Came as close as I ever have today to simply having no acceptable photograph at the end of the day. Up until this one was taken I had an out-of-focus picture of a halved avocado, and that was pretty much it. C. gets involved today almost as emergency cover. It’s still out-of-focus, but hey, at least she’s smiling.
A whole morning spent sitting in my office, talking to my Mac (with a vague assumption that there might be some people listening out there in Zoombie-land). This is what we call ‘teaching’, these days. Overseen by Mr. Jack Nicholson, whose image (or perhaps, more precisely, R. P. McMurphy’s) makes its third appearance on the blog (see also here and here) — as many as my mother, by now. Well, it is a very good movie. And book.
We turned up at our appointed time. We stood at the ends of our appointed lines, waiting to get the call. Some of us read the information sheets we were given, which seemed (to me) to say little more than ‘in the end, we don’t really know what this might do’. Some of us did not. Yes folks, I’ve been vaccinated.
Went into Manchester, which has busied slightly, though this ‘rejoining the world’ thing is such a long and painful process. Anyway, no political point intended with this shot today, I just like the image, though once again I have focused on the background rather than the subject, with a very long zoom, hence the graininess.
Is Joe the only person in the world whose most recent birthday has been a lonely affair, deprived of real contact with friends and all but his immediate family? Of course not. But that doesn’t lessen the sense of sadness that I feel, while at the same time, celebrating the anniversary. Not just any birthday this year, either. He is 18, the age of legal responsibility, official adulthood. Whether that makes him feel any different than he did yesterday is his own concern. But somehow, I feel different.
Misty and cold at home, but sunny and mild in Manchester all day, sun which filled the public spaces of campus with students, at least compared to how it’s been for the last two months. ‘Without making a political point out of it, the idea of ‘lockdown’ is just no longer being confirmed by observation. Small businesses are still being shafted, but otherwise, many people have obviously just returned to living their lives.
This walker knew just what she was doing when she saw me pull out my camera. She called over afterwards, saying ‘don’t mind me…’ — but I assured her that I had got the shot.
For more pictures of today, being my latest attempt to stay sane and healthy, see the page on my County Tups blog. Also, as this technically counts as being in Bolton, I now have to award that place the title of ‘location to have the longest gap between appearances on the blog’. It’s 2,539 days since its first, and only other, appearance on the blog thanks to Bolton Wanderers’ stadium featuring on day 933 (15/3/2014). At over 1,000 feet in height — not to mention that its base is itself 1,440 feet above sea level — the TV mast seen here is one of the tallest structures in the UK.
How long before I simply have nothing to photograph? Shockingly, for a Friday — the start of the weekend — this is a photowhack, the one and only photo taken on a given day. With a long zoom, its graininess reflecting the utter lack of intimacy there is in the world, these three find something to do with their 12″ Wood Fired Pizza Oven. The rest of us sit and rot, and with a rainy weekend forecast, that ain’t gonna change much.
It’s Joe, and his generation, that I feel sorriest for right now. He turns 18 in a few weeks yet is spending this time locked in a room with, or rather without, everyone else. At least he’s still prepared to get out into the landscape now and again: here, on Brown Wardle Hill, above Whitworth in Lancashire.
Will the last business standing please turn off the economy? Thanks…
Being 42 