Category Archives: Portrait

Well, he’s happy

Monday 21st December 2020, 1.50pm (day 3,406)

Swinging gnome, 21/12/20

Having taken up the habitat of occasionally walking up and down the valley of the Hebden Water, simply to keep my spirits and step count up, on several occasions recently I have passed this little guy in one of the allotments along the riverside and taken a shot. Today he can make the blog. This is the kind of carefree attitude it would be nice to affect at the present time. What does he know of ministerial incompetence, lockdown loving and general paranoia. Even on midwinter’s day.

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Christmas family gathering

Sunday 20th December 2020, 1.45pm (day 3,405)

Towneley Park gathering, 20/12/20

This is how Christmas works this year. We saw my side of the immediate family today — these people are not them, but we gathered in the same place, Towneley Park in Burnley. We didn’t bring our own seating either, but it worked out anyway. It was good to see them — but it shouldn’t have to be this way.

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Self-portrait as Zoombie

Thursday 17th December 2020, 1.00pm (day 3,402)

Zoom portrait, 17/12/20

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.

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Watching the game

Tuesday 15th December 2020, 7.05pm (day 3,400)

Watching Steeton, 15/12/20

Bojo the Clown has decreed that it’s OK to get some local entertainment at football grounds that expand beyond just being a pitch in a park somewhere. This gentleman, like the other 85 or so in attendance at Steeton v Brighouse on this Tuesday evening, ponders why the provision of tea, snacks, hell, even maybe a pint of beer or two, would have exposed us all to mass infection in a way that keeping the snack bar closed did not (we assume). Answers on a postcard to 10 Downing Street.

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TV Noir (box set)

Sunday 13th December 2020, 2.20pm (day 3,398)

The Singing Detective, 13/12/20

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.

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Bernard joins us for a drink

Friday 20th November 2020, 5.30pm (day 3,375)

Ginge by the river, 20/11/20

To stop the walls closing in any more than they already are I’ve been making a point of sitting out in a spot by the river in the early evenings, when the weather allows. Just to take some air, watch the ducks (my post of a few days ago was taken from this same point), have a couple of beers. Feel human. Clare joined me for this one and so, for 15 minutes or so, did fellow ex-Railway habitué Bernard, who happened to be passing with a bottle of his own. We talked. As much as anything, we just enjoyed the fact we could see someone else’s face, for real.

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Kitchen duties

Monday 16th November 2020, 8.50pm (day 3,371)

Clare, Joe, kitchen, 16/11/20

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.)

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On the bridge

Monday 9th November 2020, 4.15pm (day 3,364)

On the old bridge, 10/11/20

The family that texts together, survives house arrest together. One of the few signs of human life in Hebden Bridge this afternoon.

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Me and my shadow (or, selfie with ponytail)

Monday 2nd November 2020, 2.45pm (day 3,357)

Me and ponytail shadow, 2/11/20

Working at home today … but then again, aren’t we all. The ‘lockdown hair’ continues to grow.

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Clare in the Entwood

Sunday 1st November 2020, 2.10pm (day 3,356)

Clare in Entwood, 1/11/20

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.

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