Friday 3rd September 2021, 5.15pm (day 3,662)
It’s not been the most dynamic week, though work was done. Time to pack up and look forward to the weekend.
End of the week
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Urban scene
Potatoe insult
Thursday 2nd September 2021, 1.35pm (day 3,661)
There are so many questions begged by this corner of Calder Holmes Park that I don’t even know where to start. Who is ‘Bird’? Why is s/he called that? Is the superhero graffito connected in any way? What have they done to deserve being called a ‘potatoe’ and has Dan Quayle been involved?
Back to work
Tuesday 31st August 2021, 10.35am (day 3,659)
This is a very boring photo. In that respect it epitomises my day perfectly. The title of the post says it all.
The Pride of the Gotham Hotel
Saturday 28th August 2021, 12.50pm (day 3,656)
Passed through Manchester city centre this afternoon. Somewhere over there –> the annual Pride festival was taking place, but this is as near as I got to it, so let me pay homage by depicting this well-adorned statue outside the uber-hip Gotham Hotel.
Contemplation (10 years on)
Wednesday 25th August 2021, 8.20am (day 3,653)
I started this blog on 26th August 2011, ten full years ago. Since then I have become ten years older, greyer, stouter. I do not pass judgment on whether I am wiser by a decade; only that the last 18 months have made me more cynical. This morning, our last in Hastings, I sat on the shingle beneath Hastings Pier and, like this couple, contemplated the sea on a warm and pleasant morning.
And the next ten years? If you’re still interested, follow along.
Life as a roller coaster
Tuesday 24th August 2021, 5.50pm (day 3,652)
The roller coaster as symbolic of the seaside holiday. The roller coaster as a metaphor for life; are we on the upslope or heading down?
Joe visits Manchester
Wednesday 18th August 2021, 11.10am (day 3,646)
Three weeks and two days until Joe goes off to university, the psychological implications of which (for us all) remain unexplored. But at least we can get the logistics prepared, so he accompanied me to Manchester today to pick up practical stuff, plates, cutlery, you know, things that mean he won’t have to eat off the floor. Will this be the last shot of him in this particular city? Impossible to say what the future will bring.
The condiments are ready
Wednesday 11th August 2021, 9.55am (day 3,639)
They start serving early at the Old Gate pub/restaurant in town. The condiments are set and prepared even before 10am. Off they stretch into the distance, like little table-set skyscrapers.
The Goole giraffe
Saturday 7th August 2021, 12.55pm (day 3,635)
Taking photos for its own sake means that almost anywhere becomes interesting on a first visit. When the destination is a landscape of industrial decline, on the scale of this one — the town of Goole, in East Yorkshire — there’s enough to keep me going for the whole day, and it’s a shame, in this case, that I just restrict myself to one photo per post. This is my choice — the first giraffe to appear on here? Well, it looks like that to me.
Windsor Road, Hebden Bridge
Friday 6th August 2021, 6.20pm (day 3,634)
Most of Hebden Bridge, as it stands today, was built between about 1850 and 1900. This gives it a uniformity of appearance that is part of its appeal. But add to that the creative solutions that the architects and builders adopted in order to cope with the place’s steep topography, and sometimes, there is real beauty to it. I love Windsor Road, seen here — it’s just so regular in its steps up the hill. How precisely are these houses placed in relation to one another. Could you do this? I couldn’t even think about how to start on such a project.
