And still it rains, seemingly without end. The water race at the end of the old millpond in the woods is only rarely filled, and when it is it’s a sign we are once again in the ‘cross fingers and hope’ approach to flood defence. But the town stayed above water — today at least.
Umbra in Latin means ‘shade’, a sign that the umbrella was originally designed to protect against the sun. But this was not the application required in Hebden Bridge this afternoon. I believe this outrage against good weather can officially be termed ‘Storm Dudley’.
There have been a few of these down the years. If the owner — or the parent of the owner — wants to retrieve it, it’s up in Nutclough Woods, near the water race. Though it’s always puzzled me how someone can just lose one boot or shoe, at least, when one is out and about.
Evening on Hebden Bridge station, platform 1. But am I leaving town, or coming back? That’s for me to know. Perhaps it is all the same thing in the end.
I return here to a theme developed on Friday, but bear with me, it’s not an exciting time. Here we see the cones shamelessly deployed to ensure Sgt Cawood of Happy Valley always gets a parking space outside her house. I did wonder if they needed an extra for the role of “man with long coat and Brighton & Hove Albion shopping bag” but I don’t think that would have fitted the Yorkshire ambience, necessarily.
The Sunday market in Hebden Bridge is a significant contributor to the fact that Sundays are probably the busiest day in town, at least, when it’s not raining. There are some varied combinations possible — like here, Italian food and the dog-related stall next door to one another.
Those of you who enjoyed the previous two series of Happy Valley (and the first, at least, was excellent), be assured that a third series is on the way; no one in Hebden Bridge could have failed to appreciate this today.
One of the things that was good about the series was that it was all filmed on location in Calderdale, and extremely authentic: people used the right local names for things, for example (like calling Todmorden “Tod”, which everyone does). As this light was shining up Hangingroyd Lane this afternoon I assume that Sgt. Cawood is still going to be depicted as living at no. 29, so probably the one little bit of fiction will be retained — in the series, she can always get a parking space right outside her house, in the centre of town. Yeah…. right.
The evenings obviously get lighter through January — though it takes a while for the mornings to catch up. The moon is on the wax at the moment, Boris Johnson is an idiot (just thought I’d mention that) and the weekend is here.
I didn’t even take my first photo of the day until after 7pm — at some point in the future I may just forget altogether, or at least, leave it too late to get anything usable. But this one is OK. It’s a quiet time, this seems to reflect that.
As seen at one end of the old bridge for which Hebden Bridge is named. I could leave this enigmatic image to stand alone, uncommented, but let me at least point out that this is a mannequin, not a real person.
Being 42 