Well, 1,610 days in and I’m still here…. Facebook friends may know what I mean. Maybe this is the point though… What you see here is a scene which happens every Thursday in Hebden Bridge at this same time of day. But I don’t think I’ve ever pictured it before, and even if I did it wasn’t in this light, in this slight drizzle, and so on (including heroic flare for the second day in a row). I’ll do my best to keep seeing the moments.
I feel I’ve recently been in a bit of a low point on this blog, creativity-wise. And I’m also spending most of the time at the moment sat at home. Tried to make an effort with this one, and bearing in mind that all this is being done on cheap and standard gear, this is probably as good an effort at this shot as I could manage. Let’s see the flare as a deliberate creative shot, but it’s a shame the sun ends up blurred. The high valley walls mean it disappears at least an hour before the scheduled sunset time; waiting for the moment of its transition gave me something to do this afternoon that wasn’t work, at least. The contrail and birds were freebies.
As the title of the post states — here are the two of them at the new Star Wars movie. Now, I have no intention of offering any spoilers… but who knows, perhaps there are none to offer.
I bet you didn’t pass one of these on the way to your morning meeting. Mine happened to be in the Manchester Museum (last seen on here as the home of the vivid tropical frogs) — so I did.
After the weather conditions depicted on the last couple of days, getting gradually closer to home, I guess it’s no real surprise that today saw snow on the ground in Hebden Bridge. I like this shot because it’s essentially monochrome, except for that stripe of red in the corner — a plastic barrier put up to stop people falling off the upper path and down into the water race here. Not far off this picture here, but not the same, which is why sometimes you can get away with doing multiple shots of the same place.
David Stockdale, Brighton & Hove Albion’s goalkeeper, ponders today why he has a job that requires him to work outside on a day like this. But then again he’s quite handsomely paid for it. And, at least at one level, earned his money today, keeping a clean sheet as the Albion won 1-0 in the Blackburn snow. Snow has definitely been a key theme of this weekend.
I remain grateful for the fact that I have a job flexible enough to allow me to bring my weekend forward a day and get out on a walk on a Friday. However, I wasn’t out basking in the sunshine or anything. This was a severe-weather walk, as rough as anything I’ve ever done, as evidenced by the spindrift seen here. Heron Pike sits between the lakes of Grasmere, Rydal Water and (pictured) Windermere. More photos from this walk on my other blog when I get round to it, but that’ll be tomorrow now.
This rail bridge takes the train (in this case a freight) between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Oxford Road stations. The building in the background is the Faraday building, late of the University but now empty and awaiting demolition. I like the general drabness of this shot — very January, although it was a sunny and crisp day today.
This platform over the Hebden Water has always been there, at least since I’ve been living here. But recently a project began that seemed to be building on it. One story was that this was to be car parking, but I’ve also heard that there was going to be a house built on it. Either way, the state it is in now reflects what happened on December 26th, in the floods, when the river peaked above the surface of the platform, leaving it smashed up and littered with debris (much of which has since been cleared).
The point is that this is exactly the kind of situation where you might think planning permission had been granted without due consideration. Flooding, and damage from flooding, isn’t just about heavy rainfall — it’s also about damn-fool planning. At least this happened before someone blithely bought and moved into this putative house. But who knows, perhaps the project has not yet been abandoned.
I know a few dog/owner couples — connoting not just the usual doggy relations but where the two actively look alike. For an example of what I mean, well, see here….
Being 42 