These curious new black boxes have appeared on most of the telegraph poles round here, perhaps they are installations for the great system of surveillance that has doubtless, by now, permeated every aspect of our lives. Though I suppose I do offer up plenty of information about my whereabouts on a voluntary basis. I doubt I would be happy spending my working life fifteen feet up in the air but presumably he’s used to it.
“OK, are you ready? I want you to get my best side…. THAT’S the one. Send me a copy….”
I seem unable to get outside much at the moment — this is the fifth interior in a row and the 11th in the last 13 days. But I do have some work to do. For now, at least. Note: Drew is not a student midwife. The journey that mug has made in order to now reside at our place has been a saga in itself, in fact.
I have had one of those weekends where I did virtually nothing but still reached the end feeling no more refreshed than I was on Friday afternoon. The Handmade Parade, in all its colour and movement, had been taking place earlier in the day but I do not feel I got a representative picture of it — the day was much more as seen here, kind of soft-focus and dim. The recent run of interiors therefore continues.
With little else to do today (the football season hasn’t started yet), I visited the Calderdale Industrial Museum and learned some things about local industry around the Halifax area that I didn’t know before. Like, John Mackintosh became very rich and successful, founding the company that bore his name, and whose successors still manufacture Quality Street chocolates in Halifax, thanks only to the cooking of his wife Violet. She was the one who invented modern toffee — he was the one who called himself “The Toffee King”, though.
But for the photo, I’ll go with this mass of red and blue strands of wool, all converging into the Jacquard loom that is currently operating to the right, having been turned on for a few minutes during which time it produced plenty of noise and a few dozen lines of carpet.
I am still occasionally invited to offer words of wisdom in the professional settings of others. Which is nice, because no one ever listens to you at your own place of work. (Perhaps that’s just me, though.) And one gets the chance to check out classic 1960s brutalist architecture — in this case, the Heslington campus of the University of York — on another pleasant sunny day. There were worse ways to end the working week.
Pud (a.k.a. Sean) is definitely the local wizard with this machine. I mean, I try — others try — but Pud wins. Usually. Kind of like Manchester City, maybe not always, but quite a lot.
A still life. Those who know New Order may see my point with the title of this post. But it is just a random flowerpot, really.
These days it’s 8:52 that is my more usual arrival time into Manchester Victoria, on days when I deign to show my face there. Today was early, for me. I had forgotten how much busier it is. Everyone is being sucked towards the ticket gates as if by a tractor beam.
I have had a lot of travelling recently but I have already embarked on a sustained period — four weeks, anyway — of Being At Home. Hence… a view from home. There may be more of these coming up.
Being 42 