Monday 14th July 2014, 6.10pm (day 1,054)
If this isn’t the world’s finest beer then I’d like to taste the one that is. Proof that God exists, at least in the Abbaye St-Remy, Rochefort, Belgium.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Raspberries
Sunday 13th July 2014, 12.10pm (day 1,053)
Beautiful weather at the moment and it’s always nice when the garden starts to produce.
And well done to Germany, too.
St Michael’s church, Mytholmroyd
Saturday 12th July 2014, 5.35pm (day 1,052)
Back home. The trouble with committing (still) to do this every day is that some days, even when the light is good (warm, sunny day today) and there are opportunities to get some good shots, the technique fails. I didn’t really get any good pictures today. This one is OK, a bit of a study of shape and texture, but that’s about it.
Jomo Kenyatta airport, early morning
Friday 11th July 2014, 6.25am (day 1,051)
I only post this early when I’m travelling, and here’s the second really early one in a week. Nairobi’s airport seems to have about fifty duty free shops and one bar/café, this one. I like this shot, particularly as I wasn’t really giving it a great deal of thought, I just captured the bar scene randomly but I like the way he’s been caught. And I was only having a cup of tea. Honest, guv.
Alessandra, at work
Thursday 10th July 2014, 3.30pm (day 1,050)
Another nice reason to come to Nairobi is the presence of some of my distance learning students, including Alessandra, pictured here on the right, doing her stuff for her company, the Cultural Video Foundation — check out their web site, they do some amazing stuff. Here she is interviewing a local artist for another project. And yes, that is an old double-decker London bus in the background.
Where I’m going next year
Wednesday 9th July 2014, 5.30pm (day 1,049)
After yesterday’s fun with the elephants, spent the day working in Nairobi and had very little chance to get a decent photo of anything.
But I did buy this map, and for a reason. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in the world that one can just walk up (as opposed to needing specialist mountaineering skills) and I’ve already paid a deposit to do exactly that, on an organised trek, around this time next year. So if I’m still blogging then — and I hopefully will be — here’s an advance notice of what to expect…. Isn’t this a great-looking map? Let’s hope the reality matches the anticipation.
Young elephants
Tuesday 8th July 2014, 11.50am (day 1,048)
I said yesterday I was off travelling somewhere, and here I am, on my second visit to Nairobi. It is for work (lucky me), but today was a morning off, so with my colleagues, we visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust just outside the city, where there is an orphanage for young and baby elephants. There are around 20 being cared for there, ranging from three months to a few years old. Some of them have lost their mothers to natural causes, but the majority are there because of human depredations. It’s a tourist attraction of course, but a very worthy one. No one needs ivory, for any reason at all.
I like this picture because of the apparently happy smile on the faces of both these youngsters. I was trying to get pictures without the crowd of people in the background (which I was, of course, part of) but here the just-visible heads give it a sense of scale, I think. May these children get the chance to grow to their maturity and live a full and happy life. What more can one ask of any living being.
Cragg Vale’s bunting, at dawn
Monday 7th July 2014, 3.45am (day 1,047)
To mark the passing of the Tour de France, pictured yesterday of course, the people of Cragg Vale, a valley to the east of Hebden Bridge, created the world’s longest-ever line of bunting — 12,115 meters, or over seven miles, with nearly 60,000 flags (see this page for the details). It ran up the longest continuous uphill gradient in England, which the cyclists ascended after leaving Hebden Bridge yesterday.
And why the hell was I there at 3.45 in the morning? Well, off on another work trip — you’ll see where tomorrow. What I’ve also done is definitely break the record for the earliest ever morning shot on this blog. There have been three before at around 1.00-1.45am but all of them were from me having stayed up from the night before. Today’s was definitely the earliest shot at which I’ve had to respond somehow to an alarm call.
The world’s greatest cycle race comes through Nutclough…
Sunday 6th July 2014, 1.50pm (day 1,046)
…so I think the Tour de France should be the subject of today’s picture… don’t you? I doubt any other world-class sporting event is going to come within a few feet of my front door again. Of all the ones I got today I like because of my friend Simon’s smile, and also the fact it has the yellow jersey on it — he’s just visible in the centre.
Clare and Joe
Saturday 5th July 2014, 5.20pm (day 1,045)
My family. No further comment necessary.
Tour de France tomorrow.
Being 42 