There are worse things to do on a fairly pleasant Sunday morning, whether for the players or the people watching. Or the people taking photographs, not just of the action but also the backdrop: wind turbines and all.
Let’s have a lot less vehicle-related morbidity and much more healthy outdoor exercise, miles (well, OK, about a mile) from the nearest traffic. Alfred Wainwright, who does know what he’s talking about, describes the summit thus:
here, on the summit of little Helm Crag, a midget of a mountain, is a remarkable array of rocks, upstanding and fallen, of singular interest and fascinating appearance, that yield a quality of reward out of all proportion to the short and simple climb. The uppermost reaches of Scafell and Helvellyn and Skiddaw can show nothing like Helm Crag’s crown of shattered and petrified stone: indeed, its highest point, a pinnacle of rock thrust out above a dark abyss, is not to be attained by walking and is brought underfoot only by precarious manoeuvers of the body. This is one of the very few summits in Lakeland reached only by climbing rocks, and it is certainly (but not for that reason alone) one of the very best.
And he’s right. Even in the mist, this is a great spot. And those two rocks do look like a lion and a lamb, don’t you think? That’s their official name, anyway. (For more pictures from today see my other blog.)
The Midland’s second appearance on the blog, after this shot, 2,627 days ago– which is less vivid, and I prefer this one. It’s nice that we’re getting some sunshine, which in the last few weeks of 2023, was at a premium.
The County Tops project exists so I can find excuses to get about the country, and this won’t be my last trip to South Wales by any means. These lumps of rock and grass will get me back again: these slopes eventually culminate in Pen y Fan (its summit obscured by mist in this shot), highest of the Brecon Beacons and the highest point anywhere in the country south of Snowdonia. I was just driving past today, though — it can wait.
I worked out that before today, I had been to 25 of the top 30 cities in the UK ranked by population: as of today I have now been to 26, as I (and Clare) paid a first-ever visit to Swansea this weekend. And among the things I discovered about the second-biggest place in Wales was that it has a superb beach, which seems to stretch for miles. Early January isn’t necessarily the optimal time to visit such a place, but so what?
Another low-contrast kind of day, spent at home working, little to see other than what the local landscape, weather and birdlife allow. In the end, this was the day’s best combination of those factors.
This picture was taken — at least, according to the time stamp allocated by my camera — at two seconds past noon, so here we are with exactly 12 hours, or 1/730th, of the year to go. As it was Sunday and we had a dinner date at a pub above Todmorden, there was no excuse not to get out, have some exercise and enjoy the scenery. (The sheep do this every day, of course.) This kind of thing is a significant contributor to the fact I’m still living here in Calderdale after 21.5 years.
And so ends 2023, not a bad year at a personal level I suppose but no particular changes were noted, for better or worse — what enthuses me and what vexes me today are all more or less the same as they were a year ago, or indeed two. The rest of the world, well, that seems able to screw itself up without my active intervention. This blog will continue — generative AI-free — as long as I still have something to document. My favourite picture of the year? Probably the gloriously camp duck captured on 20th September. Getting that salmon leaping the falls in Scotland on 11th July was quite a coup, and Clare, taken the following day (12th July) insists she get the award for ‘best human’. Happy New Year to you all.
This is a totally crap picture, but it epitomises the day, entirely. The sunshine of Boxing Day was not sustained. We left Dundee at about 9am, I gritted my teeth and drove, and we staggered into Morecambe at about 2pm — an hour longer than it should have taken — battered by high winds, driving rain, surface water, low visibility, the lot. This is taken somewhere in the wilds of the Southern Uplands, in the indefinable watershed country between Tweeddale and Annandale, when I just had to pull over and stop for a few minutes.
Once more I was in the work cocoon — specifically, the email cocoon — all day, only emerging as the skies looked like this. Another day, then, where there was not much to photograph, but at least it’s the weekend.
Continuing a theme, but why not — this was definitely the nicest thing to be seen today, and it didn’t even require leaving the house.
Being 42 