Another depressing day of rain. I’m glad I’m off out of here on Thursday, yet it looks like I am going to miss out on spring entirely, as it certainly hasn’t started here yet. At least my penultimate evening at home was clear: good enough to see Jupiter, anyway, which pops into the shot to the right of the mill tower. But it seems it won’t last.
The sun still seems uninterested in putting in an appearance, and this picture seems to epitomise the general colouring of the UK at this time. Manchester did get a bit more interesting for me later, but that still doesn’t mean it became sunny.
I was in Leeds this evening. I realised tonight that it is now more than 30 years since I first came to live in Leeds in September 1993. The first year wasn’t great, to be honest, although it did get better. For the first couple of weeks I crashed in Harehills, close to where this picture was taken, and 30 years ago there were at least three pubs in the vicinity: now there are none. Everything seems to be a take-away or fast food joint of some description, they number in the dozens round here. And I suppose it is companies like Just Eat that drive this growth. You no longer have to come to the food, the food comes to you. I do not censure, but guys, one piece of advice — please stop at red lights, particularly when there are pedestrians around.
Whether this lantern ever produces light, I know not, but it looks quite good with the houses of Birchcliffe behind, and this is one of those shots that almost sits in its own frame. This will be an uneventful couple of weeks, but interest will pick up again in April, rest assured.
The orange-and-black colour scheme illustrates that we spent the afternoon at Tannadice Park, home of Dundee United FC — whose record against Barcelona is played four, won four, by the way. Labouring somewhat against Inverness Caledonian Thistle (it was 1-1) did not seem to please the locals particularly. At least the sun was shining. Meanwhile, I noticed the cranes of the shipyard behind and decided to see what I could do with the camera.
The building at which these guys are arriving — Nutclough Mill — now makes audio equipment instead of fustian cloth, but I guess this scene would have appeared much the same if seen from my house 130 years ago. The cobbles won’t have changed at all. You must promise not to notice the telephone wire though.
I assume the visual pun is deliberate. Is that Minnie Mouse, or her male counterpart? I think Minnie. Either way, the first mouse to appear on here in 12+ years…. kinda. Taken through the window of one or other of Hebden Bridge’s innumerable cafés, I forget which one this is exactly. Perhaps it would have been nice to have not had the reflections, but it is what it is.
I know this blog has had its banal moments over the last 12.6 years but depicting the weekly supermarket shop is pushing the boundaries. Yet it was (mildly) interesting today if only because it took place in a different venue from normal, for the convenience on the day: and the trolley park caught my eye. I like the deep blue colours that contrast the dominant greyness. But is it exciting? No, that I am not claiming.
Amongst other things that 2024 has lacked (like, my teaching, a ceasefire), I do not yet recall one of those ‘first day of spring’ moments: the kind of day, in England anyway, where it suddenly warms up, the sun starts shining and everything goes, ‘Hello….’. If it has already happened, I missed it. And 12/3/24 wasn’t it either.
Ebrington is a former British Army barracks sited above Derry: the big flat space you see here would presumably have been the parade ground. Not so much a case of swords into ploughshares, but more, swords into luxury hotels-with-spas, artisan craft beer shops and restaurants. But it does retain a good (strategic) view of the city. And it’s a good spot to learn to ride a bike. (The ‘X’ is the Peace Bridge, which featured, along with the also-prominent Guildhall, back in August ’22.)
Being 42 