I get the point of What Three Words, but should all combinations be permitted? If I were an emergency services operator and got told that my attention was required to Soggy Parrot Delusions I think the conversation would end there in gales of (my) laughter.
Wold Newton, where this path goes, was my 80th County Top, if you are interested in my other blog…
Among the activities booked in for this weekend in Milton Keynes was another County Top walk, which was a perfectly OK walk to do but turned out to be not all that exciting photographically. However, I quite like this one, if only for the way it seems to head back in stages through the landscape, starting with the allotments occupied by a mysterious single figure. This is the village of Woburn Sands, where I finished the walk: note that whatever it is named for, it’s not a beach — we are nowhere near the sea here.
Amongst other things that 2024 has lacked (like, my teaching, a ceasefire), I do not yet recall one of those ‘first day of spring’ moments: the kind of day, in England anyway, where it suddenly warms up, the sun starts shining and everything goes, ‘Hello….’. If it has already happened, I missed it. And 12/3/24 wasn’t it either.
Having had the chance to survey reasonably large portions of Ulster, the Irish Sea, North Wales and bits of north-west England on my flight home — I would like to declare that at 11:15 this morning, Llandudno and the Great Orme, both definitely depicted here, constituted the only part of this whole slab of the world that could possibly be seeing any sunshine.
“Top o’ the morning to you and welcome to Ireland’s Northernmost Football Ground for today’s big match in the Inishowen League; unbeaten visitors Glenceely Colts arrive unbeaten all season, with second in the table Sea Rovers needing to win to have any chance of catching them…. but they’ll fancy their chances I think, don’t you Conor….?”
And right they were to do so. Sea Rovers (in red) 4, Glenceely Colts 2. This actually is Ireland’s northernmost football ground, located a short distance from Malin Head, the country’s northernmost point.
After a month at home — well, it seems like a long time to me — a long weekend away was mandated, and why not return to Donegal, which definitely entertained on our last visit here about 18 months ago. There are reasons for this. I never made it all the way to Fanad Head at the end of this road, but the views along the way were of ample quality.
This shot was actually incidental to the walk I completed today — my penultimate Wainwright walk, unless there is some big change of plan between now and, say, the next month. Skiddaw was nowhere near where I was. But — it looks so good here. All macho and domineering, despite its sheen of snowy white. Would that we could all look so good at a few million years old.
The first shot taken in Hebden Bridge since 25th January. It’s nice to travel, but it is also nice to come home. Even if the weather while I was away was wintrier here than in Canada — this much is obvious.
Time to return to the CN Tower, still the tallest ‘free-standing structure’ outside Asia, and as I did successfully get up it this time, the highest I have ever been above ground in a building. The Skypod observation deck is still 330 feet further above the main deck, from where I took this picture, so this is about 1,130 feet, looking west along the shore of Lake Ontario, the distant towers are in the suburb of Mississauga I think. The CN is basically a glorified bar-café-restaurant, but it does have a damn good view. It’s the tallest thing around by such a margin that everything else just looks tiny.
Unable to secure my preferred window seat I was reduced this afternoon to craning the camera past the head of my neighbour (with her permission I would add), kicking in a long zoom and hoping for the best. The colour balance was destroyed, but in black and white I just about get away with it. If you count my couple of hours of stopover in 2017, which nevertheless produced a shot similar to this — the blog’s third visit to Toronto.
Being 42 