Regent’s Canal – ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA

I guess it was those repeated boxing -day viewings of John Wayne’s “The Alamo” throughout my early childhood, which formed my earliest imaginings of San Antonio. So much so, that all the travel books and all the Googling and all the acquired knowledge from numerous TV documentaries about the great modern-day city it has subsequently become could not erase those preconceptions. As ever, it was only by actually visiting the place that reality could finally trump the Hollywood representation in my mind’s eye.

Unlike most of its “fellow” mission station at Rorke’s Drift – the scene of an equally heroic-if-more-successful stand against vastly superior numbers – the original Alamo mission building is still standing, and remains the city’s main tourist attraction. But equally, in stark contrast to its South African equivalent where the scene of the battle has barely changed since 1879, the Alamo building, now stranded in the middle of a thriving, colourful modern city – rather like an old man at a rave – evokes little of its historical connection to the conflict of 1836.

For me at least, this did not prove a disappointment, as the city itself has so much more to offer the contemporary traveller than the murky history of Davy Crockett’s doomed and vainglorious encounter with Santa Anna.

Apart from all the culture – of which there is plenty, like most American cities – and the delicious Texan, Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine on offer, there is the beautiful “river walk”.

The river walk is an elaborately engineered system of canals and waterways by which the once lethal San Antonio River now flows harmlessly and elegantly beneath the downtown area of the city. Like a kind of sub-tropical Amsterdam-cum-London’s Regent’s Canal, the river walk by day offers a cooling and serene contrast to the stifling bustle of the commercial streets above, and at night transforms into one great waterside party. Long sections of the water walk are lined with countless numbers and endless varieties of eateries and bars, with plenty on offer for those not satisfied with merely tacos and beefsteak, from British style gastro-pubs and high-end French and Italian bistros and trattorias , to every type of Asian cafe and restaurant. It’s a simply wonderful place to while away an evening or several!

The images presented below barely do San Antonio – and in particular the water walk – justice, but they do begin to give the feel of the place.

I’ve been making greetings card designs and images for decades now – initially doing freelance work for greetings card companies and poster publishers and more recently producing images for my own Moody By Nature label. Over the years I’ve done everything from cartoon smut (professionally referred to as “erotic humour”) to soppy Christmas and birthday penguins and polar bears (yes, you can probably blame me for the proliferation of penguin cards from the 90’s onward). Lately though, I’ve been busy with more photographic based themes and images.

Here is a small selection from a series I somewhat blandly titled curiosities, for obvious reasons.

“Bolt Masala” is from a photo I took in a metal engineering factory reception office in Coimbatore in southern India – hence the “masala” connotation.

I spotted the old boots suspended by their laces for “Good Use” in the delightful artists village of Ein Hod on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. It’s proven popular both as a retirement and as an anniversary card…

…as has “Growing Old Together Gracefully” (as an anniversary card that is!) which displays two venerable phone boxes in Hampstead.

“Pond Life” was snapped in the exquisite Alcazar gardens in Seville.

I was struck by the image of “The Blue Cup” in the unlikely setting of Sherwood Forrest – more famous for hosting the “merry men” in Lincoln Green.

Finally, I saw the yellow balloon languishing in a puddle on the Regent’s Canal towpath (north London) on “New Years Day” 2011 – having lost my dear mother barely three months before it seemed like a poignant metaphor for the past year…