Thursday 7th January 2021, 4.15pm (day 3,423)
Will the last business standing please turn off the economy? Thanks…
Selfie outside Shelter
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Family Member
Self-portrait as Zoombie
Thursday 17th December 2020, 1.00pm (day 3,402)
Another day with little to record except my further Zoombification, along with much of the rest of the planet. It’s nearly Christmas, which of course will lead to radical change in the current shape of life. But at least I won’t have any Zoom meetings for two weeks.
TV Noir (box set)
Sunday 13th December 2020, 2.20pm (day 3,398)
Grim weather led to the cancellation of a planned day out and with Bojo the Clown having decreed all other options ‘unsafe’ (while he flaps around in his comedy trousers), we dug out the box set of The Singing Detective and sat and watched its seven hour span through the afternoon and evening. Classic TV, and as it was always a period piece, it hasn’t dated. Joe got through the lot though he seems less than attentive on this shot. It gave the day its main interest, but how I miss other people.
Kitchen duties
Monday 16th November 2020, 8.50pm (day 3,371)
3,371 days into this blog (nine years, two months and 22 days) and I am buggered if I am going to let this profoundly boring and pointless period see it peter out through sheer lack of interest. But it’s not very interesting, is it. This is the true impact of this bloody virus. It’s made the world so goddamn boring, suddenly. (With no offence meant to my family members, pictured here, who are about the only things that are keeping me sane.)
Clare in the Entwood
Sunday 1st November 2020, 2.10pm (day 3,356)
Nothing about the politics today, no grouching, I promise. Let us just celebrate the peak of autumn. I have pictured this wood before (by now, I’ve pictured most places near my house before), and have always called it the Entwood because here more than anywhere else round here the trees feel like they have feet, that their residence in the ground is temporary.
Joe the filmmaker
Monday 26th October 2020, 1.55pm (day 3,350)
Time is on our hands. I can’t easily get into Manchester this week as the train line is having one of its bouts of ‘maintenance’. Joe is on his half-term break. I needed a film making for teaching purposes and it gave us both something to do, and him something to put on his portfolio for later life.
Joe’s tour of inspection
Saturday 17th October 2020, 10.55am (day 3,341)
Astonishing as this may seem, our Joe is now at the stage where he is putting together applications for university in 2021-22. Staffordshire University, in Stoke-on-Trent, is on the list, but all any of them can offer at the moment are ‘virtual open days’ which provide info, sure, but not a feeling for the place. And that’s essential if you’re going to spend three years anywhere. So we arranged for our own little tour of inspection today, both of the campus and the city. And despite it being dead, like the set of a post-apocalypse movie dead — the campus tour did not seem to be offputting. Perhaps then we will be seeing more of this place in the future.
Joe portrait
Sunday 13th September 2020, 1.50pm (day 3,307)
Joe was eight and a half years old the first time he appeared on this blog, on its tenth day in early September 2011. Nine years have passed, and his frequency of appearance is diminishing. I guess that as time goes by this will continue, as he constructs his own life. For now it is still pleasing that he likes to hang out with the crumblies now and again, and today was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Clare at Clitheroe Castle
Monday 17th August 2020, 12 noon (day 3,280)
Clitheroe Castle is at least 910 years old but despite having been in a state of general ruin since the English Civil War, that is the 1640s, it is just about still standing on a spot with a really good view (as castles should have). On our first day of a week off work for the both of us, Clare enjoys said view — ignoring the rain coming in behind.
The tree consultant
Sunday 9th August 2020, 10.15am (day 3,272)
The plum tree seriously needs pruning, and now is apparently the time…. this information being imparted by Peggy, fellow member of the allotment society and knowledgeable in these matters. Expect some documentation of the subsequent surgery, at least, once we get our pruning saw. Yes, this would be a nicer photo without the water butt, but it is what it is.
Being 42 