It’s been raining since about Friday morning, though did stop in the afternoon — a good thing seeing as the river was rising. Drove one representative of the local Muscovy duck colony off the water anyway; not that things were much less damp in town for it.
Off to Japan tomorrow. Forgive me if updates don’t arrive daily, at least for the next few days. There will be plenty to see I’m sure.
This alley heads off Cross Street in Manchester and then ends after about twenty metres in the blank white wall of the building you see ahead. That building must have been built quite a while ago now, like in the 1970s at the latest. No car or other vehicle has come down this street in a long time. And as the double yellow lines imply, you aren’t supposed to even use this as a lay-by.
So why the arrow? Why a nice, bright, reasonably freshly painted ‘turn right’ sign (when Cross Street isn’t even one-way)? Answers on a postcard to Manchester City Council please.
Not the most exciting photo either but at least it indicates I had schlepped my way down to campus for the first time since March 2nd. Which, like most of Manchester has been throughout the whole lifetime of this blog, is being rebuilt — here, the Business School, part of the whole ‘campus masterplan’ that will turn us into some world-leading something-or-other, if the money doesn’t run out first, anyway.
Back home — for a few days anyway, before my next trip out. I have said it before, and doubtless will say it again, that I like both travelling and coming home; being at home, and travelling. May this pattern of life continue. The structure in the background is the bridge built around 1510 that gives this town its name. The man is paying tribute to the ducks, I think, with offerings of food. The girl is just chilling out.
Tromsø is the world’s northernmost city, with 75,000 inhabitants, give or take, and has many of the world’s northernmost something-or-others, such as its northernmost professional football team, cathedral, mosque, Burger King and (the reason why I am here) university. At around 69º 40′ N it is comfortably the northernmost place I have ever been (though as I’m going on a tour tomorrow that will probably be beaten). This view over the harbour takes in the Ishavskatedral — the pointy thing to the left, in the background — and the mountain of Tromsdalstind, lit by the setting sun. Nice place…. I saw the Northern Lights tonight as well but no chance of capturing a photo of it, maybe next time though.
An ‘installation’, I guess you’d call this, on campus at the moment…. Probably a huge amount of sociological analysis to be done here.
And how would I answer this question? Well, my bucket list is actually getting a few things ticked off it this year, if all works out (e.g. Japan, midnight sun, eclipse), so maybe I should think of some new ones. Or be all Zen about it, accept that my life could end at any time, and just take what’s coming — while continuing to faithfully record it of course.
March 2017 is scheduled to be an eventful month for me: by the time it ends I will have gone to both Japan and the Arctic (north Norway), so there’ll hopefully be plenty of photographic inspiration. It didn’t start eventfully however — a quiet day working at home. The market in Hebden Bridge runs on Wednesdays and Thursdays, here the stalls have been cleared but remain up in readiness for tomorrow. Plenty of good lines on this shot — which may or may not be perpendicular to each other.
Here we are in Brighton — big football match to go to tomorrow and, oh yeah, Clare’s annual jog up and down the sea front in the Brighton half marathon. Nice to get down to the south coast before the sun went down today. Here’s to a good weekend…. the anticipation of which is somehow epitomised in this photo for me.
As of a couple of years ago our Meteorological Office started naming our winter storms in accordance with the convention for hurricanes, cyclones etc. — it’s more media-friendly, you can tweet about #StormDoris which is the one which apparently hit the UK today. I don’t personally know anyone called Doris, but I have gone off the name after today — however, we could of course have Storm Drew at this time next year.
Being 42 