Coastal view postcards

Continuing thoughts on unfinished, or in this case, barely started projects: part of my collection of postcards showing Guernsey coastal views. This image taken in Guernsey some few years ago. Current interest for me resides mainly in the images of docks and martello towers. No answers to this as yet - it probably needs another few years of sporadic pondering. 

New Old Scissors

At last, scissors for collage cutting so that the house scissors do not keep disappearing, resurfacing next to a pile of postcard or stamp fragments. The larger pair, from Holt, North Norfolk, have been re-sharpened to devastating effect. I don't think tools are generally sharpened as much as they need to be, not now. The smaller pair were bought from Suffolk. Now to cut out some Martello Towers....

A chain of defences

I've been collecting  some old postcards of Guernsey and a number feature Martello towers. The landscape on these two is quite populated with them and the chain-like siting formation is evident. They are almost like a 19th Century British version of the Atlantik Wall.  I think the Guernsey ones are mainly sturdy granite whereas the East coast ones are possibly brick and rendering, but both with pretty thick walls. The Bunker-like role of unseen observer surveying the landscape recurrs as does the intensifying effect of viewing the world through a narrow aperture or loop-hole. I like the romance of the idea that Martello is a corruption of Motella, so named because of the myrtle growing round about the tower in Corsica.