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).
If you ask me, one of the most damaging consequences of The Great Fear is that it has driven a bulldozer through our close social bonds. It’s ripped apart international solidarity as well, taught us to fear the foreigner again, and that will ultimately kill far more than the virus, but I can’t do much about that right now. I can try to get together with mates more, though — and so today, Steve and Geri, both once regulars on here, make their first appearances on here for (shockingly) nearly three years. We’re all still here, at least.
Photographer and bride… but there was no groom in sight, so either these two were preparing some photos for a wedding at a later date, or this was a fashion shoot of some kind. The lump of rock behind is the big glacial boulder that stands in the Old Quadrangle of the University of Manchester.
It was a hot day today, by British standards — whether at Penistone Church FC or anywhere else. I think this baby girl was taking the right approach to it all, frankly.
As you are probably aware, there was some interest in another football match taking place this evening, and we did watch it, but photographically, this is a better representation of the day. Clare takes a look around on the fourth leg of our attempt to walk the Calderdale Way in stages — see also Feb 28th, Mar 20th, May 25th — we’ve just about passed the halfway point. The aim was (although C has been heard to deny this) to get it all done within 2021. Three more legs to go now.
Today, just a portrait of a mate in his natural habitat. Where we’ve all spent too much time lately, let’s face it.
As far as I can tell — and I might have it wrong ± a couple — this is the 3,000th English picture to feature on here. Almost half of these (and 41% of the whole total) have been taken in Hebden Bridge, but this one is just down the road in Mytholmroyd.
