C is here to run in the Midnight Sun half-marathon, talking place Saturday night, and was obliged to pick up her number today. Along with ten thousand other people, it seems. Well done to the people sorting through all those bits of paper with RFD tags stuck on them.
I was in Tromsø at this time of the year in 2017, so well north of the Arctic Circle this close to the summer solstice. But it was cloudy for that entire trip — as you can see from the linked picture — so I never saw the actual shining Midnight Sun (capital M, capital S) back then. But tonight — here you are. It’s still getting low, but it is, defiantly, not setting. We have several days of perpetual daylight to come.
Of course it could be a much better picture but then again, surely that is true of all shots where one points a basically inadequate camera at a big ball of flaming helium, however far away it is. Comfortably the latest picture in any given day to appear of all the 5,411 so far, and it may well retain that record until the day I die. ‘Cos when I am normally up at this time? Not often.
When I departed from Tromsø airport on the morning of 26th April 2018 I did not know how long it would be before I returned either to that city or the country of Norway. I didn’t think it would be over eight years, though. Having had regular trips there for work, these dried up, just because these things sometimes do. But it’s good to be back in 2026 — and purely for a holiday.
Today’s was a long journey, though, thanks to an enforced 5-hour layover in Gardemoen (Oslo) airport, where one must remind the tourists of a few local cliches here and there. But why make trolls out to be sweet, cuddly, hobbit-like creatures? I’ve seen Troll Hunter.
19 days in a row is not an unusual amount of time to spend at home as such… but, no football, no hiking, no reason to get out at all. It’s time to go though! Set up the lights! Let’s leave!
Although this is changing soon, right now there is still not much happening in life, so let me offer more nature. Neither of us at first had any idea of the identity of these flowers, growing in a pot outside the front window. “I don’t even water them,” says C. “They just come up each year.” Google Lens it is, then, which informs us we have healthy specimens of Dianthus caryophyllus (the ‘Pink Kisses’ cultivar) merrily sprouting just underneath the gas meter.
Was happy enough to capture this one with quite a long zoom, in focus and in frame, and so am prepared to ignore the green scar of the leaf, behind which the butterfly seems to be trying to hide. Hey, at least we were all out in the woods — it has stopped raining, at least for now.
The goose certainly gives the impression of being rather annoyed with the mallard: who, in turn, seems to be making a conscious effort to get out of the way of its bigger cousin. Not an easy one to get right thanks to all the sparkles on the Hebden Water — as a result it’s overlit — but it just about works.
Even had I not mentioned the weather conditions in the title of the post, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to figure them out. Hauled myself into Manchester for the first time in a week to be encountered by this ongoing crap. All the umbrellas that are in evidence were just a reminder that I had forgotten to bring my own, so after the 2-mile walk to the office, I then smelt like a wet dog for most of the rest of the day.
While I try to keep this blog non-political there need to be occasional exceptions, and this is one. With our local council, Calderdale, having been taken over by neo-fascists last month, they have declared that ‘foreign flags’ are not to be flown from council property. Thus, a flag that had flown for some time in Halifax in solidarity with Ukraine has been removed, for example.
I decided the other day, bollocks to that, and ordered a specifically foreign flag — that of Albania — that has arrived and will be flying from our house once the best way to sort this has been worked out (hence the canes) and, also, when it stops permanently raining. The flag is that of Albania by the way. Why? Because I like it. And it suits the wife.
One of those which may look as if I turned it monochrome, but I really didn’t. The light hits the… well, the lights, on the main road through town very well on evenings at this time of year. The steam is an added touch — though why we need this in mid-June, just ask the British climate gods, I guess.
Being 42 