A quick return to the same point in space as depicted last Thursday, but now from the other direction. One of the two guys who’ve recently been scrambling about on our roof, fifty feet up — I hope to all hell that I never have to get on it — waves his arse into our bedroom window. But such behaviour can be excused, seeing as the guttering’s finally being sorted out.
Hardly the most sumptuous shot. photographically, but it suffices to represent a day spent entirely in the local vicinity. It’s getting lighter in the evenings, as it always will at this time of year, but not yet past 6pm.
Scaffolding: it’s everywhere. Just as you think it might be diminishing its spread, you look away for a moment and then it’s right on top of you. Literally, for us this morning, and for however long it takes some guys to use it to fix our leaky roof.
Definitely the first full cherry blossom sighting of the year, sprouting in the nicely sheltered urban heat reservoir that is Sackville Gardens, Manchester. Dr. Turing’s statue looks rather content to be there, as it usually does.
The first shot taken in Hebden Bridge since 25th January. It’s nice to travel, but it is also nice to come home. Even if the weather while I was away was wintrier here than in Canada — this much is obvious.
You realise I haven’t actually done much while I’ve been here in Toronto, right? I mean, in a non-work sense. The various urban scenes from the city reflect this, all taken within walking distance of both my hotel and the building at the University of Toronto where I have been working. It’s quite an attractive city, if a bit generic, which is why so many movies are filmed here as its streets can substitute quite adequately for those of New York. The weather continues very pleasant.
One thing I noticed when I was last in Toronto was that the city has some very good — and very large — murals. This one is on the corner of Jarvis and Carlton Streets. Yes, the telephone wires are a little annoying but this was my best effort at capturing it.
Toronto seems one of the most civilised places I have ever been, but if it has a seedy underbelly, Dundas Square is probably it. Just these two blocks: nothing too vulgar, you know, like those USAnians do.
It’s not that cold here, in fact local contacts are talking about it being ‘very nice’: which is their interpretation of rather grey, still weather and a temperature of about 2-3ºC. Fair enough I suppose — a fornight ago it was apparently below -20º with wind-chill. This ice track is artificially maintained; it just goes round and round in a circle, it would seem more fun to me if they ran it through the city streets like an alternative bus lane.
I wouldn’t want to come here in the wind and rain but on a glorious, sunny Sunday morning — which today was — I could not think of much better to do in London than revisit Hackney Marshes. It’s an evocative sight as you come over the bridge at the north end and see this view. The place is so big it’s still about 20 minutes’ walking from here to the other end.
