Another early morning in Manchester. The difference in the light, bearing in mind the 45 minute gap from the time of Friday’s shot, shows the current clocking on time for the sun. I love the details on this shot, the graffiti and the print.
I know this is a lousy picture. I’m sorry. It’s a lousy picture to have been in a position to take, too. All previous eulogies to the good weather of 2020 were decisively blown away overnight and this morning by Storm Ciara, a vicious little wannabe hurricane that blasted in, savagely dumped its load on Hebden Bridge and left the town, for the fourth time in the last eight years, under a layer of water [*]. I could have gone outside and taken pictures of the flooding but if you’ll forgive me, the prospect was too depressing. If I abrogate my duty as some kind of social commentator by doing so, my apologies — the vultures in their TV vans will doubtless be supplying the world with pictures of it all soon enough; while evading the real issues and reasons behind flooding, which are (around here anyway) to do with inequalities of power and status. And yet people vote Conservative, over and over again.
[*] The three previous occasions in the lifetime of this blog were 22/6/12 — 9/7/12 — and 26/12/15.
2020 has contained many things to complain about thus far, at least in the wider world, but the weather has not been amongst them. Perhaps it does foretell the melting of the world’s ecosystems somehow but believe me, it could be a lot worse. And time for the annual appearance of the Chinese lanterns on the blog, too.
Was obliged to visit a place I had not set foot in since 20th January, namely campus. This mural is a relatively new addition to the landscape along the way. Very Manchester, old and new.
The world turns, the sun shifts a little in the sky each day, and so slowly, light comes back into the mornings. It is only at this time of year that it starts to rise enough above the hill to the east that we start to see it again at the front of the house. Though for now, only the doorstep, and then only for five minutes in the morning; it’ll be a couple more weeks before it deigns to start shining inside.
London approaches its century of appearances on the blog: this is number 91, and going on my usual frequency of visits here, it’ll hit the milestone before 2020 is out. Tonight I’m just passing through, but it has made for a more leisurely journey than if I’d started from home tomorrow. And yes — the various signs and stickers on that fire exit over there do annoy me.
A brief interlude at home in Hebden, between trips. It still refuses to get particularly wintry. I have always liked this garden, passed on the way to the shops from our house: it is past due an appearance here. Today it can have its moment.
The blog’s first trip to Northern Ireland, and only my third. Has it been as wet as this neon display suggests? No — or not yet, anyway.
One of those days that was spent sat at home, marking. On such days, photographically, I’m glad my house has a view. It’s been a mild winter thus far, which doubtless some will attribute to climate change but frankly I think Britain always does have these, every few years: the last really mild one was 2013-14. But then again maybe some east wind will cover us in snow in March, as happened in 2018….
Abingdon Street is one of the keys to making my walk between Victoria station and my office as peaceful and traffic-free as is possible. In summer 2018 it was closed off, to allow for the building of the latest boutique hotel that Manchester city centre doesn’t need. This annoyed me so much that I specifically moaned about it, twice, in the manuscript of the book I wrote on sabbatical last year (due out in March, apparently). However, last week it looked as if preparations were being made for its reopening and today I got to walk the length of it again for the first time in 18 months. Thankfully, despite the concrete carbuncle now stood at one end, it remains as peaceful and traffic-free as before. Welcome back. These are the little things that matter, sometimes.
Not that I’ll be using it again for a couple of weeks — I’m not back in Manchester for work for a fortnight.
Being 42 