Here’s a link to the photo set on Flickr.

I captured this awesome cloud during a short family holiday in Northumberland last week. I like it a lot.

I guessed it was cumulus congestus but checked with Gavin Pretor-Pinney of The Cloud Appreciation Society:

“Yes, indeed. With a crisp summit like that, it had yet to mature into a Cumulonimbus, at which point the top freezes and looks more blurry. It’s a beauty.”

Feel free to use the larger version for presentations (or whatever).

For once, this is not one of my own images. My friend Billie Mercer captured this timeless shot on Sunday evening while strolling her neighbourhood in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I asked Billie if I could post her photo on my blog, and of course she agreed. Come to think of it, it’s now six years since I last spent Christmas in Mexico, and images like this bring back happy memories for our family.

Well on a personal note, I’ve big plans for 2009, not least making an early start on a book about charities and innovation. I promise to share more about this in January!

Wherever you may be, I wish you a Happy Christmas and a very peaceful New Year.

I went for a brief walk in Clifton on Saturday afternoon. You can view the slideshow on Flickr.

Very seasonable, I thought! Also, my most ‘interesting’ photo on Flickr, according to Flickreenos, with just shy of 10,000 views.

I first met Don José in 1993, which is when I took the photo on the left. And this is his chair. Not just any chair; he made this one himself.

Don José is one hundred years old, or thereabouts. Nobody knows, not even Don José. His birth certificate, along with countless other documents, was destroyed by fire during the Cristero War in 1920s Mexico. 

All of his adult life he’s lived in the small town of Tolimán, in the state of Querétaro. It used to be so green here that every year they held a festival to celebrate the advocado. This has since been re-named the “semi-desert festival” as the land has become arid and the top-soil has turned to dust. On a small plot of land half way up the hill they call “Calvary”, Don José built a tiny house of adobe and surrounded it with a prickly-pear cacti fence.

From that spot Don José has seen it all. Like the day the first motor car pulled into town causing one poor old soul to drop dead with the shock of it all. He is fond of telling how around the time of the Mexican Revolution (which cost a million lives) people used to hack the silver coins clean in half for want of small change. 

When he was a young man he built spectacular ‘castillos’ - firework-towers. He lost half of one of the fingers on his left hand, a hazard of the job if you were a ‘cohetero’. He then worked for my wife’s grandfather, and long afterwards continued to look after the house, tend the garden, and harvest the nuts when my in-laws were away for long periods. 

Don José is honest to the bone and fiercely loyal. He has very few material possessions, but is hugely generous of spirit. In his own words he is a “a good servant”.

He attributes his longevity to the occasional sip of rough tequila and a smoke – one cigarette in the morning, another just before bed – “for the soul”.

During a call ‘home’ over the weekend, my wife learned that Don José had passed away on Wednesday. According to tradition, he was buried the following day. So we lit a candle for him, and remembered.

I hope this doesn’t sound trite or patronising. I wanted to write something about him, so you can understand why I feel so lucky to have known Don José. 

Que en paz descanse, Don Josécito.

Top row, left to right Porthcurno beach, Mousehole harbour, Rockpool play at Sennen Cove,
Middle row Sennen Cove surf, Logan Rock from Pednvounder, Looking towards the Minack Theatre,
Bottom row Pednvounder beach, Atlantic shower, Window onto the Atlantic