Could the great railway pioneers of Britain — people of vision and enterprise, greats like Brunel, say, or Stephenson — have conceived of the ‘rail replacement bus’, do you think? Particularly at 7.50am when it’s not even light yet? At least it was an opportunity for a study in yellow and blue.
I have never seen snow falling anywhere as early in a year as 17th October, but Iceland lived up to its name this morning and duly delivered, as my first flight home returned me to Keflavik. This seems even to have caught Icelanders unaware, seeing as it caused my second flight to be delayed two hours while we waited, seemingly endlessly, for the wings of our aircraft to be de-iced (“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking…. We are eighth in the queue for de-icing…. [45 minutes later] We are sixth in the queue….”). But I did get home in the end.
A trip out of the city. The suburb of King City is not as hick as this picture may make it appear, but I like this shot because it makes it seem like one of those tiny North American places with ridiculously grandiose names. You can almost see the weatherbeaten sign at the city limits: “KING CITY, ONTARIO (population: 47)”.
The apostrophes appear to be compulsory in any reference to this place, or the suburbia that surrounds it — the hinterland between Manchester and Bury. Can you think of a more ‘northern’ name for a public transport terminus? I am struggling. Why was I here at 9pm on a Wednesday evening? The usual reasons…. walk, football, etc.
The long drive home was broken up at various points; the first break taken here, on the north side of the Firth of Forth, so I could get a shot of the magnificent bridges that cross it. The new road bridge has featured before on here; the Forth Rail Bridge is behind me as I took this.
Spectacular though that is, I chose this shot today, the reason being that it looks like it will be the last shot taken with my Canon Power Shot SX60 camera. The same thing has gone on it as goes on all the cameras I have had down the years, and used every day — the motor on the lens. It’s been creaking and grinding for a few weeks now, and after just about teasing it up and down Ben Lawers it conked out once more this morning, and I’m giving up on it. A shopping trip awaits.
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).
A day out on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, which takes a roundabout route between those two cities so is here pictured near Skipton — place #350 to be depicted over the lifetime of the blog. Old Master Pete, the boatman, waves as he takes the family past a herd of cows who seem to have the right idea about how to deal with the day’s heat.
Whatever was happening up Keighley Road this morning, it was a major incident. Over the course of five minutes the house was passed by three fire engines, two ambulances, two ‘incident response’ vehicles and two Mountain Rescue vans, including this one.
And then once the sirens and blue lights had passed — life returned to normal, with nothing more being heard. I guess that’s a good thing.
In the National Railway Museum, York. Joe used to be taken here frequently when he was little, but with around two-thirds of his life having passed since the last time, he now claims no memory of the place, so as we had a couple of hours to kill in York this afternoon, it was worth the revisit. Thus, York becomes the latest location to hit double figures on the blog: 10 shots taken there now, in what is nearly 10 years.
This one is here more because I like the shapes and patterns than anything else. But I suppose there’s an ongoing sense of frustration at the remnants of lockdown, which hangs around like an irritating guest at a party that can’t get started with him there. We are in the ‘we’re doing it because we said three months ago that we would’ stage, as far as Authority goes — for of course, they cannot be seen to have changed their minds. Going on the front pages of the papers today even the media are not bothered any more. But Mytholmroyd station car park remains largely unused.
Being 42 