Even in Manchester, the Rochdale Canal usually looks a bit more aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps this is an accidental draining — it happens, people sometimes leave locks open. Or there is some big clean-up about to happen. Future archaeologists will love all this crap. Meanwhile, the runner on the left ponders whether a) he will be allowed to proceed more than another few yards and b) whether he is about to step on a pigeon.
A rapid return to the theme of purpling plums, but as is often the case in August, we seem to have a lot of them. The pears come from elsewhere than our garden but further ripening is still required.
It’s a shame its head is slightly out of focus but otherwise I like this portrait of this little creature that decided to join me for a while, sitting on a wall. Not its natural habitat, but like me, perhaps it was just enjoying the sunshine.
This pub at Manchester Victoria station has not been opened all that long (a couple of years by now, I think) but it has rapidly become a Pub of Choice in the city. I don’t do advertising on this blog, except when I do. The dog belongs to one of the regular bar staff: when she’s working, it just hangs out, happily enough, with the rest of us.
Time for the annual update on the plum tree, which shed one of its limbs a couple of weeks ago, though we did save most of the fruit, currently ripening (but obviously not still growing) on windowsills at home. Had I not made efforts to prop up this big branch it would also, surely, have fallen by now, but those efforts seem to have been successful. There are a lot of insects around this year, so we are in a war of attrition as to who gets the bounty first, but we’re working on it.
Back to work, so technically this was the first day of my 25-26 academic year. It will be a year of transition, if things pan out: but all that is to come. See this as a possibly symbolic shot, perhaps. Taken in Savile Park, Halifax, after I’d taken the car back to the hire depot. Not symmetrical, but that’s too much to ask.
Tell me you don’t see it. It even has a tongue.
The moon looks much the same from Bradford as it does from everywhere else, I imagine (until you get down below the Equator, when it does this weird turning upside-down thing), But here we have a nice conjunction, I think. Will it come out unscathed after its journey along the serrated edge? Probably.
Yesterday’s journey home was done with Joe in attendance. Up on the allotment, the hedge needed trimming. A conjunction of child, hedge and the necessary hardware was facilitated. All parties seemed reasonably satisfied with the outcome.
Day two of the journey home, so a day spent largely behind the wheel. Only at the lunchtime stop, Annandale Water services (it’s been on before) was there the chance for photography. All motorway service stations are places of transience: if anyone stops for longer than 30 minutes, which is about what we managed, I would wonder why. So this little critter shouldn’t be too worried. I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough.
Being 42 