Joe and I had an agreement that this Sunday was to involve the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy in one go, and so it came to pass. The holiday will involve a change of scene soon, I promise. But not today.
A photowhack — the only photo taken on a given day. We are here at the early scenes in Bag End, but I knew there was little point seeking further shots: they would all have been variations on this theme.
Sunday afternoon at the pub, one of the first pleasantly sunny and agreeable days in weeks. I mean, the world is still a bag of shit, but there’s music, tobacco, beer, sunshine.
Here’s how to play the hat throwing game. Take two four year olds, one hat, and a stairway. Have the four year old at the top throw the hat down to the other. Change places, and repeat for quite a long time.
The idea for this photo came bit by bit, as I sat on the train down to London looking at the first picture in the sequence, which is of Hebden Bridge station. Decided to take a photo of that on the screen for some reason and then just ran with it. I suppose I could have gone further and further, but I did have other work to do….
One of my more indolent weekends. In twenty years’ time I’ll probably be this guy.
Back in January 2015 Ellie (left, at that time aged 8 months) and Maggie (right) appeared on the blog in consecutive days; here they are together. Hard to credit that in the intervening 18 months Ellie has grown from a baby into a little girl with an entire functioning vocabulary. Time passes, we all change…
Hebden Bridge’s annual festival of creativity, the Handmade Parade, has featured on this blog every June since I started, and probably will continue to do so. It’s impossible to capture the whole experience in one shot, but I feel the need to show some happiness in the world this weekend, so here’s my choice.
This was Clare’s night out as though I knew of this band I didn’t really care one way or the other about them. However, having seen them, they were bloody good. And Sarah Cracknell (right) is completely gorgeous. It was 1996 all over again I’m telling you. Taking photos of gigs is like football matches though — I take lots, but very few ever work out. I don’t have the equipment and I’m usually stuck in the same vantage point. Still, it’ll do.
Perhaps there is some irony in seeing a band named after a French football team the evening after the announcement of the disastrous referendum result. I apologise to the rest of the planet for the 17 million people I happen to share an island with who seem to think that isolationism is a valid response to the world’s problems. I wasn’t the only one in the room tonight weeping for the future.
I don’t watch TV so I don’t know who the woman on the left is, but she’s clearly something to do with TV presenting because the gaggle of lighting technicians and cameramen seen here are just a portion of the posse of hangers-on, outside broadcast vans, police outriders and so on, that surrounded her in front of the National Football Museum this morning. Anyone care to provide the ID?
UPDATE: Apparently this is Michelle Ackerley — they were filming a piece for BBC’s Crimewatch (hence all the coppers, which I did think were otherwise a bit excessive)
And so home again: London to Hebden Bridge is three to three-and-a-bit hours, the bit depending on how well the train times mesh in Leeds. Time enough today to capture the first blog selfie of 2016, anyway.
