Fifteen years and about two and a half months and I hit day 5,555, so was looking for fives today. And, what ho, seat A55 was indeed mine for the duration of my latest train journey. Somehow it then seemed a shame that I didn’t hit this shot tomorrow — day 5,556… Anyway, I must like the ‘tache, that’s two selfies in a week. It’ll pass.
November is one of my least favourite months, at least when judged by what usually happens in it (which most years is a bunch of work, increasingly gloomy weather and no festival at the end to compensate). But for the first part of the month, at least the landscapes are colourful. A definite advantage of living in more deciduous parts of the planet.
A rail-themed shot for the second day in a row, but never mind. I like this one, and for the same reason I usually like my photos: that this is pretty much exactly the shot I intended to capture when pressing the shutter. And my current, rather crappy camera is by no means guaranteed to get it sharp when the light is low. But all has worked here.
If you fancy visiting this place — expect to have a long journey, from just about anywhere. It was four hours until I reached home. Millom really is tucked in one of the most inaccessible corners of Britain and I can’t believe anyone just ‘passes through’. Look at a map — where could one possibly be passing through to — particularly in a car? It becomes the 549th different named place featured on the blog (see the stats).
Would that all trains were like this on a Friday afternoon. But if they were I guess some wonk would close down the whole service for being ‘uneconomic’. For now one can still get a shuttle service from Lancaster to Morecambe, however. And be pretty much guaranteed somewhere to sit.
Insofar as there can be such a thing as an incognito selfie, I think this is one. Note the moustache, my late Grandad Whitworth had one just like it, though he never let it grow as luxuriantly as this one is going to, I know full well how fast I can sprout. Yes, I am embarking on my second-ever Movember effort, and while I try not to self-advertise on here too much, here I feel it’s OK to point you to https://movember.com/m/drewwhitworth . I promise at least one more update before December 1st.
A limited palette, I admit. Nice sunlight, autumn leaves, moment with no traffic. No complaints about the weather but can I take my Christmas holiday yet? Oh well.
No great adventures today: this is taken from my front doorstep. Three photos in a row from Hebden Bridge for the first time since July, in fact. Going ‘old-fashioned’ with the colour scheme does seem to work for the Victorian housing of the local neighbourhood. The number on the lamppost is the only anachronism.
Ho hum, it’s November. Pick from one of these two reactions: a) “I can’t believe it’s November already, where’s the year gone etc. etc.” or b) “what do you mean there’s still two months of 2026 to go?”. Either way, wherever the ice cream van zipping out of shot to the left has been, their being out today could be considered somewhat ambitious.
Halloween might not have featured on yesterday’s photo but it was still a part of the weekend. Only, people kept suggesting I was in fancy dress. Honestly though, I just woke up with all the extra hair, claws and blood around my mouth last Wednesday morning, and have no idea what happened overnight. Fortunately they seem to have come off OK.
So October ends, as it always does, with the realisation that now the clocks have gone back to Greenwich Mean Time, we are in winter: at least as far as the sun is concerned. Still, we keep pumping lots of crap into the sky and I’m sure it’ll keep us toasty and warm for some time to come. The spots in the sky can be explained by the train company’s disinterest in keeping their windows all that clean. Taken somewhere near Newark, I think, but I don’t know the exact location.
