Thursday 23rd July 2020, 1.30pm (day 3,255)
I too was having a day doing things around the house, but definitely do not share this guy’s head for heights.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Author Archives: Drew Whitworth
Garden fruits
Wednesday 22nd July 2020, 4.35pm (day 3,254)
Late July, a time of year when certain things are fated to happen. I have time off work and do as little as I can, and the garden begins producing fruit. Fate has done its duty with both in 2020, despite everything.
Heartbreaking story about terribly cute creature
Tuesday 21st July 2020, 12.45pm (day 3,253)
I went on a Lakeland walk today. I didn’t feel like mentioning this story when using this photo on my walking blog. If you’re having a day full of the joys of summer, and don’t feel like having it spoiled, admire (or not) this picture of the lamb. (The mountain in the background is Black Combe, where several years ago now, I took another picture of a sheep that I still rather like.) Then move on, your day unblemished by tragedy.
Sadly, this lamb is in trouble. A minute after taking this shot I came across its recently deceased mother (I warned you…). Although I didn’t conduct a close inspection, the ewe could not have died that long ago: probably from an attack by a fox or some idiot walker’s unleashed dog. I hope the local shepherds find this orphan before too much longer passes: after all, that is what they do, and are good at. But people, please — keep your dogs on a lead when there are sheep about. You knew that, right?
Watershed
Monday 20th July 2020, 2.15pm (day 3,252)
I went on a walk today along the Rochdale Canal from Littleborough to Walsden. Along that route one passes across the main watershed of northern England, which is marked by this sculpture, and poetry that you may enjoy (although the third and fourth lines are illegible on this reproduction — my apologies). If I were to have passed water at this spot, random chance would have led to it either bouncing to the left, and thus flowing into the Irish Sea at via the rivers Roch, Irwell and Mersey. Or, to the right — to flow into the North Sea, via the Calder, Aire and Humber. A very real line — as the poem says, a “liquid equinox” — but not a visible one, not without this memorial. Nice touch.
Smoke break outside Aya Sophia
Sunday 19th July 2020, 5.05pm (day 3,251)
Gosh, a human face. I think there’s only been one of those on the blog in the last month — flesh and blood anyway (as opposed to on book covers, or screens). It would be a nicer picture if the awning of Calans’ pub wasn’t intruding to bottom left, but the very fact that I could be in that pub on this decently sunny Sunday was celebration enough.
In the opticians
Saturday 18th July 2020, 8.55am (day 3,250)
I desperately need a new pair of glasses. This is because my current pair are six years old and apparently in that time my eyes have improved. If this sounds paradoxical, clearly you are not over forty years old. Maybe I’ll take the pink pair.
Restoration project
Friday 17th July 2020, 10.35am (day 3,249)
Bagged my second County Top in a week, a trip that took me through the urban delights of Wigan, which are more extensive than you might imagine. On the outskirts of town resides this ruin, still proudly marked as ‘Park House Farm’ on the map but now mouldering into decay. Urban explorers — catch it now before it is razed/incorporated into a new housing estate/featured on Grand Designs as a restoration project engaged in by those with too much money. It is presently a spooky, melancholy spot.
Taking it easy
Thursday 16th July 2020, 1.25pm (day 3,248)
I was resolved that today’s photo would depict a living person, after ten days of no one at all. And so it does, in part. Those of us still wishing to use the trains are doing so, casually.
A good book
Wednesday 15th July 2020, 7.05pm (day 3,247)
Started my time off with as low key a day as could be managed, even by recent standards. Felt like picking up a good book, which this is, very much so: even if not a very long one. If you’ve never read this, you really should. Pictured also in the foreground, the reading glasses that I now need to make sense of it.
Red and green
Tuesday 14th July 2020, 4.50pm (day 3,246)
Another day with not much happening. But at least it marks the end of the present stint of work — I am now off until the start of August. I doubt this will lead to any radical changes in the content of this blog, at least not immediately. Although it would be nice to see people feature more — there have been no people at all, even in the background of shots, for ten days now.
Being 42 