Friday 28th December 2012, 4.05pm (day 491)
Well, that’s what we call them isn’t it, even when the smallest independent retailer leaps in well before January to bring us the bargains. Actually I suspect it has always been that way.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Urban scene
Hebden Water, late December morning
Thursday 27th December 2012, 10.35am (day 490)
An early post, but there won’t be any more photos taken today – felt ill this morning, went on a walk to try to blow it out, but it didn’t work so I’ve been in bed all afternoon. If I stay here tomorrow, that could be a photographic challenge. Anyway, this is the path down by the Hebden Water, as it comes into town at the bottom of Spring Grove.
Thursday market, Hebden Bridge
Thursday 20th December 2012, 9.00am (day 483)
A regular Thursday scene in Hebden Bridge, but not previously depicted on the blog. The fish van is a welcome visitor – he’s having a quiet day here, there is usually a considerable queue. Mind you, it was chucking it down with rain this morning.
Industrial building, Hebden Bridge
Wednesday 19th December 2012, 5.05pm (day 482)
We are at the low time of the year: no light, and I’m largely working at home, recovering as best I can from the exertions of the last semester but not yet ready to call it Christmas. Not much to take pictures of then: except dimly-lit attempts to capture the atmosphere of my home town in one of my rare ventures outside.
Still dark at Victoria Station
Monday 17th December 2012, 7.45am (day 480)
Bloody hell, roll on the solstice – all the way into Manchester on the early morning cattle truck and it doesn’t even have the decency to be starting to get light by the time I arrive. Today was probably my most daylight-free day of the winter so far. The one consolation – I will have no more Monday mornings like this for months now.
Oxford Road
Monday 10th December 2012, 9.20am (day 473)
At least, after the crappy event of yesterday (the loss of my personal diary), and the tiring nature of this passage of time – which I’m only halfway through – today had the decency to be a truly glorious day. Even Oxford Road looked spectacular on this last Monday morning of the teaching term. Note the large crowd in the background – the queue for the first graduation ceremony of the season.
Mad Georgian Restaurant
Sunday 9th December 2012, 11.10am (day 472)
This place is located near the Arbat in Moscow. I have eaten here once in the past and the food is very good, they do say that the Georgians do the best cuisine of all the former Soviet republics. What is more apparent about the place is the crazy nature of the building, it’s impossible to capture in one shot, really, but the fact that you enter it through a gigantic clay urn gives you some sense of what we’re talking about here. Inside it is full of bridges and little cubbyholes, it’s very surreal.
Last day in Moscow, and I won’t now be back until June. Unfortunately I have also to report the loss of my personal diary, the whole of 2012 disappeared last night somewhere in Domodedovo airport. I have kept a diary for 29 years now; but the year’s just gone. I have been trying to track it down, to see if anyone might have handed it in (as it can have no value to anyone else other than me – for whom it is irreplaceable), but no luck.
Working in the river
Tuesday 4th December 2012, 9.45am (day 467)
This has been going on down by the weir for a few weeks – work being done to install a water turbine to power the nearby shops in the old mill. A highly positive step that surely only the most reactionary old duffer could object to (but we have some of those, round here, believe me). The cloud on this shot has been caused a few seconds earlier by the guy in the yellow jacket wielding his angle-grinder.
Moscow again tomorrow… By the way, don’t ask me why I suddenly decided to start putting the day number at the top – but I have. So now you can see how long I have been going on this. (I retrospectively added the day number to earlier posts.)
Figure at the window
Saturday 1st December 2012, 12.40pm (day 464)
Is there a voyeuristic aspect to this shot? I like the light, the pattern of the branches contrasted with the brick, the facelessness of it.
Valley of Lights parade, Hebden Bridge
Thursday 29th November 2012, 6.00pm (day 462)
Back home. It was a beautiful, crisp winter’s day and I got some good pictures around lunchtime, one of which I was particularly keen on, but it was of waterfowl on the canal and I’ve done that theme rather a lot. This one was different – a family captured watching the ‘Valley of Lights’ parade through town tonight, a torchlit procession done to celebrate the turning on of the Christmas lights (at an acceptably late point in the year). A good evening.
Being 42 