More Christmas decoration, this time our annual harvesting of one of the house’s copious collection of sheep skulls for the usual Gothic effect. I spent all day at home working, but now I’m done. Christmas, whatever that means or represents — here we are.
‘Tis the Sunday before Christmas, and by now it is obligatory for every commercial establishment to have decorated somehow. But so be it — our decorations are up at home as well.
I have been to, and photographed, 75 football matches so far in 2019 (with probably one more to come), but I have begun sparing you the actual action shots on here for fear of monotony. But you can have this one, as I like the way the stand roof splits off the landscape above. This is Cougar Park, usually full of rugby league fans (a strange bunch…), but, for the remainder of this season anyway, the football tenants are Steeton FC, here in green: visitors Prestwich Heys were the winners today, 3-1.
A veritable battalion of pigeons, in tidy military formation (well, most of them), line up on the roof of the White Swan for the next instalment in the ongoing pigeon/duck war. Recent infiltrations must have provided promising intelligence. The person in the hat walks over the bridge all indifferent, but I have been observing.
I don’t mind campus as such. But the process of getting to and from it is becoming a real trial, thanks entirely to the ineptitudes of Northern Rail over the last two years (if you haven’t had the pleasure, lucky you). So I am glad that today marked my last day there in 2019. And yes, my journey home was a screw-up.
This is New Mills, Derbyshire, a place with some impressive verticals, perched as it is above a deep gorge formed by the River Goyt. I spent the afternoon and evening here and it’s a shame I didn’t manage to arrive until 3.15pm, by which time it was already getting rather gloomy. A place to revisit with some better light.
Thanks to the stats that are faithfully kept for this blog (and which, for me and my compulsive chronicling, are a significant element of keeping this going), I know also that New Mills is the 300th different, identifiable location to be depicted on here. Obviously the count depends how I slice certain places (particularly the Lake District) but this is how it’s come out. This is one new place every 10.1 days or thereabouts, a supply which shows no signs of running out, so let’s just keep exploring. I might not be able to save the world but I would like to see more of it, before I go.
“You’re not pointing that camera at me, are you?” asks Gus. Well yeah, actually you could see that I was… No offence meant my friend.
Enough of this greyness. Let there be blues! And greens! And a flower! All happily grabbing a dose of afternoon sunshine on the comfort of our window sill. Destined to be habaneros, if all grows as it should.
Less of a bleak theme today, and look, is that even sunshine making an appearance to top right? Time to spend some time at home, refamiliarise myself with its facilities and appeal.
Grim and bleak seem to have been themes for a few days now, and with this particular mid-December being even grimmer and bleaker than is normal for the time of year, the theme is likely to continue. Is Limeside Park in Oldham a more welcoming place on a sunny day in May? Of course it is, but then again, so is everywhere.
Being 42 