I continue to be in a long run of time spent at home and around familiar places. This mural, next to one of the entrances of Manchester Victoria station, has been here a very long time, since the services round here were run by the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, rather than Northern Rail. The red lines on this map were theirs. Some have now gone but quite a number remain actively operational.
Joe has graduated up recently from his acoustic to this axe. Note the book of music as well — his choice (he is often observed putting the very brilliant Won’t Get Fooled Again on jukeboxes). A boy of taste.
I know this could be sharper but shooting conditions were not ideal here, and this is all behind glass. Rightly so too, because this is the last surviving remnant of the Aardman animation, Wallace & Gromit movie The Wrong Trousers. All but one of the movie’s sets were destroyed in a fire at the studio in 2005. This was safely displayed at the National Media Museum, Bradford, at the time, and thus survived. I love this movie, and I love this miniature set. This is a good museum, we visited today as Joe is on half-term, and this is the best thing in it.
I don’t mind the aesthetics of this photo but it is here more for its significance, trivial though it probably seems to anyone else. Each year, because of the valley wall to the east, our house loses all morning sunlight from about mid-November. The annual game is how early it can be spotted returning to this side of the building. February 21st wins the sweepstake this year (the all-time record being February 18th). Told you it was trivial.
I took my students around the library today, hoping to look at it with active and fresh eyes, at least, that was the plan. I’m trying to do the same with this photograph. Not one of them admitted to having used microfilm before as an information medium — and it’s a good 10 years since I did, and then only once or twice.
Incidentally it’s a year to the day since I arrived in New Zealand.
Had to do my 10 minutes in this place today, to get processed through the system in a certain way. But it needs doing, and it’s something to photograph. I remain around home, Hebden Bridge, for a considerably stable period, relative to my usual movements.
God I’m bored. Someone get me out of this house. Meanwhile, here is a picture of our shelf, which I’m sure has enormous source material for the (pro or amateur) psychologist, or indeed, just the person who’s curious about my CD collection.
Was still functioning at about 25% of normal power today, but this was an improvement. Dragged myself out in the afternoon and then immediately faced another sign of my deteriorating capacities — a fitting for my first pair of reading glasses. Well, it comes to us all.
Well, today was a photographic challenge — because since shortly after taking yesterday’s shot I have been feeling ill and spent almost the whole of today in bed. This burst of sunlight onto the back of the bedroom door is therefore the best you get today. You may yet get the same tomorrow. And why does the door have two handles? A legacy of when this was Joe’s room and he was still just a toddler.
This place is a godsend early in the morning, and rarely empty. I’m not normally round this corner, but for once I had my cup of tea sat down at the tables inside instead of on the train. Earliest shot for a while, since late November in fact (and only the fourth shot before 7.30 in the last 12 months). It’s still dark outside at this time.
Being 42 