The clocks have gone back, and there’s no denying we are now firmly in autumn. The first intimations of sunset came worryingly early this evening. For some reason I feel especially reluctant to let go of the summer; the coming of winter gives me no feeling of comfort this time round.
This picture is slightly unfair to our hosts for the afternoon, namely Doncaster Rovers Belles FC, here in yellow and blue, as their Women’s Super League 2 match (my 9th football competition of the season) versus Aston Villa Ladies was watched by a few hundred people, but that was only enough to occupy seats in one side of the Keepmoat stadium in Doncaster. Those few hundred made plenty of noise though (more than, say, West Bromwich Albion’s fans did when they were beaten by Brighton back in September), and rightly so — the Belles won 6-0. Meaning I have seen 37 goals in 9 games this season; none of this has anything to do with photography I know, but I get my trivia fixes from all over, these days.
Seeing as I didn’t manage to put one of the wife up for her birthday on Thursday here is one to compensate. Clare inspects her new treatment room down in town, let’s wish her luck for a successful venture…
It became a very bright and sunny day in Manchester but at 8am the whole city centre was wreathed in this rather eerie mist. A long and busy week comes to an end; time for a break….
No rest for me despite an 11pm arrival home last night, it was off for a full day’s work, even if I did the second part of it at home. 13:48 departure from Victoria delayed a few minutes while this very long freight rumbled through platform 3b. This is just the very back end of it.
A prosaic way to mark Clare’s 41st birthday: many happy returns to her, as mentioned tonight, maybe on this date next year she should take over the blog for a day, as its title will apply…
And so, after two days of photographing monuments — and, y’know, doing a bit of work — I head home again. My colleague and I were wondering how these pigeons got into the Sheremetyevo airport buildings, but maybe they don’t even bother leaving; I should imagine there is more than enough here to feed and shelter them, rather like that Tom Hanks character in The Terminal. Warmer than a Moscow winter, anyway.
Well, if you hit a theme, sometimes it’s worth continuing it. From yesterday’s post-Soviet-style statuary to the real deal today, the monument on Leninsky Prospekt to Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Whatever you think of the Soviets’ attitude toward economic issues, it’s hard to deny they did good statuary.
Here I am in Moscow again, a place I seem to find impossible to avoid for very long. But I guess I’ve got used to it down the years. In the centre there remain many picturesque little lanes (flanked by real estate worth billions of roubles, no doubt); here, on an extremely cold evening, I found what looks like a piece of Soviet realist art but this monument was in fact unveiled in 2006. It commemorates the composer Aram Khachaturian — you might not have heard of him, but I virtually guarantee you’d recognise his Sabre Dance.
Black-and-white photos of one’s day seems to be a trend on Facebook at the moment, so who am I not to follow a trend. Anyway this one just looked better in monochrome, as they tend to do if the photographer has screwed up the white balance somehow. In transit again…. an airport bar on a Sunday morning is not going to be the most dynamic place, we are all waiting there for something or other.
Bonsalls is a Hebden Bridge institution, the sort of hardware store that you thought you only now saw in movies. If it helps prop up the house or garden, you can get it in here. Probably it has been here since Victorian times. But it does take credit cards.
This is also a photowhack — that is, the one and only photo taken on a given day. It was far too wet and rainy to take many other worthwhile pictures. ‘Storm Brian’ they are calling it, like they decided to give it the most prosaic name beginning with B that they could think of. Storm Barabbas? Storm Balthazar? Storm Boogie Nights Woah-Woah-Woah….? There must have been hundreds of more interesting names.
Being 42 