The gentleman with the somewhat alien purple hue and the ‘P’ branded on his forehead (this is what happens when you sit in front of the data projector) is Andy Burnham, the elected Mayor of Greater Manchester. For a politician, he spoke a reasonable amount of sense at the meeting I attended today. 40 people in a room, about the same number attending online — all expressing freedom of choice either way. Seems fair enough to me.
The beginning of what will probably be a trilogy of pictures. On Saturday Joe leaves home — at least for university, in Dundee. We took him out for dinner tonight, not very far away (hence this also becomes the 1,500th Hebden Bridge picture to feature on the blog). Of course I sincerely hope this will not be his ‘last supper’. But whether he will ever live here again in the truly permanent sense that he has for the last 18 years, five months and five days (he has never lived in any other house than he does now) — who knows… But that’s the thing about the future, isn’t it? Who knows?
As I move inexorably towards my dotage there are increasing signs that I am basically losing it, including the fact that I had a relatively serious conversation today with a six-foot-high chicken in a Bradford City shirt. Sorry — not a chicken, officially this is a bantam. What was it/he doing at Brighouse Town FC today? Well, that’s mainly what the conversation was about.
One reason I went to Manchester yesterday was to buy a new camera. Since the pic of North Queensferry, after which the lens motor of the last one seized up permanently, I’ve been on emergency (and inadequate) backup. Three years of usage every day seems the usual lifespan of these devices at the present time. I have gone back to a more compact model — it’s just easier to carry around all the time — and until further notice what you see on here will be taken with a Canon Power Shot SX740 HS.
Here’s its debut on the blog — chosen because it was the photo taken today that most made me smile. Freedom of expression works in both directions.
Here’s how I begin this 11th year of blogging, my 53rd of life. In monochrome and with a shaving cut. It’s been a good birthday.
This is the eleventh time that 26th August has cycled round on this blog. Including today, the last four, photographically anyway, have been spent in Hebden Bridge, with 26/8/17 (in Urbana, Illinois) the last time I spent my birthday away from home. This is also the 50th self-portrait of some kind or another to feature on here.
Clare and (for the third time in four days) Joe amble along the rim of the country. To the left, nothing until Dieppe in France. To the right, the town of Hastings, home for the next few nights. The evenings draw in, but summer remains with us.
A day spent between walks. Did another dose of museum instead, specifically the ‘Scottish Crannog Centre‘ on Loch Tay. A crannog, it seems, is an Iron Age dwelling built on an artificial island in the loch; there are reckoned to be many of these throughout Scotland and Ireland. This centre had a reproduction of one, until it burnt down last year — the impressive thing is that the place was still interesting and good value without it. That had a huge amount to do with the staff, including this guy, clearly the boss, but his minions earned their wages too.
My latest trip to Ewood Park, this time to see Morecambe FC (still buoyed up by their recent win at Wembley) play Blackburn Rovers in the League Cup. The stewards had plenty of visiting Morecambe fans to deal with but not, it has to be said, a great many Blackburnians. Perhaps this was because they knew the result was fated, as I was in attendance. This was my fifth visit to the ground as far as I can ascertain, and Blackburn Rovers have now lost every one of them: a 1-2 defeat to the mighty Shrimps this evening continuing the run. I won’t be back for a little while, guys, I promise.
The Striders are a local running group. Yesterday, they set out to run a 5km lap, on the hour, every hour, for 24 hours. This was taken at the end of the last one. Jilly, in the middle with the white top, did 20 of these laps — thus, she has run 100km (or over 60 miles) since Saturday, with a couple of hours of dozing at about 3am. I am in awe of this; if I walk more than about 10 miles these days I feel knackered and have to rest for a day or so.
I had a work meeting today, that included lunch, face-to-face with two other people. The rail service is having its annual summer ‘upgrading’ spasm and so my journey to and from this meeting was a complex — but not, it should be said, unpunctual — tangle of three different trains, two buses and a taxi.
All in all then, a sense of normality returns (perhaps leaving out the bit about punctuality).
Being 42 