Sometimes in my more romantic fantasies of downsizing I wonder what it would be like to live on one of the barges on the Rochdale Canal — but these thoughts never last all that long before I think of the music and movie collections. If I really wanted to do it I’d probably already be doing it. The immediate neighbours would be Canada geese, too.
Less sunny that it has been, so the light wasn’t great today and I made only brief forays out of the house. At least, on this, one of the very few pictures I tried today, I got the focus right.
it’s taken Clare and I over a year to get round about four-fifths of the Calderdale Way’s 50 miles, after today. Still a couple of legs to go yet. Today introduced us to the side valley of Shibden Dale, a beautiful spot and, somewhere previously unknown (except as a brief glimpse now and again from the train, as the line crosses the dale not long after leaving Halifax) despite having lived here 21 years now. The cow looked happy to be there too.
Spring definitely sprung in Hebden Bridge today. Everyone and everything seems to be stretching out to enjoy the sunshine.
Southwaite services on the M6, just south of Carlisle. This huge crow, possibly a raven, with a beak to strike terror into any smaller and inferior creature, was definitely in charge: principally of waste disposal, but, I suspect, of various other aspects of the operation too.
One wouldn’t think Burnley would be on a direct route from Leeds to Liverpool but the canal bearing that name does take a rather roundabout course. It’s a pastoral spot in a town that doesn’t have a reputation for rural charm. The rule of thirds works well enough on this shot.
Not quite Wordsworth’s multitude but there are certainly a lot of these sprouting outside the Ellen Wilkinson Building on campus at the moment, something the rather random focus point of this shot is intended to capture. This is the 700th Manchester shot to feature on here, by the way.
It’s early in the year to see one of these outside, but here one is, scaling what to it is a substantial crag: actually it’s the capstone of a wall next to a car park. We’re both out and about fairly early, in different ways.
Even the recent run of storms has not blown off this little clump of last year’s leaves. Today, on the other hand, was a first real inkling of spring sunshine and relative warmth. I already know it doesn’t last, though. But there’ll be more, eventually.
“Please. You’ve gotta get me out of here. I didn’t ask to make my life here, a day’s journey from the nearest grooming salon.”
I might think the same if, like this critter, I was living at Scalderskew in the Lake District — I do not know of a more isolated dwelling in the country. If you’re interested, the most prominent peak in the background is Seatallan.
Being 42 