Time for a holiday. This one at the instigation of the wife, for various reasons, but I am happy to tag along for the ride, and for the break. You can find out the destination tomorrow, although it’s somewhere the blog has visited before. As is Terminal 5 of Heathrow airport, where we and a few thousand others waited for the beginning of the fourth leg of our journey (after two trains and the Elizabeth Line).
I went for this shot because of the illuminated cup of hot beverage to the right, and I guess it works, but yes, I would like to take out the plug sockets.
Seen on my walk back to Cardiff station for my train home. This was one of those where, had I not already had my camera out and ready, I would never have got it. For once, a litter bin is not a detriment, but an active constituent of the shot. It’s a shame the crossing isn’t showing a green walking man though, but we can’t have everything.
This one is the result of me sitting on a train (somewhere in the vicinity of Bolton) and feeling experimental. I did my best to capture the reflection of this man in the hat in the train’s window, really just to see how it turned out. And, well, it’s OK. It’s the shot I intended to take, anyway, and that’s always the source of at least a little satisfaction.
I was about to post a picture of the year’s first cherry blossom in Sackville Gardens, flowering above the seated statue of Alan Turing, but then I realised I had done exactly the same in both the preceding Februaries (the evidence is available at this tag). I would still like to avoid such repetition if I can — for my own self-satisfaction if nothing else — but I spent all day in the office and didn’t really capture much else. Bloke on Train with Someone Else’s Half-Completed Crossword is my best alternative. But I guess it at least records a trip to the big city. With a comfortably late start (thanks to teaching until 6pm again).
It may seem surprising that these seats were not filled for a Merseyside derby, but this was Liverpool v Everton in the Women’s FA Cup, and also not being played in the city of Liverpool but in the stadium of St Helens rugby league team. There was a reasonable crowd packed into one side of the ground but the other three stands were mostly left empty. Someone’s still got to be ready to retrieve the balls, though. Or maybe this guy’s simply taking a break and hoping no one’s noticed.
This shot could be in sharper focus, but never mind, I like its repetitive character.
I was wondering whether to go with a picture that is a little less dark, dismal, drizzly and not a little bit depressing. On the other hand this seems to sum up the evening perfectly. I’ve seen some tedious football matches in my time but Halifax 1, Morecambe 0 on 21/1/26 now ranks down there with the worst.
On the basis that no fewer than 23 people (because you do need a referee) can be gathered in each area of space that comprises a Saturday afternoon football match, then there must have been at least a quarter of a million people in the UK doing what this guy was doing at the same point in time, 3.20pm. That’s just the people on the pitches, too. At least 30 other people, including substitutes, coaches and slighly weird people (like me) were also persuaded that watching Sheffield Union v Thornbridge Villa in the 12th tier of English football was the best way they had of spending Saturday afternoon. So add another million or two for all of them…. it can’t be completely wasted collective effort, can it? At this level it’s certainly not about making any money.
Hull City fans approach their club’s ground for this afternoon’s quite important match against Watford. Both teams are in the play-off zone in the Championship. But what they don’t know yet (and nor, then, did I as I took the picture) that all this anticipation is to be made pointless in about twenty-five minutes’ time. At that point, fifteen minutes before kick-off, the game was postponed, because though the pitch was in great condition, ground staff hadn’t bothered to de-ice the touchlines or the technical areas so the managers and linesmen said, er, hang on — we can’t do our work on an ice rink. I took pictures of that too, and looking at them, they’re probably justified. But all it would have taken was some salt applied at about 1.30. Instead, all these people just had to turn around and go home, including all the poor buggers who had trekked up from Watford on a Sunday and spent god knows how much to do so (and I’m down £35 on the train fare).
The thing is all this happened to me (and, in this case, Clare) yesterday too, at Altrincham. For the same reasons. As I was, almost certainly, the world’s only person to have been at both of these games you understand that I’m somewhat prickly right now.
As seen in Sackville Street Gardens, Manchester. It seems a fairly light workout. It’s a shame he wasn’t stood more in the light but maybe it works better this way. I think he knows he’s being photographed.
An early morning derailment at Shap, in Cumbria, meant the West Coast Main Line was completely closed. Fortunately we were heading south and not trying to get to Scotland, but I suspect this gentleman was one of the many people in Preston station this morning for whom that was the intended destination.
Being 42 