The 8:10 to Wigan Wallgate, via Manchester, decided not to bother this morning so there was plenty of time to appreciate the light pouring down the tracks and platforms: everything positioned just so at 8:25am. In fact the person depicted here had lifted their head a little, a moment before I pressed the shutter, so the full rimlight-and-red-hair experience was not forthcoming, but never mind, it has still mostly worked.
I talked to a fellow commuter, someone I have been seeing at the station now and again for twenty years, on the journey home today. He observed that the one good thing to come out of lockdowns (2020, 2021, you were there too I’m sure) was that they made both employers and employees realise that working-from-home was feasible. Of course this doesn’t apply to every job but it does to many, like his: and mine too, though I was doing plenty of WFH even before this.
But on the other hand sometimes one just has to be there at 9am and lump it. Today was one of those days. And when that happens everyone on the train looks like this. At least it wasn’t standing room only.
West Yorkshire is finally getting some rain. Although I’m not sure it was falling at the specific point this picture was taken — but what does she care? She has the shelter exactly as she wants it, and is quite comfortable, thank you very much.
On we go with year 16…. Now I have reached the advanced age I have, spending my birthday evening at non-league football seems quite the right way of going about things. And on such occasions, the substitutes’ benches are often good sources of portraiture. There is a mixture of enthusiasm, indifference and boredom on these faces, and we are only 10 minutes into the game, I’m not even sure how many of these guys eventually made it onto the pitch. But at least it was a win, and for those of us who have been watching Brighouse Town recently, there haven’t been a great many of those in recent seasons.
Maybe not perfect, but definitely a potential case of right clothes, right light, right timing. The River Grille can get its free advertising despite its wholly unnecessary extra E.
I await the 12:07 train to Retford, they are presumably about to get on the 12:10 to Sheffield and Leeds. I took this from in the exact same position on the opposite platform, that is, sat on the edge of a flower bed under the footbridge: which explains why, for once, I think all the angles and perspectives are exactly right, not to mention their legs and heads lining up very well. There’s the mobile phone, of course, but we can’t have everything.
There are seven potential spectators in this picture, all present at Llanfairfechan Town FC in the later stages of a Welsh Cup Qualifying Round tie — five human and two canine. Fairly obviously, three of them are definitely watching the action, and they ain’t the three guys in the middle.
I hope they did pay attention in the end, because this turned out to be one of the better football matches I have ever seen. When this shot was taken the visitors were 5-2 up, but the final score — Llanfairfechan Town 5, FC Queen’s Park 5.
It’s graduation season. Bearing in mind that the very minimum one needs to spend to get a degree from my august institution is in five figures, and for a 3-year undergraduate programme it is now approaching £30K (more, if you are an international student) just in fees — you’d think the UoM might just give them their gowns to keep, as with a wedding dress. But no.
Perhaps I’m spending too long indoors but this does evoke a caterpillar for me — including the cigarette, a connection maybe only subconscious when I took the shot, but which Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland illustration makes more clear the following morning.
Whatever is cooking away under the lids, I have no idea, but as with every Sunday, the general miscellany of the market on St George’s Square proves attractive. Food, trinkets, old military uniforms — nothing as useful as a pair of shoelaces though. For such things, we are forced to leave town.
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