The wildly optimistic part of me still thinks that come September maybe we will get a run of nice warm and sunny days, but even if September in the UK can often be fine that is probably clutching at straws. The day was a largely pleasant one but there was just something autumnal about the morning, a crispness in the air that foretells the cold to come.
In this box is my new camera. All but two of the photos on this blog so far have been taken with my Fujifilm Finepix JZ210 but the zoom has been increasingly unreliable lately and it’s being gracefully retired with honours. This may be the last picture taken with it. It’s done a good job. Consider this pic the tribute to it.
I did ask Clare why she thought to wrap its replacement in High School Musical paper that said ‘Happy Christmas’ on it but the answer was not a very satisfactory one. (Incidentally I didn’t open this yesterday because Joe was not around and he wanted to be in on it.)
So, it’s my birthday. I’m 43. The name of this blog is now out of date but I might as well keep it. I could have tried to post a picture that represented the celebrations somehow but I didn’t do anything particularly different – although the afternoon was a fun one and spent with friends. While sitting at the Shoulder of Mutton pub in the centre of Hebden Bridge there was this parade of husky dogs, there must have been some kind of meeting of an owners’ club as they were everywhere. And why not show them off, because they were truly beautiful creatures, and obliging models too. So we’ll start the second year with a picture of one of them.
A mundane subject to mark the end of the first year of this blog, perhaps: but it’s all been an attempt to just capture a life, and here I am in Leeds tonight, celebrating my birthday tomorrow with a night out. These gates just grabbed my attention as we came in this afternoon on the train.
I’ve posted what I think are the top 10 pictures from the first year; also some statistics, feel free to browse and comment. But I’ll be back tomorrow…
Apparently so named because they perform the songs of Jacques Brel – but I think ‘Dead Belgian’ is a great name for a band. I don’t have anything against Belgians, by the way – I’ve never been there.
Tomorrow, you may have noticed – actually today, as I post this – will be the 366th day of this blog. Yes, providing I don’t forget to take a picture and post it on Saturday 25th August, I will have completed my original brief: to take a representative picture for each day of a year, from my 42nd birthday on. Hurrah! However, I have decided I am going to continue the blog for at least one more year: I’m doing too many interesting things next year not to document them (mainly going to Australia for five months, January – June). The name of the site will be out-of-date from Sunday – my 43rd birthday – but never mind.
What I will do is post a page of the top 10 photos I think I have taken this year, and also some statistics, for those who are interested (or need a cure for insomnia).
Third day in four out walking, and between them all I have done 43 miles (nearly 70km). On none of them has the weather been great and today was the worst of the lot. It’s time for a rest…
From A. Wainwright’s The Southern Fells (volume 4 of his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells): page Hard Knott 2:
“On the south-western slope of Hard Knott the rocky cliffs of Border End fall steeply to an inclined grassy shelf, which extends for half a mile and then breaks abruptly in a line of crags overlooking the Esk. This shelf, a splendid place of vantage commanding a view of the valley from the hills down to the sea, was selected by the Romans towards the end of the first century AD as a site for the establishment of a garrison to reinforce their military occupation of the district….
“One wonders what were the thoughts of the sentries as they kept watch over this lonely outpost amongst the mountains, nearly two thousand years ago? Did they admire the massive architecture of the Scafell group as they looked north, the curve of the valley, from source to sea, as their eyes turned west? Or did they feel themselves to be unwanted strangers in a harsh and hostile land? Did their hearts ache for the sunshine of their native country, for their families, for their homes?”
21st century mermaids don’t sit on giant seashells but on plastic drums that may or may not have held toxic waste, and they wear jeans and black tops instead of diaphonous robes. But they still look like they have only one big leg and sit trying to seduce the sailors on the local fishing boats.
I’m in the Lakes again. After today, 18 to go. The picture is taken on Middle Fell, near Wast Water, but in the background is Yewbarrow, and if there was a super-dooper 100x zoom you may well be able to see the same sight as depicted way back on Sept 2nd, as that’s Great Door over there. More to come from the Lakes for the next few days, I’m here until Thursday.
This is where the Hebden Bridge trains join up with the West Coast main line, thus, trains for the Lake District and Morecambe. I spend a hell of a lot of time in Preston station – never for very long at a time, but it mounts up, and I’ve spent far longer here in my life than I have in Preston itself.
