That ominous crumbling, shattering sound you hear from behind closed doors is your local economy. This square, on a Saturday morning, should not be inhabited only by ducks. And even they’re missing their usual benefits. These two were responding to a rumour that bread was being handed out by the old bridge.
For obvious reasons none of the present run of photos are being taken very far away from one another. This one looks across the valley of the Nutclough Woods, above our house, towards the two churches of Heptonstall, one extant and one ruined: they share a churchyard, and look further apart on this shot than they are in reality. The yellow stuff? Not sure of the exact species, but the buds confirm that spring is on its way, out there in the world where we used to play.
This day last year I was in Singapore. Horizons are rather more limited in late March 2020, for all of us I imagine. I acknowledge, however, that I am one of the lucky ones in that this landscape resides a few minutes’ walk from my house and at least here, one can be immersed in the countryside for a time each day: like this father and son, taking the air. Cooler today, though: it is inevitable that the run of good weather we have been having will end, but confinement will be harder to take once the sunshine ends.
So, the longest number of consecutive Hebden Bridge shots on this blog — as faithfully recorded on the stats page — is 10, and that was way back around the end of 2011 and start of 2012. (Blimey, have I been doing this that long…?). The trip to Manchester last Saturday gave the present run a later start than it might have had, but as things stand the eleventh day will be 1st April, and assuming we’re all still here on 6th April, it will then take Brisbane’s record of 15 days in a row in the same place.
Ah, I’ll get used to it. It’s pleasant enough at the moment, in the ongoing very fine weather.
Most of Hebden Bridge was built over a fairly short span of years in the later 19th century. Of the houses from that time, these ones on Birchcliffe Road are the grandest. And when the sun goes down and you see they are the last homes in town to catch the light — you can see why the nobs of 1880 coveted this particular hillside.
Bloody hell. How quickly did all that happen. How quickly did we let it all happen.
I spent my whole morning working out then posting my professional and academic opinion about the last few days. By the time I’d done that, I was, frankly, freaked out, so had to get out into the town just to see that it was still there, that it had not been consumed by the zombie apocalypse. And I was reassured. But bearing in mind that this poster has been up since a couple of days after the floods of February — then how much more can my home town take. How much more can we all take?
The media are not reality though. Talk to each other, folks.
Having finally arrived, at least to some degree, winter sustains its grip. I was not in this pub (the Old Gate) at just after noon, I can assure you — but I took advantage of the shelter offered by its outside awnings as another revolting hail storm swept by. While there, I mused on what a too-literal interpretation of the sign might indicate: a dry world beyond the present one? Hmmm.
Windsor Road, with its distinctive steepness and stepped houses, has featured on here before — twice in fact — but not quite as pleasingly as today, thanks to another thin layer of snow in the morning. Third time can be the charm, then.
This picture is out of focus, yes — but it is as good a portrait as I can offer of this particular friend, on this day. I have had a run of portraits recently, but the weather is so crappy outside that it seems best to concentrate on things close to hand.
The first snow I’ve seen anywhere since 1st February last year, and that didn’t make the blog, so today’s shot is the first white stuff to be depicted since 22/1/19. And, as on that day, this covering was ephemeral. By mid-afternoon, all was gone — possibly for another year? I suspect not; since my ‘first day of spring’ moment on the 1st in Bucharest, February has deteriorated considerably.
