Aug 07 2026
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Bear Hug

Thursday 6th August 2026, 4.10pm (day 5,460)

Bear hug, 6/8/26

In Bristol’s Arnolfini art gallery currently resides an exhibition by Jonathan Baldock, called Held, which, according to the Guardian anyway, is “a tense world of folkloric psychedelia and pagan aesthetics that is weird, threatening and utterly compelling”. Well, OK, maybe I didn’t quite get it myself but Clare was not the only visitor who took the chance to get up close and personal with the exhibition’s centrepiece, entitled Bear Hug and which one was specifically allowed to engage with in this way — as long as shoes were removed. Apparently it has a heartbeat, so is a multi-sensory huggy experience.

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Aug 06 2026
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Daily Post, Transport, Urban scene

Clifton Suspension Bridge

Wednesday 5th August 2026, 1.30pm (day 5,459)

Clifton Suspension Bridge, 5/8/26

Up until Tuesday afternoon Bristol was the largest city in the UK that I had never previously visited, but it can now pass on that honour to Coventry. A first full day here revealed many things of interest but to illustrate them I pick what is almost certainly the city’s most depicted feature. Why not, though? I am partial to a good bridge and in the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the place certainly has one of those: this is an extremely handsome and impressive construction, even now. The road deck is nearly 250 feet above the water below — how does one even start going about such an enterprise? OK, build the towers first, but then what? But that is why I am not or never will be Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed it — though did not live to see it completed.

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Aug 05 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

Serving hatch

Tuesday 4th August 2026, 7.45pm (day 5,458)

Serving hatch, 4/8/26

Having bummed around at home for two days I felt a need to broaden horizons, and the remainder of my break will be spent somewhere else: the first destination being somewhere I have never been before, and over the next few days you can find out where. We arrived there in time for dinner, only, but it was a good one, in a style of cuisine that might or might not be apparent from the crockery above and the kebab cooking away on the left.

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Aug 04 2026
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

More free food

Monday 3rd August 2026, 1.45pm (day 5,457)

Blackberries, 3/8/26

Vegetables sometimes grow in our allotment but in some years they don’t: it’s still not raining and 2026’s vegetable crop has been reduced to a few sad and scraggly-looking beetroot plants that may or may not have edible roots underneath them. But fruit: that, we can produce. After the loganberries and jostaberries, the next tranche of free food appears to be ready.

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Aug 03 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

Settling in with Nicole

Sunday 2nd August 2026, 9.55am (day 5,456)

Nicole and toes, 2/8/26

I’m on holiday. Even the chores can wait. Meanwhile, a movie marathon: four Kubrick movies in one day, starting with Eyes Wide Shut (which would be better if Mr. Kubrick had lived a little longer to edit down the last three-quarters of an hour, but that’s just opinion). Everything except Ms. Kidman stayed in this position the whole day, more or less. (And the others? Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and Barry Lyndon, in that order. Finishing time around 10pm.)

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Aug 02 2026
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

At Worksop station

Saturday 1st August 2026, 12 noon (day 5,455)

Worksop station, 1/8/26

I await the 12:07 train to Retford, they are presumably about to get on the 12:10 to Sheffield and Leeds. I took this from in the exact same position on the opposite platform, that is, sat on the edge of a flower bed under the footbridge: which explains why, for once, I think all the angles and perspectives are exactly right, not to mention their legs and heads lining up very well. There’s the mobile phone, of course, but we can’t have everything.

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Aug 01 2026
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Urban scene

Kiveton Park

Friday 31st July 2026, 2.30pm (day 5,454)

Kiveton Park, 31/7/26

I admire this kind of large-scale decrepitude and collapse. It is not that the whole of Kiveton Park Industrial Estate looks like this, but nevertheless, in my opinion this was the best-looking corner of it. Somehow it seems strange that this hangar is eroding from the bottom up rather than the other way around, but see for yourselves. (Pictured on my latest County Top walk — see the other blog.)

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Jul 31 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

A sense of perspective

Thursday 30th July 2026, 10.00am (day 5,453)

Library perspective, 30/7/26

I still like visiting the library, whether the one on campus or ‘the library’ as a more generalised phenomenon. The scholarly work, reading, writing, thinking: these are parts of my job I still enjoy.

Sadly there are other parts of the job I no longer enjoy; which is why it is a good thing that I am now off work for 11 days and need not give the place another thought for that time — after typing this and pressing ‘Publish’, anyway.

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Jul 29 2026
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Whirligig

Wednesday 29th July 2026, 5.05pm (day 5,452)

Whirligig, 29/7/26

The thing about whirligigs is that if they’re working, one can’t get a decent photo of them. Only when they stop moving can the capture be made: but then it’s not whirling, is it? You see, these are the kinds of things that I drift into thinking about while sitting in the pub at the end of a day’s writing (and most of my days are that at the moment). Everything I took today seemed to be some sort of abstract.

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Jul 29 2026
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Daily Post, Sport

Sunset with ball

Tuesday 28th July 2026, 9.00pm (day 5,451)

Sunset goal kick, 28/7/26

The chances of my highly mediocre equipment getting the players sharp as well as the sunset, at this time of night, was virtually nil, but it doesn’t matter: the ball is what I wanted here, and there it is, a small and temporary, but definite, hole in the sky.

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