Author Archives: Drew Whitworth

View from Stockton station

Saturday 24th March 2018, 5.30pm (day 2,403)

At Stockton station, 24/3/18

The world’s first-ever railway line ran from Darlington to Stockton in 1825, and 192 years later the time it takes to get between these two places by train probably isn’t a great deal less than it was. As one waits, then, for the trains to permit one to leave Teesside there is plenty of time to admire the surrounding scenery, a happy hunting ground for fans of industry and the urban. I am not intending to be rude: I have had two good days out here in the last couple of weeks. But you don’t come for the landscapes. Or the train service.

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Trades club bar

Friday 23rd March 2018, 10.40pm (day 2,402)

Trades bar, 23/3/18

Great night out, thanks again to the wife and Red Helen for the music. Terrible photography, but that’s 10.40pm on a Friday night for you.

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Rodent in Tavistock Square

Thursday 22nd March 2018, 3.05pm (day 2,401)

Tavistock squirrel, 22/3/18I could have picked a photo to epitomise my day in London, which was spent entirely in one meeting room in the Friends’ Meeting House near Euston. A productive meeting generally, but not photographically.

So instead let’s go with the cute rodent…. Squirrel!

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Self-portrait in British Library

Wednesday 21st March 2018, 2.40pm (day 2,400)

British library selfie, 21/3/18

There are worse places to come and do a couple of days’ work than London and worse buildings to spend the first day in than the British Library. I seem to have come out looking like the business end of a felt pen, but still, I quite like this one. Day 2,400 of the blog, a nice round number so I have updated the stats (if you really want to see how obsessively anal one can get with chronicling). I calculate day 2,500 should come at the end of June.

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Train doze

Tuesday 20th March 2018, 3.55pm (day 2,399)

Asleep on train, 20/3/18

Yes, this was me today (well, apart from the hair)…. and it’s only Tuesday…

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Fire escape

Monday 19th March 2018, 9.25am (day 2,398)

Arena stairway, 19/3/18

No big message today, I just like the shape it makes. And the little bloke in his hi-vis jacket.

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Clare, cinema steps (red)

Sunday 18th March 2018, 9.50pm (day 2,397)

Clare, cinema, red, 18/3/18

The film we saw took ninety minutes out of my life that I’m never getting back, but at least the exit provided an opportunity for a picture that doesn’t depict more snow (though the weather does explain the yellow warning sign, because of course we need telling that winter may have made the steps wet). This aside, the red of the coat and of the old ticket booth in the background make a pleasing contrast.

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Scene from the Campaign for Real Football

Saturday 17th March 2018, 2.05pm (day 2,396)

Real football, 17/3/18

There’s been a lot of football on here lately, I know that. There’s also been a lot of snow. I tried to avoid them both becoming themes again today, but…. not easy. Remarkably, thanks to there being a 3G artificial pitch beneath the snow, this game was played… perhaps appropriately, it was the team in white who ran out the winners (4-1). Traditionalists will admire the fact that today even saw the use of an orange ball (just visible here being carried out by the black-clad officials). But I am doubtless not the only one who is now fed up with winter 2018 and its sheer persistence.

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Under the arches, Castlefield

Friday 16th March 2018, 9.15am (day 2,395)

Castlefield arches, 16/3/18

The parking meter waits patiently for custom, all unknowing that it sits just by the very oldest part of this city. Across the road here are the scanty remains of the Roman village of Manucium. Could those guys have foreseen parking meters I wonder? Not to mention digital photography and bloggers. But then again they did build a decent transport system, which is arguably more than we have at the moment.

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Buddleia bud

Thursday 15th March 2018, 10.55am (day 2,394)

Black bud, 15/3/18

I’m pretty sure this is the plant growing out of the wall down Keighley Road that becomes the purple spearheads of buddleia later in the year. Metamorphosis. I quite like both forms of it, actually.

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