A lush scene for Christmas Eve, particularly after yesterday. The cemetery on top of Balgay Hill in Dundee was a real discovery of the day. Just one of its memorial stones is pictured here but this is a huge necropolis, backed by the Firth of Tay, the hills on the far side of which are just visible here. A very un-Decemberish shot, but that’s why I’ve picked it. For tomorrow, Happy Christmas…
After a month where I felt I’d barely left the house, time to go a-travelling again, and this is Scotland’s first appearance on here since we came back from our holiday in July. Coatbridge, a few miles east of Glasgow, has had a bad rep down the years; notoriously polluted and run-down in the early 20th century, and arguably, in decline ever since, in 2007 it was apparently voted ‘Scotland’s Most Dismal Town’. But we passed through today and I thought it was OK. The Stalinist apartment-block architecture doesn’t give it glamour but it at least gives the photography some interest. Not to mention the stadium of Albion Rovers FC just down the road, but that’s another story, for a different social medium.
For the last few weeks things have been very uneventful thanks mainly to lots of work plus bad weather. Today was the first day of my Christmas break — but we still had the bad weather, and mainly for that reason, it remained uneventful. But I can sit on the bed and watch DVD double bills like this in mid-afternoon and not feel guilty. In the background, Sick Boy delivers his speech about ‘first you’ve got it, then you’ve lost it’ while Renton looks out for air rifle prey. You’ve seen Trainspotting, right?
Wind is the hardest weather condition of all to capture adequately on camera — but it was very windy today. We will rebuild, however.
It’s a valid political opinion. Whether anyone pays attention is a different matter.
This has hardly been the most eventful December — not a single photo in the month so far has been taken further than 30 miles from home — but this will change soon enough. Today is also day 4,500 of the blog, a nice round number: I have done one of my periodic updates of the stats, a page which if nothing else, proves quite how anal I am.
I’m still working, and didn’t leave the house today until after dark, so the choice of picture was, as much as anything else, governed by when and where my rather inadequate camera coped best with the murk and gloom. With some help given by the lights of the stadium ahead, this one won. That does make it two car parks in a row, but hey.
These geese literally live in the car park of the Co-op supermarket in Hebden Bridge, and have done for some time. Today, the synchronous exercises: though Gertrude on the right has gone for the ‘tuck’ a little early.
From a fake old picture to some real ones. These were taken in around 1945 when my Granddad, Harold Whitworth — my father’s father — was serving in Egypt towards the end of World War 2. He’s the chap with the dapper moustache sat down next to the guy in the turban; and the one on the left of the other shot. (Mildly dubious it might be to dress as a native stereotype, but I have photos of myself doing much the same in Fiji.) Anyway, these are the kinds of family references that now seem obligatory when visiting my parents for the annual-Xmas get-together — last year it was the family tree; in 2023, the box of very old photos.
I don’t honestly remember Granddad ever saying much about his experiences in the war; he was certainly not one of those ex-soldiers who go on about it to anyone who will listen. In these pictures it all looks like an extended holiday, but I’m sure it wasn’t.
Castleford is a biggish place (45,000 residents) and I’ve lived not far from it for 30 years now, but today was the first time I had visited. (Yes, it was for football.) I was struck by how unreconstructed much of it was, rows of terraced houses and back alleys like this one. Most now filled with cars, spoiling the ambience a little, but this alley was clear, and with a bit of post-production I think this is not a bad facsimile of how it probably looked 60 years ago. There’s only one anachronism — the wheelie bins — but even those I will let pass.
Once more I was in the work cocoon — specifically, the email cocoon — all day, only emerging as the skies looked like this. Another day, then, where there was not much to photograph, but at least it’s the weekend.
Being 42 