Author Archives: Drew Whitworth

Aug 01 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Manchester ‘Olympic village’

Tuesday 31st July 2012, 3.50pm (day 341)

Manchester Olympic village, 31/7/12

In some city down South the Olympics are on, and Manchester (which is hosting some of the football tournament’s games) gets in on the act with a ‘village’ built around Exchange Square, where the wheel used to be (see previous photos). Judging from this shot, it is doing about as well at filling its seats as London is.

Cynical? No, I’m not, not about the athletes anyway. But we all knew that the promises of a ‘people’s Games’ were rubbish when they were made in 2005, so why are we surprised it’s turned into a corporate love-fest in which the relatives and friends of athletes can’t see them perform, while swathes of corporate junket seats sit empty, because bigger profits are made that way? I also remember hearing that the ‘brand poiice’ don’t want anyone to link to the official Olympic site if they are going to be critical of it.

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Jul 30 2012
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Unity Street, Hebden Bridge

Monday 30th July 2012, 6.00pm (day 340)

Unity Street, 30/7/12

Hebden Bridge, and the British summer, and I have had a bit of a falling out over the last few weeks. It kind of started around June 21st and has gone on from there. Today, we all started toward a reconciliation of sorts. Let’s hope it continues.

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Jul 29 2012
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Daily Post, Landscape

Clouds devour Base Brown

Sunday 29th July 2012, 11.35am (day 339)

Clouds, Base Brown, 29/7/12

Seeing as when I do these walks the landscape photos are collected together on my other blog at 214wainwrights.wordpress.com , I have lately been trying to pick other pictures to put on here, that is, pictures that are not necessarily of the landscape but epitomise the day. Yesterday’s was an example of that.

However, I put a ‘landscape’ photo up here to draw attention to the other big theme of today – the bloody weather. Honestly. Most of the rest of the country had a good day today, but I can assure everyone that on the tops of Kirk Fell; Great Gable; and Green Gable, between 9am and noon today, it was revolting. I found it quite dispiriting and didn’t enjoy the walk until it was finished, when I had a sense of achievement. Base Brown was the fourth fell of the day, and I and these two other walkers watch as it stops having its rare moment of clarity and the big devouring cloud beast comes in again, just as we thought we might dry out for a few minutes.

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Jul 29 2012
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Lisa and Kara in the Black Sail youth hostel

Saturday 28th July 2012, 10.15pm (day 338)

Lisa and Kara, Black Sail, 28/7/12

It’s Sunday night as I post this; I came back in the afternoon from what I could describe as a ‘weekend away in the Lake District’, but that doesn’t really sum it up very well. Actually I have just spent two days walking, through weather that could best be described as ‘mixed’ (see tomorrow’s post). I have bagged 9 – more than a quarter – of the fells remaining on my project and now have only 23 to go.

I broke the journey at the Black Sail youth hostel. Located at the head of the valley of Ennerdale, this is some two miles’ walk from the nearest other building, let alone road. It sleeps about 20 people and was about two-thirds full on Saturday night. It’s a great oasis in the hills. And it serves beer. These two were part of a group who worked in Edinburgh and were all parasitology researchers, or something. They drank wine with me and we played Yahtzee (Lisa, lying down in this picture, won) and we and the other guests could just forget the rain outside for a little while.

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Jul 29 2012
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Caught stealing

Friday 27th July 2012, 9.50am (day 337)

Thieving squirrel, 27/7/12

Oh, you are so busted, my little rodent friend.

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Jul 27 2012
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Making rabbit pie

Thursday 26th July 2012, 10.00pm (day 336)

Carol and Joe cooking, 26/7/12

Here I am at the in-laws’ for a bit. It’s the school summer vacation so Joe can stay up until late. Tearing him away from the TV or the DS is a good plan, teaching him the rudiments of cooking, with his gran Carol, an even better one. He can, at least, wield a Worcester sauce bottle with aplomb, as this proves.

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Jul 26 2012
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Busy bee

Wednesday 25th July 2012, 11.20am (day 335)

Bumblebee at work, 25/7/12

Tolerable weather today, by recent standards, and I got a Lake District walk in – photos are on my other blog (or will be soon, when I post them). This guy doesn’t get the day off though. He was hard at work as I passed him outside the village of Mungrisdale, Cumbria.

Over the course of this blog I have quite got into taking photos of wildlife: animals and plants make good subjects, they don’t get self-conscious in front of a camera. You can’t persuade them to stay in shot and in focus, but they don’t mind having cameras pointed at them per se.

By the way, I have one more month of this blog to go, at least to get to the full year that I set out to do. However, I am going to continue for a second year and finish, finally, on 25th August 2013.

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Jul 24 2012
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Landscape

The Nutclough stream, later

Tuesday 24th July 2012, 4.40pm (day 334)

Nutclough stream, 24/7/12

On a pleasant summer’s day, here is the Nutclough stream, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in its flow. (It probably wouldn’t.) This is the stream that turned into a torrent on 9th July and took out a couple of houses two hundred yards downstream. More before and after comparison pictures are on the Facebook album, as linked.

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Jul 23 2012
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Baby slug

Monday 23rd July 2012, 6.45pm (day 333)

Baby slug, 23/7/12

Joe was on the first weekday of his summer vacation from school. I’m still at work for another three weeks, however, before I get my summer break. Didn’t get out much today: the best photo opportunity was this visitor, who came in one a lettuce that – against all the odds – has managed to grow into an edible state (for more than one species). Slugs grow up into unpleasant, irritating creatures, but this baby was cute enough in its way.

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Jul 22 2012
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Daily Post, Friend, Hebden Bridge, Portrait, Urban scene

The ‘Save the Railway’ meeting

Sunday 22nd July 2012, 3.10pm (day 332)

Save the Railway, 22/7/12

Here is not the place for the fine detail, but the ‘significant’ news that hit on my first day in Tuscaloosa, mentioned below, was that the giant ‘pubco’ (pub ownership company) that owns the Railway has decided that it is unwilling to stump up the cost of a refurbishment following the damage caused by the floods on 22nd/23rd June and 9th July. They want to sell the pub, but no one is particularly convinced that they have an interest in keeping the pub in the hands of someone who will, well, keep it as a pub and not convert it into something else. The last few years in the UK have, to say the least, not been kind to the pub trade.

Well, we – the customers – want to keep it as a pub, so today we had a meeting there to discuss what we were going to do. It was a lovely sunny day and there was also a social aspect to it – no one wanted their last drink here to be that horrible 22nd June. But it shouldn’t have to be the last today, either. We’ll try not to make it the last.

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