Tuesday 25th March 2025, 10.15am (day 4,961)
A place I can still find reason to frequent now and again. There were a few students seen to be doing the same (none of mine, though…).
Among the books
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Canada goose
Monday 24th March 2025, 10.20am (day 4,960)
The bird theme continues: this is the fourth in a week. A well-lit moment presented itself, and I took it. The local Canada geese were very noisy this morning — a symphony of honking, which I attributed to the fact that it’s surely gosling-making season around now.
Watching the match (2)
Sunday 23rd March 2025, 12 noon (day 4,959)
The theme continues into Sunday morning, but this time with more action. Also with less regard for clashes of kit or the integrity of the pitch boundaries. The result was the same though: 1-0, this time to the blacks, if you can tell the difference. But it mattered to them.
Watching the match (1)
Saturday 22nd March 2025, 4.30pm (day 4,958)
A double-bill to fill out the weekend, because I saw a lot of football, and not much else. This one is taken about half an hour before kick-off at the second match of the weekend, at Rhyl FC, where the Wales Under-19 team were playing Portugal in front of quite a big crowd, at least for the size of the ground. (A seagull crashes the shot for the second day in a row.) They were to see defeat, however: Portugal won 1-0.
Scouse seagull
Friday 21st March 2025, 2.55pm (day 4,957)
“Who you calling a Liver Bird? I ain’t no Liver Bird. Call me that again and I will eat your chips.”
Trixie does her close-ups
Thursday 20th March 2025, 3.20pm (day 4,956)
Fellow pack member Trixie gets her close ups done, and as a result becomes the latest animal to make a confirmed second appearance on the blog (her debut was on 3/4/24). I think between us we just about got the focus right.
Departure lounge
Wednesday 19th March 2025, 9.40am (day 4,955)
It’s not easy to categorise a post as both “Interior” and “Landscape” but I’m claiming it for this one. Farewell to Gibraltar, it’s been a decent few days and if things work out I will be returning at some point.
Waiting for lunch
Tuesday 18th March 2025, 1.00pm (day 4,954)
There seem to be a lot of sparrows in Gibraltar, and many of them have acquired the habit of hanging around restaurants and cafés: which seems a reasonable evolutionary adaptation to me. On Sunday I went into one place that had an entire flock of them seemingly living inside the building. Here, we are outside, but nevertheless, this chap looks quite content with his lot. All three of us — me, the bird, and the guy behind — were waiting for our lunch.
Atrium, University of Gibraltar
Monday 17th March 2025, 1.35pm (day 4,953)
The University of Gibraltar is why I am here, indirectly anyway. It is one of Europe’s newest, founded in 2016 and built into a converted old barracks. It’s also one of Europe’s smallest: what you see here is a considerable proportion of the whole. Something about it reminds me of the atrium where Heywood Floyd and the Russian scientists have a conversation in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s the red-and-white theme that does it. And no, there didn’t seem to be any students around. They’re all ‘on placement’, apparently.
Barbary macaque
Sunday 16th March 2025, 10.50am (day 4,952)
The Barbary macaques which live in Gibraltar are the only wild primates living in Europe. They’re doing well enough — there are around 300 living on The Rock, a healthy population considering that during World War 2 numbers were down to single figures. I thoroughly enjoyed my encounters with them today, particularly the troop that lived around the mid-height pylon for the cable car, which they treated as just a big metal tree, clambering up it and then sliding back down the struts, seemingly just for the fun of it.
Being 42 