It’s very good that I can still find reasons, opportunity and (though this was not an expensive trip) the money to come and spend Thursday nights in places like this. As seen from outside the Ardlui Hotel, which even has its own train station.
I’ve done quite a few ‘football landscapes’ over the years but never a cricket one. Not that I’ve changed my sporting allegiance — this was just seen in passing. While I was on my way to a football match, in fact. Oxenhope would make a picturesque backdrop for just about any sport, though.
Not the Rochdale canal, as is usually depicted on here — today it is the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, which follows its previous appearance (22/3/2015) with a shot that may be equally pleasing to traditionalists. In the depths of August, a small boy (well, OK, about 12-13) casts his line for sport. Get it while it lasts, kid, in a couple of weeks you’ll be back at school. Then again, so will I. (Actually the HNC has been on three times now: the other was 21/9/19.)
Only in Britain do we really try to create seaside resorts on north-facing coasts at latitudes like 56º above the equator: but Redcar, near Middlesbrough, just about gets away with it thanks to having a really excellent beach that stretches for miles. Even when the sun is out, though, you still need to be quite hardy to make a day of it, but obviously this family have the necessary genetic qualities.
Another landscape, but why not. This was the last view seen of Orkney on this trip, as the 6.30am ferry back to Thurso turned itself around and gave its passengers one final chance to admire the photogenic qualities of Stromness, with the hills of Hoy behind. I would come back here with no qualms at all. Orkney is a great place and there should be more like it.
By a total coincidence, the picture taken ten years ago today was also timed as 6:40am. I remember this because it was another rather fine landscape, captured near the summit of Kilimanjaro on 2nd August 2015.
Orkney possibly peaked several thousand years ago, at which point in time the local inhabitants constructed a number of stone circles that still look spectacular to this day. Places of worship? Or, possibly, goals for some big game of community v community football matches? We will probably never know.
After plenty of fine days since we left home the weather for much of today was dreadful, but it did improve. The trouble with trying to capture a sunset picture in such a northerly latitude is that it always goes down so slowly, and this evening, time was a little limited and waiting much longer not really practical. But this one will do.
The first part of my day was spent up the hill in the background, Ward Hill: not an easy lump of sandstone to get up or down, thanks to its steep sides (evident in this shot), but worth the bother. The second part of my day was spent at the easier-to-reach environs of Stromness FC, members of the Orkney ‘A’ League, and their match against Dounby (here in blue). I couldn’t decide which one was worth making Pic of the Day so let’s just choose one that accommdates both these pleasures.
For those that don’t know, signs like these on British roads indicate one can drive at the ‘national speed limit’, which is no less than 60mph. Anyone doing so on this road, however, may as well presume to end up in the cemetery to which it leads, visible over there on the sea shore. Perhaps the road traffic planners of Stromness, Orkney, have a morbid sense of humour. Or perhaps my using of this photo suggests that it’s just me.
The Old Man of Hoy is around 450 feet high and probably Britain’s most well-known pillar of rock, thanks in large part to a famous televised climbing of it in the late 1960s. Plenty more people have subsequently made it to the top, including an 8-year-old, who thereby demonstrated more desire and ability to propel themselves up sheer rock faces than I ever will. But the Old Man is not some durable phenomenon. A map drawn in 1750 shows a headland here but no stack. The first known painting of it was completed in 1819 and shows him with two legs, and looking much bulkier. And when he’s seen now — as from the Scrabster to Stromness ferry this afternoon — it does look like the next really big storm will take him down. Will the Old Man last longer than the Old(ish) Man now blogging about him? We’ll take bets…. after all, if I lose, I won’t be around to collect.
Being 42 