Friday 6th December 2019, 5.15pm (day 3,025)
One of those shots where you either see it the same way that I do, or you don’t. But look at it’s balefully glowing eye, its smouldering snout. It’s definitely there, and watching.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Interior
Arrival home (MAN T2)
Saturday 30th November 2019, 6.30am (day 3,019)
Flying reduces one to a platelet in a bloodstream, being pushed through a number of tin pipes and artificially-lit domains, with little sense of the outside world passing, particularly on a night flight at this time of year. I left Salatiga just after taking yesterday’s shot, so about 11.30am Indonesian time on Friday, and this shot depicts my arrival in Manchester on Saturday morning, having seen only darkness for about 18 hours since leaving Jakarta. The journey went well, though…. at least until I got to Manchester Victoria and Northern Rail took over. But that’s another (unending) story.
Lecture theatres — the same the world over?
Monday 25th November 2019, 9.20am (day 3,014)
A trip away to Indonesia might seem to offer a wealth of photo opportunities, but it’s a work trip — and the more that I do this kind of thing the more I realise that universities look much the same the world over. A Monday morning class, a decent turnout — but no one ever breaks the golden rule: Thou Shalt Not Sit In The Front Row.
Working on my balcony
Sunday 24th November 2019, 4.45pm (day 3,013)
Today, Monday and Tuesday are going to be the work days on this trip — today, to get ready for the other two. I needed a rest after the journey, anyway. Little to see, therefore: it was either the inside of a restaurant, or the pleasant balcony outside my room where I spent the afternoon hacking away on the laptop. There is, of course, more to see of Indonesia than this, but you’ll have to bear with me.
Why the monochrome? As is often the case — to hide coloured blotches caused by lens flare. It works, too. In the original. most of the top right quadrant is stained red.
I become a millionaire (sort of)
Friday 22nd November 2019, 1.20pm (day 3,011)
I’m off on another one of my work trips, and from this post it must be fairly obvious where — indeed, I post this from Jakarta airport on Saturday afternoon local time, although my journey isn’t over yet. (Saturday’s post might end up being from my stopover in Doha, anyway.) I thought I would post this shot because of the pleasingly large numbers on the banknotes: there are 1.3 million rupiah here. Not that that means I will be living it up — the cup of tea I have just bought cost me 23,000.
I have a new Official Birthday
Sunday 17th November 2019, 7.40pm (day 3,006)
Having stayed at the in-laws’ over the weekend, it was announced that I was being taken out for dinner this Sunday night — and the justification being that they hadn’t had the chance to be taken out for my 50th birthday back at the end of August. Seeing as a rather long time had elapsed between then and today we decided that, like the Queen, I should have a real birtday and then an ‘Official Birthday’ — weeks later in the year (Queen Elizabeth II has her real birthday on April 21st and then an Official thing in June some time). Forgive my presumption, but I got a cake and everything, here pictured with sparkler flaiming, so I’m happy to embrace a second such day each year. On November 17th perhaps — let’s see if I remember it 🙂
End of the week
Friday 15th November 2019, 4.30pm (day 3,004)
It’s the end of the working week but there’s still some cleaning up to do, after the mess that everyone else has left. Symbolic of things in my own week? I’ll leave that up to you to ponder.
3,000 days of little pleasures
Monday 11th November 2019, 1.30pm (day 3,000)
I started this blog on my 42nd birthday, 26th August 2011, and was just going to run it for a year in the first instance. Here I am eight years, two months and sixteen days later — day 3,000. Whatever the quality of the shots each day, I can honestly say I have never cheated; every day’s post has featured a photo taken, by me, on that day. No camera disasters, no broken SD cards, no waking up one morning with a nagging feeling of having forgotten something important. This blog has become, at least, an exercise in persistence.
But it also brings a little pleasure into each day, at least one moment where I am obliged to be creative. So if it’s all the same with the rest of the world… I will carry on for a while longer yet.
Online meeting
Friday 8th November 2019, 12.45pm (day 2,997)
I was supposed to be in Manchester today but with the outflow of yesterday’s floods still wandering past, I gave the travelling a miss. But how great is videoconferencing? Photographically I hope it is also interesting to depict the random pile of crap that has accumulated at one side of the dining table… then again, I am surely reaching.
Totems
Thursday 31st October 2019, 9.40am (day 2,989)
Back home — at least for a day. It’s Halloween but I don’t really go for The Festival of Cheap Plastic Tat. I did have a couple of online classes to run however, so I let my totem make an appearance. Perhaps the Mac is also a totem — or a familiar? It’s certainly hard to weave any magic without it, these days.
Being 42 