Remember black and white TV? Me neither. But imagine what it must have been like to see things in TECHNICOLOUR for the first time. Watching the snooker, in particular, was surely much improved.
I’ve always thought that Belfast was a grey old place. Grey sky, grey buildings, even grey faces. Growing up in seventies Belfast was a dark time, of course, in more ways than one. Then on the Big Trip a few years ago I’d gasp in awe at all the European colour: ceramic tiles in doorways, oranges that seemed too bright to be real, sunsets that lit up the sky. I told myself that I was being shaken awake with colour that didn’t even exist back at home.
But isn’t this the emerald isle? Green fields aren’t so common, and they’re rather beautiful. There’s art here too. Colour is all around. I had a lovely chat with a new neighbour the other day who said how much she loves walking past our door with its bright yellow paint. She’d always wondered if an artist lived here. Isn’t that something? Splashing colour around the place brings joy.
Turns out the sky here is something other than grey on occasion too. I’ve been taking a photo of the ash tree outside my bedroom window every morning since the start of the year and I’d expected it to prove my theory right. But the sky is quite often blue. Who’d have thought? I don’t think I looked properly before. Or maybe I had coloured it in using grey childhood memories to leave only smudges.
