Friday 2nd November 2018, 1.00pm (day 2,626)
I’m on a three-day weekend (Thursday, Friday, Saturday). I can think of worse places to spend it. In the background: Red Screes, Caudale Moor, Thornthwaite Crag.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Etihad Hawk
Thursday 1st November 2018, 7.55pm (day 2,625)
This picture needs some explanation. For the second time in a few weeks I visited the Etihad stadium, home of Manchester City, for a football match (there were reasons). While watching City do what they usually do, that is, barely break sweat but win easily, it was easy to be distracted in the first half by the activities of what appeared to be a hawk, or kestrel, that had taken up residence in the roof and kept flying between two of the stands. At one point it clearly dropped something that it was holding in its claws yet still managed to swoop down and catch the prey before it hit the ground (and or landed on someone in row F). I just about managed to capture it here in flight, even if it is not very definable. It may not be all that good a photo but it is still more interesting than the night’s football.
Postscript: As my Facebook friend Margaret pointed out after I posted this, the bird may well have been on professional duty; birds of prey are a good way of keeping the pigeon and other pest population down in a stadium like this.
Singing at the station
Wednesday 31st October 2018, 9.00am (day 2,624)
9am and I’m at the station on the way to work. Whatever this robin’s plans were for the day, he seemed happy enough about it, his song being the soundtrack to the wait for the 09:06. A shame he wasn’t perched in the sunshine but never mind.
Vista down Whitworth Street
Tuesday 30th October 2018, 3.55pm (day 2,623)
I don’t make a point of mentioning it on here but my surname is Whitworth and Whitworth Street in Manchester is a significant thoroughfare that I am obliged to cross each time I walk to and from work. It’s about time I tried for a decent photo of it. Taken while crossing the road — I do try always to cross this street carefully, it would just be too embarrassing to be run over on an eponym.
3.55pm and there’s a sunset cast to the sky…. It’s getting later earlier. If you see what I mean.
Mysterious mist
Monday 29th October 2018, 8.50am (day 2,622)
Sometimes, despite all the bvious faults in a photo (here, rampant lens flare), it’s still worth going with just because it’s different. The ‘mist’ is actually steam from a heating vent being pumped out by the old mill on the way to Hebden Bridge station. A beautiful morning today, but very cold, with a sharp frost.
Autumn ablaze
Sunday 28th October 2018, 2.20pm (day 2,621)
The clocks went back last night, and winter draws closer. But no one has told this tree yet and it’s determined to go out in a blaze of glory.
The only one watching
Saturday 27th October 2018, 2.40pm (day 2,620)
I realised today that my obscure football match habit has become extreme when I turned up at this game in London [*] and was literally the only spectator present. But hey, it was a good game, 3-3, and the background mix of buildings, for photography purposes, very pleasing. So why shouldn’t I have done that on a Saturday afternoon in central London? No one else experienced this but me.
[*] if you really want to know, Fitzwilliam Old Boys v Bealonians in the Amateur Football Combination, Division 1.
Clare being 42
Friday 26th October 2018, 4.20pm (day 2,619)
I started this blog on 26th August 2011, my 42nd birthday — hence its name. We can now demonstrate that I am 2,619 days old than Clare, who reached that same milestone today. It is right and proper therefore that for this one day she can be both the subject of, and co-contributor, to the blog: as she is, today, “Being 42”.
As subject — above, Clare on the phone to Joe, who has been whisked off to Berlin for the weekend with 25 other 15- and 16-year olds on a school trip (no, I don’t really want to think about it either). We took advantage of this opportunity to bugger off down to London for a couple of days, but this shot is taken in Manchester’s Piccadilly Tavern before we got on the train. And no, it wasn’t deliberately taken at 4.20pm either. Honestly.
And as special guest contributor to the blog — we decided that as I was always going to offer one of her today, she would offer one of me. Here’s me descending to Euston tube station in London, later in the journey… being 42 years + 2,619 days old.
Happy 42nd birthday darling xxx…
Beer pump (sad?)
Thursday 25th October 2018, 4.05pm (day 2,618)
Perhaps it was early to be in the pub but I was fed up with work by 4pm today. But perhaps not as doleful as this beer pump appears to be. An inanimate object with a secret inner life? Quite possibly.
Smoking spot
Wednesday 24th October 2018, 2.05pm (day 2,617)
I’m sure even non-smokers appreciate the notion of the smoking spot. There’s almost always someone sitting on this bench in Pall Mall Square, Manchester, whenever I walk past and I’ve been eyeing it up as a portrait for a while but seeing as it’s the kind of shot which would only work if I was facing straight on to the subject, then the risk of being busted is rather high. However I got away with it today. And it’s another quite good wall, isn’t it… not uniform at all.
