Quirky is good

Quirky is good. Quirky stimulates interest, provides a few chuckles or laughs, images that grab attention, ridiculous things that linger in the memory.

After longing for spring to make an appearance, and a few rather warm days in late April, May has been unable to make up its mind whether it has indeed left winter behind. Rain, sleet and even snow have battered emerging blooms, and sent us digging out the woolly jumpers again. And today is dry, but overcast and chilly – not at all like spring. So a bit of quirky to raise spirits seemed called for.

Quirky is anything even a little different from the ordinary. And because the ordinary itself differs from person to person, from place to place and country to country — one of the delights of travel is that what is ordinary to local people is often quirky to visitors.

This may be a common sight in wine producing countries – though I’ve never seen it before – but it’s not something you are likely to see in Scotland. Bags of other stuff, perhaps, but not bottle corks.

Visitors to Scotland may delight in seeing men wear kilts, but even amongst our friends and acquaintances we can think someone’s dress sense quirky because they wear clothes that are retro, or just individualistic — often because they have evolved a slightly unconventional, idiosyncratic style that they have made their own.

Quirky makes for interesting photographs. I was ready to trawl through my iPhoto files, but didn’t get beyond those taken on our recent trip to Bordeaux.

Chandelier, plastic roses and caged hands – just what every cafe should display. No?

We came across this in a narrow street near where we were staying. And come the evening, it became this –

The light emphasises the grabbing hands.

More international than words, a teasel on chairs in a museum is a request that they should not be sat on.

Maybe it should be painted green, with a pennant flying from a whippy pole. A pea pod shaped electric vehicle which brought back memories of a similar electric vehicle produced by Sir Clive Sinclair (of computer Sinclair ZX fame) many moons ago.

This drawing on a wall reminded me of the stories of Colette and others, of life in Paris nearly a century ago.

Answer to the housing shortage? Or maybe it’s for birds, or cats, or rats?

This is a quirky that left me wondering – though I presume it’s nothing more than a talking point. Hopefully.

If you live in a warm climate then you may wonder what’s so quirky about my header photo. Well, although Scotland has now embraced much of the outdoor café culture that was always part of life in, for instance, Mediterranean countries, our variable climate means we were much slower to appreciate the delights of drinking a latte, shivering whilst perched on a plastic chair on a dusty pavement by a busy, fume laden main road. Not entirely fair, as Scotland has now many excellent restaurants and cafes, but I’m sure you get my drift.

So a café providing sun loungers, on a sunny but fairly chilly April day, would be quite unusual here — quirky even.

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