After getting out and about yesterday, I kept closer to home today. But it’s also a nice part of the world. For once, I don’t object to the cars on this shot, which I think help give it a sense of scale and perspective.
Brock Barrow is only about 750 feet above sea level (228m for all you metric system users) but it has a good view, including of Coniston Water below. Nice cairn too. It becomes my 303rd Wainwright on my second round: 27 to go. Tell you what though, it was damn windy and cold up there, even if it doesn’t look it. I just about got my 202nd Wainwright walk in before a storm arrived at lunchtime.
Why was I in the depths of Rochdale at 9pm on a Tuesday evening? Photography reasons, of course. (OK, actually it was a football match.) The substantial tower blocks in the background are locally known as the ‘Seven Sisters’, I believe. As is often the case, going monochrome disguises some dubious sodium-lighting yellowness and the odd bit of lens flare. Plus it just seems like a black-and-white kind of place, to be honest, befitting the first day of November.
Spent the whole day entertaining some visitors from Norway, so they should feature on the daily post. Johannes ponders his beer, Anita brings more, and Catherine seems happy that her luggage — thought lost in the system — has been found. They and their colleagues reminded me that Norway is a place I have not been to lately, despite it remaining the third-most featured country on this blog (after England and Australia); its last appearance was 26th April 2018, as I departed Tromsø airport for the last time (so far). If I made a good impression today, perhaps I will get an invite back…
I’m not even trying to hide the fact that I went to another football match this morning. For a while, the light was good. Better, then, than staying inside. This is how I make my life calculations these days.
There might only have been about 35 or so people at the game, but it was social enough — despite appearances at this point.
We have yet to put our clocks back, and so the level of darkness in Manchester this Friday morning is somewhat boosted by the extra hour, but even after this weekend things will catch up soon enough and this will be a common enough sight for me in the run up to Christmas. For now, Halloween tat is in charge. The spectral yellow blobs to centre right may or may not be evidence of spiritual involvement.
“That human is taking surreptitious bird shots again.”
“Hah! All that stuff about ‘not repeating himself’… Such rubbish. We’ve been on here before, I’m sure.”
“Yes, I remember that one. Glad you’re talking to me again now.”
“Hmmm, well, I’m still a bit miffed with you but I’m getting over it.”
What is it with robins as a species — why are they, more than any other type of wild bird, so completely unfazed by being a few feet away from a human? Not only that, but a human who has stopped walking, and is pointing a camera at them? This one even hopped from side to side for a minute, offering me a selection of poses. This one won. I hope he approves.
Thora is, of course, not a mogwai — the creature that spawns the Gremlins in the movie of that name — but she sure looks like one.
Being 42 