I still have one walk left to do in my Lake District project and today might have been a day to go — but no. Good weather in 2024 has been at a premium. And so, that particular milestone will have to wait another three weeks at least.
Staying over in the Premier Inn after last night’s gig provides the opportunity to observe the morning traffic on the Mancunian Way from fifteen floors up. Heading west seems to be the route of choice, but the one car going east has the preferable journey at the moment, if you ask me.
Having not been to campus since 5th April I decided I should show my face. Duly did so, and now won’t be back there until, probably, 26th June. Well, I am on study leave. Two things have emerged since my last visit: first, all the leaves on the trees, second, the encampment raised in protest against what is happening in Gaza. I assume the leaves will still be there in June. The tents, who knows?
I was supposed to be flying out of St Helena today, but I, and the, roughly, 75 other people due to make this trip have been obliged to stay there for another 24 hours thanks to the fierce and gusty winds which were blowing over the island, despite it being otherwise a nice, sunny and quite warm day. Of the six flights I have now made to and from St Helena, two of them have been so delayed. Well, never mind, there are worse places to wait it out. The anemometer was spotted above the Castle in Jamestown, and seemed appropriate. The wonkiness of the background is not my error: much of St Helena actually does look so non-perpendicular.
A few days to go on this trip to St Helena and work has definitely been keeping me busy. On the opposite side of the street I was sat there at just past clocking-off time, feeling very much like these guys. Yes, the butt bin to the right annoys me. But only slightly.
Jamestown isn’t usually the most rocking capital city on the planet — then again, neither was my last one, Windhoek, and Jamestown may well be the more lively of the two on a Saturday night. But not on a calm Monday evening. The lights climbing to the left are those of Jacob’s Ladder. Above, the moon.
Depending on how I count the days in transit, today could be reckoned the 50th day I have spent on St Helena across my three trips — and it was, certainly, the one with the worst weather. Jamestown, on average, gets 9-10mm of rain in the month of May, yet at least that amount fell today. It started overnight, and this morning there was already a dirty brown stream running down Main Street and debouching into the sea. It carried on, too, heavy showers every few minutes all day, really quite foul weather. And at points up in the hills, correspondents reckon there might have been some 100mm (4 inches) of rain through the day. Not normal…
Telecommunications is why I have been coming to St Helena these last few years. To the left of this sign, down in the valley of Rupert’s Bay, the Equiano undersea cable now makes landfall on this little island in the middle of the South Atlantic. But it’s not like this is the first time ever that St Helena has been connected to the global network. This sign was made to be visible to ships approaching Jamestown and while I’m not sure about the exact missing words it’s basically a warning not to land or drop anchor east of this point because of the old telegraph cable that also made landfall at Rupert’s. When the Boer War broke out in 1899, within six weeks this cable was laid to connect the island to Cape Town. This compares highly favourably with the (at least) seven years that it took from the original application for the Equiano funding, to its half-hearted activation in October last year — giving the truth to the joke (made by an MP in Westminster in 1994, though he might have been quoting) that ‘The big tragedy of St Helena is that no one wants to invade it: if they did I am sure that overnight there would be much better ways of communicating with it’. And doubtless he was right.
Very little happens in Windhoek on a Sunday, except some football, which is where I went. But enough pictures of football get on here, so I will spare you that. The stadium was on the edge of town, and in anticipation of the long queues which formed for the single ticket booth (behind me as I took this), these guys were opportunistically setting up before the match — and why not, I bought a beer from them, certainly. The landscape seems typical of the surroundings of the capital.
A weekend spent in Windhoek to transition to this new country (the 49th different one I have ever visited, incidentally). Had I known this was possibly the world’s most low-key capital city, particularly on a weekend, I might have replanned slightly, but I’m not complaining. The best lunches in town seemed to be available at the Namibia Craft Centre on Tal Street (recommendation…) and you can also look at some decent artwork, and buy some rails, if you really want.
Being 42 