Went into Manchester, which has busied slightly, though this ‘rejoining the world’ thing is such a long and painful process. Anyway, no political point intended with this shot today, I just like the image, though once again I have focused on the background rather than the subject, with a very long zoom, hence the graininess.
Misty and cold at home, but sunny and mild in Manchester all day, sun which filled the public spaces of campus with students, at least compared to how it’s been for the last two months. ‘Without making a political point out of it, the idea of ‘lockdown’ is just no longer being confirmed by observation. Small businesses are still being shafted, but otherwise, many people have obviously just returned to living their lives.
This walker knew just what she was doing when she saw me pull out my camera. She called over afterwards, saying ‘don’t mind me…’ — but I assured her that I had got the shot.
For more pictures of today, being my latest attempt to stay sane and healthy, see the page on my County Tups blog. Also, as this technically counts as being in Bolton, I now have to award that place the title of ‘location to have the longest gap between appearances on the blog’. It’s 2,539 days since its first, and only other, appearance on the blog thanks to Bolton Wanderers’ stadium featuring on day 933 (15/3/2014). At over 1,000 feet in height — not to mention that its base is itself 1,440 feet above sea level — the TV mast seen here is one of the tallest structures in the UK.
How long before I simply have nothing to photograph? Shockingly, for a Friday — the start of the weekend — this is a photowhack, the one and only photo taken on a given day. With a long zoom, its graininess reflecting the utter lack of intimacy there is in the world, these three find something to do with their 12″ Wood Fired Pizza Oven. The rest of us sit and rot, and with a rainy weekend forecast, that ain’t gonna change much.
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.
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.
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.
The family that texts together, survives house arrest together. One of the few signs of human life in Hebden Bridge this afternoon.
The notion of ‘an evening out’ largely died with the dawning of The Great Fear. This is the latest shot in any day since February 19th. We tried today, but it is cold out there, and trying to enjoy oneself is now something to be looked at askance, it makes one suspect, subversive almost. I cannot say there is much to look forward to in life right now. This chap may or may not agree with me — and so may you. But for me it’s the way it is.
I have been thinking about this, and have decided to declare this the one and only positive outcome of lockdown –‘this’ being the emergence of a UK pavement café culture. We don’t necessarily have the weather for it, but hey, pubs and restaurants can invest in some umbrellas, as they do elsewhere. On sunny afternoons like this one, it doesn’t matter, and we can give it a shot.
Being 42 