This amount of light, sunshine and relative warmth at 5pm are definite signs of spring. The equinox is past us, the nights are only getting longer. Not that Gus looks all that happy about it.
Made one of my occasional forays into the sports media world. High enough to be obliged to display the corporate sponsorship, although no endorsement of any product is implied…. Emma Hayes is by now surely the longest-serving manager in any of the senior English football leagues (having been in charge of Chelsea in the Women’s Super League since 2012, and won it the last three seasons), but she presided over defeat today, 2-0 to Manchester City. In the press room afterwards: “Q: What went wrong today, Emma?” “A: We lost.” Nailed it.
Found myself hanging out for the afternoon in the bits of Manchester that are so far out they are actually Salford, or is it Trafford. Salford Quays is a good-looking spot on a day of sunshine and showers. There were three or four shots that could have made it today. But I’ll go with this one: the shapes are pleasing.
I think I might finally have provoked the students into some independent thinking. They were talking about something, anyway.
On another day of restricted horizons, the choice of pictures came down to this new bud, or a storm/sun combination shot from the afternoon. As I sometimes do, I asked Clare which her preference was, and she chose this one, considering “the optimism of spring” preferable. So yes, why not. Spring should be a time of optimism, even if just in little ways.
In terms of its aesthetics I quite like Blackburn station — at least at platform level (the subway below has been choked by excessive and largely non-functional ticket machines, though). The clutter of modern life throws off the symmetry of this shot but I gave it a go.
How many of these peas will eventually sprout edible small green products remains to be seen: getting them started by the living room window is always the easy bit, each year. But we try.
Don’t expect much in the way of variety of scene over the next few days. I spent all the month’s money in Cornwall, and payday is keenly awaited. Even the pigeon turns away somewhat disdainfully from the camera as I try to inject some interest.
I drive past this house fairly often as it lies on most routes northwards from home. It’s certainly lived in on a permanent basis. I have always admired its glorious isolation, and what it must take to survive in reasonable condition 1,280 feet/380m up in the air in the middle of a peat moor. But would I want to live there myself? Not really. (If you want to check out its position on the Ordnance Survey map it lies at about grid reference SD910286.)
No apologies for doing the ‘football landscape’ shot today. A magnificent view from the home ground of AFC Crossley — which was up in Illingworth, to the north of Halifax.
