The students are back — fortunately — and campus was busy today. All the same I want to epitomise the day with this unpeopled shot. If even recycling bins, and yellow warning signs, can look pretty, then you know the light is something special.
Is it too early to be in the pub on a Saturday afternoon? When the weather outside is as grim as it was today, then no. The welcome inside was much warmer.
Serious combat in the Railway this evening. Somehow black and white photography seems appropriate for this subject matter.
“God’s Own Junkyard” — and that’s its official name — is a bar/café in Walthamstow, London, but that doesn’t even begin to describe it. In fact it’s a museum of neon; what you see here is barely 1% of the whole stock. I wonder what their electricity bill is like.
My friend Geri was one of the very first people to appear on this blog: that’s her in the foreground of the shot of Joe on day 9. In the intervening time she, like me and everyone else, has got ten years and nearly five months older, and in her case that has led, today, to a birthday with a 0 on the end — though I will spare her blushes by not specifying which one. We’re still in the same place, however: not just the same pub, but the same room. Happy birthday to her.
A twinge in my leg meant I booked myself in for a massage, but any images that word may conjure up, of women lying blissfully on a couch while being gently caressed, can be dismissed in favour of being wrestled and half-beaten into submission. At least I did not plump for the acupuncture; this model in the foyer of the House of Pain suggests there are far too many points of fresh, new torture to discover on the human body.
This post harks back to Tuesday — not that I needed the ice axe and microspikes on that glorious day, in fact it was laughable overpacking, which in some perverse way may explain why they’ve not yet been put away. I’d rather have been walking today too, but the house, and the marking load, was my prison.
The Railway has acquired one of these devices. I like pinball; it is a highly pointless activity but the complexity and fine engineering of the machines is often impressive. Are there entire degree programmes devoted to Pinball Studies I wonder? This shot is, of course, taken through glass, hence the reflected text at the top, which might almost be Cyrillic, though you’ll eventually work it out (the machine has a circus theme).
Clare has her little daily projects too. Maybe that’s one reason why we’ve managed to stick it out for 25 years (and counting) as a couple. 2019 had its temperature scarf, one line per day; 2021 was recorded on this quilt, one square per day recording weather conditions. Ask C what the coding is…
The year is not going to end excitingly, but at least one can still go out, as I did today, even if just to do some shopping. This is an abstract, but the focus is right and it’s the shot I intended. I noticed the possibility of a shot of these chargers between the seats as the bus rumbled over the hills to the north, but no chance to capture it until we had stopped moving; meaning that Oxenhope can here get another day on its tally.
Being 42 