Welcome to 2022, and if all the days of weather are as good as 1st January, that will be fine by me. A beautiful day, and quite warm. I realise this would be a better photo without the foliage to the left but I couldn’t move it, and with limited positions from which this view was visible I decided I’d rather capture the sunbeams before they disappeared.
Out on a walk on the hillside above our house, and my father-in-law Dave acted as the ‘spotter’ for this one, pointing out the kestrel that was hovering above the grassland, hunting for mice or sparrows. Obviously wanting its profile done, it then landed and obligingly waited on this lamp-post for a minute, so I could get the shot (that’s the old, ruined Heptonstall church behind).
A Happy New Year to you all. I mention no politics here; I will merely say that had the shot of another bird-of-prey, the hawk on 5th March, been just that little bit better in focus, that would have been my favourite shot of 2021. However, instead I will give it to the minutes-old lamb captured on April 11th.
Let’s push that Christmas theme a little further. There we are to top right, and I think this is the first time all three of us have appeared on the same featured shot. Here we await a lunch out, that was terrible and overpriced, so I will forebear from mentioning the name of the pub.
The year is not going to end excitingly, but at least one can still go out, as I did today, even if just to do some shopping. This is an abstract, but the focus is right and it’s the shot I intended. I noticed the possibility of a shot of these chargers between the seats as the bus rumbled over the hills to the north, but no chance to capture it until we had stopped moving; meaning that Oxenhope can here get another day on its tally.
A far more pleasant afternoon than has been the case recently. The sun is on its way down on 2021 in football terms, with the venue for my last match of the year — Silsden FC — doused in sunshine as everyone prepared for the game. (Not that visitors Knaresborough can have prepared very well, as Silsden won 8-1.)
Two monochromes in a row to continue the grey and misty post-Christmas mood. Further exposure for Halifax’s scenic qualities, too; that’s four times in ten days it has appeared. Why do I call this post ‘Deep in the bus station’? I guess there’s a sense of being at the end of a tunnel here, looking out through successive waves of glass and steel.
I’m not trying to be overtly metaphorical here. But this shot certainly sums up today’s weather. Enough snow to feel, not enough to make a difference, all under steel-grey skies.
Out on the path through the woods above the Hebden Water, someone has been dressing the trees, guerrilla-style. Happy Christmas to them, and, indeed, to you. I hope you enjoyed the day in whatever way you saw most fit. But that is, of course, true of every day.
You still can’t buy socks or men’s underwear in any of Hebden Bridge’s multiple retail establishments, but we do now have a cheese shop. Time for some Wensleydale, I feel. The kid has made his choice too, by the looks of things.
It’s Christmas — well, nearly. Whatever one’s stance on the battle to keep us locked up, and thus, in the thrall of newly-powerful financial interests that are exactly the ones pushing for further incarcerations (I wonder why), Blue Bird is still feeling happy about this time of year.
Being 42 