Colour

This is my new desktop picture. I took it whilst lying on my poolside lounger in Port Douglas back in August last year. As I lay there looking at the palm trees swaying above I was so struck by their beauty that I took a few photographs. Now I know that it's not that great a photograph but as I currently look at it in detail daily because it's my desktop I am struck once again by the design and most of all by the range of colour in just one leaf. And, I guess, the monochrome of the sky beyond.

That leaf has so many colours in it - perhaps no blue (other than the sky behind) or red, but there are so many shades of yellow through to orange and on into brown and even black. And at the edges some white as well. It is not a perfect leaf, some of the fronds are damaged, the tips are dying perhaps, and yet so much variation in a colour tone.

And that's all I wanted to say really, and I'm not saying it very well. And what has it got to do with food anyway?

Well nothing in terms of the palm leaf. I could leap to coconuts I suppose, or dates, or any of the other things that grown on palm trees, but I've already done that. I could leap to the food in Port Douglas, but I've done that too.

So an even bigger and briefer leap. The colour of food. I love the colours of vegetables and fruits. I love looking at the subtle shades in every piece I slice or peel or chop. I love the change in colour as they cook. I love the colours of the marketplace, the colours of the fields of corn and wheat, of poppies and sunflowers, of lavender and tomatoes - yes there are still a few fields of tomatoes left.

It would be awful to be blind, or to be afflicted with a disease that stopped one perceiving colour. Although I suppose if one had never seen colour then one would not know what one had missed. But if one lost the ability to see colour. How sad - no -more than sad.

Today the sun is shining. It is hot and the overall appearance of the bush is dry and brown but there are bright flowers and a bright blue sky. And even the tired looking leaves have subtle shades of cream and beige and even purple and pink if you look closely.

Nothing more to say really. Funny how you think you are thinking great thoughts and then when you try to get them out of your head into speech or words they become mundane, and uninteresting, utterly futile. I suppose it happens to everyone unless you are Shakespeare.