Another Manchester pic, making six out of the last eight. A new role at work means it’s likely I’ll be spending more time there than has been the case over the last few years, so expect more of this kind of thing… if you’re still following this visual diary of mine, anyway.
Definitely the season for this flower, as I pictured it almost exactly two years ago to the day — 21/6/14 — only then initially misidentified it as violet. In fact it is wood cranesbill, Geranium sylvaticum, and very cute it is too, as the bees agree.
Although it’s the weekend today’s pic still comes from Manchester, where I took Joe to visit the Museum of Science and Industry (and also to indulge his Warhammer compulsions). I hadn’t been to the museum for a while, though it’s featured on the blog a couple of times before, both in 2012 — I don’t think it’s evolved very much recently, I must admit. Anyway, I liked this old industrial machinery, and could impress on Joe that if he’d been alive a hundred years before he’d probably have been working under machines like this by the time he was 10.
I don’t watch TV so I don’t know who the woman on the left is, but she’s clearly something to do with TV presenting because the gaggle of lighting technicians and cameramen seen here are just a portion of the posse of hangers-on, outside broadcast vans, police outriders and so on, that surrounded her in front of the National Football Museum this morning. Anyone care to provide the ID?
UPDATE: Apparently this is Michelle Ackerley — they were filming a piece for BBC’s Crimewatch (hence all the coppers, which I did think were otherwise a bit excessive)
Manchester was hit by a thunderstorm this evening that dumped torrential rain on the city centre — quite exceptional (or are these events happening more and more?). Although it had mostly stopped by the time this photo was taken, I imagine these guys, like the rest of us, were just wanting to find somewhere to dry out.
When are there enough geese for a gaggle? Will four do? When does a gaggle become a flock? Pictured on the canal at Hebden Bridge station this afternoon.
Over 11 years of walking from Manchester Victoria station to my office at uni I have honed my route to reach work in as direct a fashion as possible but to still go down the quietest and most chilled-out streets. I think after 11 years I have finally perfected it. This lane underneath the Mancunian Way is virtually unused now, except by occasional pedestrians like me, the occasional homeless guy and the local graffiti establishment. And yes, this morning it was still raining.
I’ve lived in Britain my whole 46.8 years and it amazes me that there are still people who somehow believe that our month of June is somehow high summer. There are sound climatic reasons why this is not the case, it’s called the ‘European Monsoon’ or ‘Return of the Westerlies’. Look it up. The Westerlies sure bloody returned today I can tell you.
Slightly unsatisfactory because the head of the one in front is a little out of focus — probably it was moving for a peck when I pressed the shutter. Otherwise I like this photo — the graffiti in the background sets them off quite well I think. And I like the way the one in the rear is clearly fluffing up its ruff and giving me the big ‘piss off’ message.
And so home again: London to Hebden Bridge is three to three-and-a-bit hours, the bit depending on how well the train times mesh in Leeds. Time enough today to capture the first blog selfie of 2016, anyway.
Being 42 