The extension, to the left of this shot, is now clad and glazed and presumably will start being decorated inside sometime soon. At this time in the morning the sun shines rather well down the narrow channel that has been left between it and the main, Victorian mill building to the right. (Notice also the red van that has snuck into the top of the shot, an indication of the sometimes surreal configuration of the streets and buildings in this town.)
This is the ruined West Pier’s second appearance on the blog, the first — accompanied by a huge flock of starlings — being way back on Day 72. Earlier this year it lost another chunk of ironwork to the winter storms, although that damage is not really visible on this shot. The photo also proves that it was a glorious morning on the south coast today — rather nicer than the foul wind and rain back in the north when I got home tonight, I can tell you (grumble).
I had a range of pictures to choose from today but rejected the St. Patrick’s Day theme (no decent pub pics and I did that one last year in Brisbane) and more ‘signs of spring’ options, in favour of this shot. I doubt Reyner Street is depicted on prominent type on even the largest-scale maps of Manchester city centre, and is half-choked by scaffolding, but you have to therefore admire the conscientiousness of the road sweeper for doing its duty on a grey and fairly chilly Monday morning.
The signboard puts me in mind that these two are Withnail and I on their 40-year reunion trip, returning to where they demanded cake, and fine wine, the finest wines available to humanity.
It was actually another beautiful day today but I saw nothing of this; due to my wanderings yesterday I really needed to get down to do some work today so never left home. So here is that old staple, the view from my house, over Hebden Bridge. The sun did not burn through this mist until well into the morning.
Sometimes there just isn’t the chance to take many photos. Today was Joe’s birthday party, though not his birthday precisely, that comes next week. We had a gaggle of 10- and 11-year-old boys round at ours for lunch then took them to the cinema (to see Mr Peabody and Sherman), here is the moment at which they launched themselves for the entrance, and one of the few at could deal with photography rather than general mayhem-avoidance and catering.
OK, so I know it’s a bit weird to take pictures of other people’s laundry. But it’s not like I climbed over anyone’s garden fence to do it.
This house sits to the left of the bridge over the Rochdale Canal on the way to Hebden Bridge station and is becoming the most-photographed exterior of any building on this blog, including my own house (which frequently gets in as an interior, but not exterior). There are reasons for this — on any given sunny morning it looks great. Having these guys climbing up onto it today was just a bonus.
A day working at home. The turf roof that has been promised for the Nutclough Mill extension has moved a step closer, it seems, with the delivery of a whole bunch of stones (in bags here) that presumably will form the ‘bedrock’.
I have been doing this blog for 30 months today — that is, exactly two-and-a-half years.
Monday is a regular Manchester day in term-time. Some more random campus architecture then. The Sackville building was part of UMIST until that institution was eaten up by the University of Manchester in 2004. Not for much longer though — I believe the basic plan is to sell it off fairly soon (it’s been gradually emptied over the last few years) and in the near future will probably become luxury apartments with a bar on the ground floor that prices its drinks at a level designed to ensure the plebs don’t get in.
Being 42 