A final hour or so to get some shots of Newcastle as we made our way back to the station. This has gone monochrome for one simple reason: to get rid of the bright blue monstrosity that was the wheelie bin in the middle. Tell me you don’t see it, even now I’ve pointed it out.
This is the second time the River Tyne has been depicted on this blog, but the first time I saw it, it was considerably smaller: this was on my walk up Burnhope Seat in 2020, where I passed the farm of ‘Tynehead’ at the other end of the river. By Newcastle the Tyne has grown fat, big enough to have what is, reputedly, the largest wooden construction in Europe built out in the middle of it — Dunston Staiths, a former coalport. And there it is. I like the lamp-posts on this one, too.
With Joe now living in Dundee we have determined that Newcastle is the halfway point between us, geographically. Hence, this weekend, built around an evening out but also (it being me) a trip to a football match and a chance to laze around in the sunshine on the grassy acres of Heaton Stannington FC (a ground which thoroughly deserves the awards it has received for its beer, by the way).
Of course, the title of this blog has non-geographical implications too, as with all parents and their children. And if you saw pictures of me when I was Joe’s age (21) — this shot, particularly, is like looking at a magical mirror that projects one back in time. That’s me, in the summer of 1991, right there. Only with bigger feet.
Another day when there wasn’t really a great deal to look at, but it was a sunny afternoon with good light, so in the end, something came up. I like how the air behind it seems to shimmer with the promise of a golden summer, but of course all that is in the past — today could have been the last truly sunny and warm day until March, for all we know. And let’s consider ‘post’ as having a double meaning.
Followers of this blog will be aware that I go to quite a few football matches — tonight being my 53rd of 2024 so far — but I try not to let the theme dominate these daily posts. However, Hurst Cross is a fine example of the genre and worth depicting. It’s been continuously in use by Ashton United since 1884 and so is one of the oldest extant grounds in the world, and a perfectly decent place to spend a Thursday evening, if you ask me.
Another picture of someone sitting down, though she looks a little more comfortable than yesterday’s model (and has both her shoes on). Meanwhile, over on the other side of the bridge, there are interventions taking place in the ongoing duck-pigeon conflict,
I like this photo, so am using it for today, though it’s one of those occasions where I can’t really think of anything much to say about it. We’ll just leave it as it is.
Four pounds of blackberries, all foraged from the roadsides within 200 yards of home, have just been combined with four pounds of sugar. Four pounds of sugar is a lot. But, an hour or so later, there were six jars of very nice jam ready to see us through the winter. Making jam may seem a terribly middle-class thing to do but it ain’t hard, y’know.
The area around Low Moor railway station, to the south of Bradford, is the most industrialised part of my local area. There’s plenty of photographic interest to be had within it, whether close-up or from more of a distance, like here. It’s nice that the windsock continues the diagonals of the cable and stairway, but its presence is somewhat ominous — and surely linked to the fact that Low Moor station is the only one I know where there are display boards warning of what to do if the alarms go off and the area needs to be evacuated. But it hasn’t happened…. yet.
The younger members of the small crowd at AFC Bentley v AFC Phoenix disport themselves in an aesthetically pleasing manner over the little main stand. It would have been very easy for this one to have been cluttered up by a number of things — signs on the back wall, or dangling wires, maybe — but other than at the bottom right corner, these things are not present (and I did consider cropping further, but then the standing couple would have been too near the edge). I doubt any of them particularly cared that the visiting team won on the day, they were just enjoying the sunshine, as was I.
Being 42 