Swan Vistas

Hitchhiker as ballerina (think ‘Swan Lake’): an arm-flapper waiting for a lift? I arm-flapped 5 lifts - carried coal (by motorway, rather than by canal). During the journey I sat with the fire on my lap (‘he burned inside’: ‘with fire’, not, ‘by the fire’), but none of the men who lifted me (drivers not dancers, all) commented on it. Not once, nor on my black eyes – black from handling coal, then rubbing my hay-fevered eyes – when I laid the fire for the self-timer photographs.

Pre-digital - clockwork self-timer - no instant playback: I didn’t see I had black eyes -Swan’s eyes! But back then I didn’t notice (until I developed the film) that I was flapping my arm like a swan in front of a swan… swanning about? ‘He swanned around from place to place’.

White swan – black eyes: I match the swan in these ‘Swan Vistas’ (partner the swan?). I’ve just been to see 'Black Swan' (2010. Director, Darren Aronofsky) - watched Natalie Portman arm-flapping her way through ‘Swan Lake’ – that’s the ballet with all the expressive arm-flapping, right?

I was told as a youngster, ‘Stay away from swans - they can break your arm with one flap of their wings’… and is it a myth that swans sometimes land on roads because they think they are rivers when wet?