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?
Recently, Britons have been staying at home because a computer program — which they are not obliged to install — has been telling them to. As a consequence, holes appear in the supply chain, not of everything — you can see there’s still plenty of booze on the shelves — but of certain things. This is the crisp and snack aisle at the Co-op. All that remains are two tubes of Pringles and an anomalous, lonely tup of Chupa Chips. A First World problem for sure, but nevertheless, a bizarre demonstration of the Butterfly Effect if you ask me. Someone designs an app in a certain way; a few months later, there are no crisps, tinned tomatoes or frozen vegetables available for purchase.
Latest shot, and first shot after 10pm, since early October last year. Nights out are still not entirely a thing of the past. The Nightjar bar sits under the Hebden Bridge Picture House, and if you don’t see why I’ve appended the ‘Hawks’ to its name in the title of this post, well, maybe this painting is familiar to you.
A planned walk up in the hills got little further than this bridge under the railway a couple of miles from home, which we were fortunate to reach just as the first really major thunderstorm of the summer passed through. Along with these two cyclists who arrived there simultaneously, we ended up spending around three-quarters of an hour there. The stream down the middle of the lane is not normally present.
Back in late October the Hebden Bridge Picture House reopened, and this happy event was depicted on here. Then, it shut again: like all places of entertainment this was deemed surplus to requirements in the Time of the Great Fear. How could we possibly be trusted to sit inside and watch movies. Now, it’s trying again, before all places like this erode away and the only distributor remaining is Netflix. Support your local cinema, folks.
On show this evening — Fargo; a great movie, well worth seeing on the big screen. (Real film buffs will know from the surname rolling up the credits here that we were in the presence of the Coen Brothers.)
A wholly uneventful Sunday. Joe staggered downstairs some time in the early afternoon and presented me with a couple of bottles of Old Peculier and this card, displaying his rather understated sense of humour.
This subway under Manchester Road in Rochdale is very neglected, a real hole in the ground. But with the sunshine pouring down from outside, it’s not unattractive.
Being 42 