On the Easter weekend, it’s a good idea to get out of Hebden Bridge — even if it’s only to travel a few miles along the canal. The sun was shining, there were no people…. this is what we want.
On the journey to Dundee, whether made by car or train, crossing the Firth of Forth is always a highlight. Today, a mostly sunny train journey was interrupted by occasional heavy showers and one of these kicked in just as we left Inverkeithing, but that didn’t matter, this shot will still do (particularly as to get any picture from the rail bridge itself involves timing it very well to avoid getting big, red chunks of steel in the way). Here, you in fact see both road bridges: the roadway in view is that of the first, 20th century version, since superseded by the 21st century bridge whose stanchion and (just) cables are the ones behind.
Sadly this is an all-too-common sight around the tight streets of Hebden Bridge, with the only place to park many cars being on the road. It’s not even just the traffic-facing side which gets whacked, I’ve seen (and, years ago when I still owned a car, experienced) enough examples of pedestrians taking them out too. Though admittedly it would take a pretty hefty person to cause this amount of damage.
A metaphor of some kind? Quite possibly. We are all waiting for something. But at least the sun was shining on Hebden Bridge station this morning.
This is Halifax, again. Where the Hebble Brook comes through town it was first bridged by the Victorians who liked putting decorations on their stanchions and, hence, the towers seen to the right. The 1960s road engineers who decided the original bridge was no longer manly enough didn’t bother when constructing the larger version. This is taken from inside a bus, and quite how I managed the transition effect down the left-hand side I do not know, but it works for me.
Anywhere in the vicinity of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and I seem to have an irresistible urge to whack on the sepia filter. It’s appropriate, at least. A steam train would have been nice to add to the shot but one’s just departed, and anyway, it would have got in the way of the nice curve of the track.
Another railway station, but this is more one of those shots where I was just trying to get the various horizontals and verticals to come out true: and for once I think I have managed it, although is there just the slightest curve on the tracks? If I never said that, however, perhaps you would not have noticed.
If the train from Toronto to the airport is counted, what you see here is the start of the third stage of the five that comprised my journey home: the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow Terminal 5. You don’t often see tube trains like this, and in fact all the way through to King’s Cross it seemed quiet. From there, to Leeds, then home by 11.20am; 12.5 hours from Toronto to Hebden Bridge, via London, is not bad at all.
I am sure my day in Manchester was better than it was for the driver of this bike, lying at the junction of Princess Street and Whitworth Street, a place I walk past every time I go to work. So, seeing where the debris lay and knowing this junction and its patterns of traffic and pedestrians and stop/go signals, I suggest that this is what happened here — the bike was coming downhill, down Princess Street, as was its due, and the the car that it hit (bits of which were also scattered around), coming uphill, decided to turn right across its path. Shite driving therefore, lack of attention and care: at least the motorcyclist lived (I checked the story on the Manchester Evening News site), but that’s scant consolation I am sure.
Ummed and ahhed over this one for a while (two days, as you can see) but in the end I decided to go for something without a Christmas reference at all. Except, of course, in what I’ve just said. Anyway — a view from my morning exertion up Dundee Law, the walk I usually try to take on Christmas morning in advance of the food bloat that is to come. This is only the second Christmas of my life that I have spent in Scotland, after a not-so-fondly remembered time in a cabin on Loch Awe in 1992.
Anyway — if a bit belatedly, a I hope you all had a happy Christmas, however you spent it.
Being 42 