Monday 22nd September 2025, 5.15pm (day 5,142)
“Who’s this guy then?”
“No idea. Another tourist with a thing for pigeons I suppose. Like London’s the only place that has them.”
“Pervert. Perhaps if I scowl at him he’ll go away.”
Pigeon parade
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Sir Nigel Gresley (without mallard)
Sunday 21st September 2025, 1.15pm (day 5,141)
On my regular visits to London I have been walking past this statuesque chap since 2016. The sculpture is of Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of the famous Mallard locomotive, which still holds the speed record for a steam locomotive. The statue is about 7 feet high — Sir Nigel wasn’t, though. Apparently, the design was to have originally featured a duck (that is, a mallard) as well as Sir Nige, but this was left off in the end, after, and I quote the Guardian (via Wikipedia) here; “possibly the most acrimonious argument in the long, pedantic history of the railway hobbyist”.
Cougar Park gates
Saturday 20th September 2025, 4.00pm (day 5,140)
I pick this shot for the colour palette mainly — the blue of of his jacket works very well. It is taken from inside the ground, as the reversal of the lettering makes evident. As you can also see — it is raining, a lot. But the game behind me did manage to reach a conclusion. Nothing to do with Keighley Cougars, a rugby league club (you have never seen rugby league depicted on here, and unless I radically change in my remaining years, you never will) — the owners of that club decided they fancied a football team as well so simply bought one, Eccleshill United of Bradford, and teleported them here for as long as they feel like dabbling in another mode of football.
Fruit: the last phase
Friday 19th September 2025, 1.55pm (day 5,139)
Two decades of working the allotment has proven that fruit is so much easier to handle than vegetables. The plums and the various berries (black, blue, josta, logan) have all been and gone. But here is just a small portion of the last crop of the year. Anyone want some apples? We will have too many.
Veterans on parade
Thursday 18th September 2025, 4.10pm (day 5,138)
Whatever event was going on in Hebden Bridge Town Hall this afternoon it involved a few dozen identically-dressed elderly gentlemen, weighed down with various medals. By no means all of them had their mobility scooters, but quite a few of them did. Well, good luck to them. I use the shot because I am reminded of the cover of the Dead Kennedy’s Frankenchrist album — it is not to mock.
Pipework in Manchester alley
Wednesday 17th September 2025, 3.40pm (day 5,137)
I don’t often present the shots in portrait orientation but it seems appropriate today, as the verticals are what matter here. Taken in Manchester, but don’t get used to it — even with the new term coming up. Campus will be about a hundred times busier next week than it was today, but that’s OK, because I’m not going to be there.
Smug heron
Tuesday 16th September 2025, 3.40pm (day 5,136)
Photographically, today was definitely a ‘give thanks to the heron’ day. Had I left the house 30 seconds earlier, you might well have seen the reason for its somewhat smug look, seeing as it has just guzzled a fish almost as long as its throat: I did get a shot of the kill but it was on such a long zoom (and in the same gloomy light as all other shots in the last few days) that the quality is very poor. Take my word for it, though: this is a heron that dined well this afternoon.
Rainy Monday
Monday 15th September 2025, 8.20am (day 5,135)
Some might say we haven’t had enough rain in 2025 and probably they have a point, but there’s been quite a bit lately, and today it was obvious even at 8.20am that there was going to be plenty more. So profoundly uneventful was today that this is basically the same shot as on last Monday — only without the boots and with more water outside. But I had work to do, so what the hell.
Two points at cribbage
Sunday 14th September 2025, 2.15pm (day 5,134)
Post-Sunday lunch card gaming. Clare demanded to play cribbage for the first time in a long while. Only the Brighton & Hove Albion cards could be found. Didn’t faze her – she won 2-1.
Storm at Solihull Moors
Saturday 13th September 2025, 2.40pm (day 5,133)
This shot somewhat misrepresents the day’s weather, as for most of my time in Solihull today (near Birmingham, and making its debut on the blog) I walked and sat in quite pleasant sunshine. But not from between about 2.30 – 2.50pm. And the seats for the match to come were not under cover. Fortunately, it stopped, and two other big fat thunderheads that looked like they were later coming in also passed us by.
Being 42 