Following on from Wednesday, another picture of someone with a less-than-orthodox approach to their housing arrangements. I know of people (hi, Beth & Steve) who live permanently in such a manner but it’ll never be for me, there are too many home comforts of which I am fond and which a mobile home or narrowboat is never going to give me. But on a day when ‘independence’ might be on the minds of some, each to their own.
The picture was taken mainly because of the bright orange water of the Trent and Mersey Canal at this point (Kidsgrove, on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border). Such things are not usually a good sign. The mystery of why this colour is there was not solved until just a short while ago, as I prepared to post this by looking up some information about the Harecastle Tunnel, the north entrance of which is just visible in the background, to the left of the guys on the towpath. There is an old version of this tunnel running parallel to it that has been closed for over a century now, and apparently, leaches iron ore into the water. So it’s always orange — this is not some recent chemical spill. I don’t imagine drinking the water does anyone much good. Unless they’re anaemic I suppose.
OK, it’s not really an aquarium. But it’s more interesting to look at than the side of most delivery trucks, which I’m sure is the point.
It’s time for the annual appearance of the “Person Struggling with Umbrella” sign, and all that entails for traffic up and down the Keighley Road. I haven’t driven a car on this island since last August (the only plae I have been behind the wheel was on Ascension), and I’m just fine with that.
My Easter Saturday trip out found me in the Locomotion museum in Shildon, Co. Durham, at 10.30ish. This snowplough looks almost absurdly macho, like it’s Thor’s snowplough (Marvel Comics version). Look at the light beams that shoot off as it steams along! The watching human simply stands in awe and wonder as it zooms past. “Me? Put ME in a museum!? The impudence!”
I have returned to the UK, but thanks to the inability of the UK rail network to function at any kind of useful level on a Sunday, I still haven’t made it home. A bicycle might even have been faster — not that I can ride one, a skill I never developed. They seem to use a few in Oxford, though.
The wife was doing her latest excessively long bout of exercise, as she trains up for her second marathon in April. 22 miles today I believe. 9 miles in, our paths crossed briefly, then, off she went eastwards.
Once again, I am off somewhere different, mainly because it sustains my interest in this blog, the world, life, etc. Leg one ended at Leeds railway station, where this is taken. It occurred to me while sitting waiting for my second train to depart that I had the chance to capture this incognito shot of the driver getting ready to leave on platform 9 next door. The ‘pastel’ scribblings to the left are then the latest reflected self-portrait. Possibly, then, this is a terrible photo, but I’ll move on.
I paid £24 to guarantee a window seat for my daylight flight and then found I was sat right over the wing — and as it was an Airbus A380, the most monstrous vehicle (with two decks, and hence stairs inside), this was such a bloody large wing I got to see nothing of the land below, and hence no photos. I was confined to seat 63A for much of the flight, too, thanks to my neighbour spending almost all of the 6.5 hour journey in this position. How anyone can sleep on a plane is beyond me, even at night; I have no idea exactly what time zone we were over when I took this, but the time stamp is what my camera said, and we were really very far from it being the hours of darkness.
Four days late, I finally leave St Helena. There were genuine concerns in the morning that the flight would be cancelled yet again — apparently at about 9.30am visibility on the runway was practically zero — but, hallelujah, the clouds cleared and the incoming plane duly landed, about half an hour late (and of course carrying passengers who had all been waiting since Saturday themselves). An hour after this picture was taken, we boarded, took off and I type this in a hotel at Cape Town airport, waiting for my flight back to Heathrow this evening.
This is the blog’s 76th photo to be taken on St Helena: the first one being 9th November 2021 at the same place, the airport, the day before I began my 10-day period of quarantine (spent in a rather nice house not far from where I have been staying this time, Alarm Forest). Will this be the last shot from here, though? At the moment I have no definite plans to return — and, perhaps more significantly, no more research grant money to do so. Data collection for the project is done and I really should now concentrate on writing it all up. But, you know, never say never.
Being 42 