Saturday 4th January 2020, 1.35pm (day 3,054)
One of those shots where it is very tough to get every perpendicular and parallel JUST so… but I gave it a go.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Urban scene
I’m content, duck
Friday 3rd January 2019, 11.45am (day 3,053)
This duck looks contented enough to me. I swear that is a smile at the corner of its bill. Mind you, one thing to not complain about in 2020 thus far is the weather, and today was another very pleasant day. I like this picture because of the very limited pallette — it’s strictly brown, maybe a bit of grey — but still interesting.
The cellarman ponders
Monday 30th December 2019, 4.20pm (day 3,049)
Not the greatest photograph I know, but the year isn’t ending very excitingly. Nor can I raise a great deal of enthusiasm for the prospect of 2020, a year whose number bounces pleasantly off the tongue and once seemed fabulous and futuristic in the anticipation, but now promises stagnancy and a sort of darkness. I will do my best to keep documenting it (or my little part of it anyway) but there wasn’t much to see today.
Heptonstall Road, Christmas Day
Wednesday 25th December 2019, 1.05pm (day 3,044)
This is the blog’s ninth Christmas Day, golly. It’s nice to get out and take the air on these days if the weather allows, and, counting back, four of these 25th Decembers have been marked with shots of the outside world and not just some poultry remnants. This shot is taken pretty close to that on 25/12/12, looking west from Sandy Lane, above the Nutclough Woods and towards one of my home town’s unusual architectural sites. Happy Christmas to you all, whether you celebrated it, however you spent it.
Sunday before Christmas
Sunday 22nd December 2019, 4.45pm (day 3,041)
‘Tis the Sunday before Christmas, and by now it is obligatory for every commercial establishment to have decorated somehow. But so be it — our decorations are up at home as well.
Campus morning (last of 2019)
Thursday 19th December 2019, 9.15am (day 3,038)
I don’t mind campus as such. But the process of getting to and from it is becoming a real trial, thanks entirely to the ineptitudes of Northern Rail over the last two years (if you haven’t had the pleasure, lucky you). So I am glad that today marked my last day there in 2019. And yes, my journey home was a screw-up.
Rooves of home
Sunday 15th December 2019, 1.40pm (day 3,034)
Less of a bleak theme today, and look, is that even sunshine making an appearance to top right? Time to spend some time at home, refamiliarise myself with its facilities and appeal.
Mid-December playground
Saturday 14th December 2019, 12.40pm (day 3,033)
Grim and bleak seem to have been themes for a few days now, and with this particular mid-December being even grimmer and bleaker than is normal for the time of year, the theme is likely to continue. Is Limeside Park in Oldham a more welcoming place on a sunny day in May? Of course it is, but then again, so is everywhere.
Election Day in Newport
Thursday 12th December 2019, 11.35am (day 3,031)
As I type this there are 23 minutes left of voting in the third General Election day to feature on this blog. On all of them I have been away from home — I was in Dundee in May 2015 and Siberia just over two years later in June 2017. I had to get out from the conference venue today, there was no way I could stay in the antiseptic air-con of the Celtic Manor all day. But the prospects offered by Newport and the River Usk were grim. A dark day. If you see anything about today as heralding a bright shining future of some kind, I admire your optimism.
Chimneys on the graduation marquee
Monday 9th December 2019, 10.55am (day 3,028)
I made it onto campus today, at least. I like this shot of the ventilation chimneys outside the tents set up to suppor this week’s graduation ceremonies; look at the top-right third of the shot and see how it is disorted by the heat coming out of the main stack.
Being 42 