Friday 10th November 2017, 3.30pm (day 2,269)
This picture kind of misrepresents the day, it wasn’t this bad. But there was something end-of-the-week, Novembery, about the downpour that greeted us all mid-afternoon.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Flora/Fauna
Dying off
Thursday 9th November 2017, 3.30pm (day 2,268)
Today’s picture might have been of the Christmas markets being built in Manchester — but November’s not yet ten days old, for pity’s sake. A remnant of summer is preferable, even if it is mostly deceased. What it was doing out on this table in the afternoon, only the Contact Theatre Café knows.
Relaxed gulls
Sunday 5th November 2017, 1.55pm (day 2,264)
Another very pleasant day to round off the weekend. We should all aspire to the level of relaxation evident in these gulls, even if the ‘lake’ they are on is an old gravel pit, or something (now a nature reserve in Heysham, Lancashire).
Terminal D, Sheremetyevo
Wednesday 25th October 2017, 2.10pm (day 2,253)
And so, after two days of photographing monuments — and, y’know, doing a bit of work — I head home again. My colleague and I were wondering how these pigeons got into the Sheremetyevo airport buildings, but maybe they don’t even bother leaving; I should imagine there is more than enough here to feed and shelter them, rather like that Tom Hanks character in The Terminal. Warmer than a Moscow winter, anyway.
Overseer
Tuesday 17th October 2017, 5.00pm (day 2,245)
This mallard and I were both watching the world go by, above the Hebden Water on this Sunday afternoon…. the first real bite of autumn, I think. Wonder what he thinks about it all.
Spider sulk
Saturday 14th October 2017, 1.30pm (day 2,242)
Strimming the long grass on the allotment today I think I inadvertently took out this spider’s web: the remnants of it are visible to the left. It then had to put up with me sticking my camera in its personal space immediately afterward. I’m sure it’ll get over the difficulties; spiders have been on this planet a lot longer than us, and I’m sure will outlive us, too.
Sheep on Rannerdale Knotts (again)
Friday 15th September 2017, 11.45am (day 2,213)
The six years I’ve been doing this blog have overlapped with the eight years I’ve been regularly going to the Lake District to get my walking fix. It’s been long enough for locations to recur, as I intend to cover the whole place twice. Back in October 2011, quite early on in this blog (day 64), the cover star was a sheep on the summit of Rannerdale Knotts, a small but perfectly-formed peak near Buttermere. I returned there today, and the local sheep-life continued to seem rather chilled out and happy with their lot in life. So let’s picture them again. (Rannerdale Knotts is the green stuff we’re all standing on at this point — the dark mass in the background is Grasmoor.)
Magpie
Wednesday 13th September 2017, 2.50pm (day 2,211)
There haven’t been many animals on here lately so let’s rectify that. If anyone living toward the top of Highfield Crescent was getting any reception problems with their satellite signal this afternoon, here’s why.
Garden success
Saturday 2nd September 2017, 3.45pm (day 2,200)
Our leeks in the garden have attained considerable girth. What we did this year that has proved so successful I have no idea, they usually grow but have never been particularly big in the past. I’m not complaining though…
Invasive species
Wednesday 16th August 2017, 9.40am (day 2,183)
Ah yes, some good old Impatiens glandulifera, a.k.a. Himalayan balsam, our friendly local invasive weed which has taken over entire swathes of northern England; if you see this bastard growing anywhere near you, you should kill it — though apparently ripping it up just makes things worse, which is helpful. So don’t ask me how, maybe nobody knows which is why, soon, it will have taken over the entire island and I guess we’re just going to have to learn to eat it.
