There remains a Joe-shaped hole in the house at the moment. But perhaps this shot, taken on a rare foray into his unoccupied room, is evidence that we didn’t pack him off to Dundee after all. Although decomposition has set in pretty fast, if that is indeed the case.
Work, at the moment, consists of me banging my head against various Kafkaesque brick walls (Covid has infected the bureaucratic mindset far more profoundly than it has our physiology, and to more danaging effect) until I can’t stand it any more on any given day and need a drink. Today that point was reached about 3.50pm. Ten minutes later I was admiring the woodiness, almost meatiness, of the table in Nightjar at which I drank my first pint of the day.
A day out at the football, and it was Clare’s idea. She sits there looking rather amused at the boisterous but harmless fellow Morecambe FC fans who took over The Leopard pub near Doncaster station at lunchtime. The stencil of Pelé, to the right, also sets the tone. Sadly, no one was feeling as boisterous after watching a rather tame 1-0 defeat, but that was all still to come.
With my legs increasingly suffering from overuse and basic middle age, I went and paid £50 today to get legally beaten up by a masseuse. I think it helped; and your average dominatrix would charge a lot more. So I’m led to believe.
The colander. The multipack of Seabrook’s Salt & Vinegar crisps (this is a very Yorkshire brand, in case you did not know). Many more things that are not compressed enough to appear on this shot. He’s ready…. we think…. for tomorrow’s drive north, and for the weeks that are still to come.
Helium is abundant in the universe but not on Earth, as it’s so light, and unreactive, that all it wants to do is escape back into space. I guess this shop has just discovered this fact of chemistry.
More food, and more alcohol — note the presence of a bottle of Rochefort 10-year-old, already declared on here as the world’s finest beer. But then, I am on holiday, and food and alcohol is at least part of what being on holiday is all about. Taken in the aptly named ‘Friends of Ham’ bar/restaurant in Leeds, at the start of a trip down South.
On Friday 13th, let’s go ghost-spotting. This spectral figure appeared from round some old cotton-spinning equipment in a former mill at New Lanark, Robert Owen’s planned industrial settlement in the gorge of the River Clyde. Or maybe it’s just a projection in one corner of the museum, visited as we made our way to Scotland to begin (finally) a summer holiday. But whether put on for the tourists or not, it’s still a ghost, in some form.
Witnessed in the Miners’ Arms, Garforth, near Leeds, this lunchtime. They did eventually arrive in person to consume their lunches; which if they were as good as ours were, were worth the wait (mild, unsolicited advertising).
And so ends July 2021, a month of refreshing normality, and the last complete calendar month before this blog reaches the end of its tenth year, on 25th August.
Discos/nightclubs — possibly the worst venue for photography, at least with my mediocre equipment. But, I don’t care! Because we were out in a nightclub! How 2010s is that?
Being 42 