Spring is hardly barrelling in with both guns blazing but there are hints of it here and there in Hebden Bridge…. Last day of my Easter break today, one of the most uneventful in history, but in terms of relaxation it cannot be faulted. Back to work tomorrow though (but then don’t expect a great deal more eventfulness then, either).
I am off work, but this is in no way the most eventful Easter break of my life. Nor the least chilly. Both facts lead to today’s photo being evidence of the fire being lit in the house across the road today — at lunchtime.
The Shoulder of Mutton in remains closed, as do about half the pubs in Hebden Bridge town centre. This guy looks mildly distressed by this fact, or possibly he’s decided that it’s really time he found a hobby other than skateboarding (I assume the board on the table next to him is significant).
I swear Hebden Bridge was hit by a mini-tornado at about 4.45pm. If it was just a ‘squall’ I’ve never seen one like that before, not in this country anyway. Wicked winds for a sudden two minutes, enough to shuffle parked cars visibly along the street and it looks like it might have caused a car crash just out of town, near the station. Clare and I were out in it; a slightly scary but also exhilarating experience in a way….
The Pace Egg play is performed at various locations around Hebden Bridge each Good Friday. St. George defeats all challengers, there is death, rebirth, all that jazz. It dates back hundreds of years — ‘Pace’ comes from the Old English word for Easter. A troupe of actors perform it at Hepstonstall each year, and then this group from Calder High (Joe’s school) tour it round the villages with the help of a non-medieval blue van. I caught this performance in Luddenden in this Good Friday’s pleasant weather.
It’s been a VERY uneventful few days. At least this guy gave me something unusual to depict; the Boxing Day floods have provoked some vague dredging of the Hebden Water. Dredging is fine, but it just pushes the flooding downstream; what one really needs is attention to how fast the rainwater falls off the watershed, prompting (ideally) the planting of trees and the development of other facilities that keep the water uphill rather than pushing it down the valleys, only that doesn’t meet the needs of rich landowners.
Windsor Road, Hebden Bridge. This is fairly typical for round here. I like the way the colours of the window frames change from house to house, and also from the top floors to the bottom — for these will all be two separate houses, one on top and one underneath.
Well… there’s blossom. You can see it. But that’s the bloody British weather for you. The snow was all gone by lunchtime.
Still, I am not complaining about this photographically. This is the first picture I’ve taken in ages that I really like: one where I knew as soon as I pressed the shutter that it would be today’s pick.
Still occasionally to be seen on small, provincial British railways. This monster bombed through Hebden Bridge station slightly in advance of the 8:05 to Manchester, headed for unknown places.
Limited horizons today, and don’t expect much else to change over the next couple of days either. It’s marking season. And the weather continues revolting — this is as good as the day got. There have been about half a dozen sunny days in three months, if that.
Being 42 