’s soon.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.