Sunday 10th August 2014, 11.20am (day 1,081)
Not as intense as the burst two days ago, but far more persistent. A Sunday to stay in, so limited photo opps — a mundane weekend in that regard.
Sometimes one just has to admit that all the photos one took in a given day are fundamentally crap. This was one of those days. So here’s a crap photo… but of a good night out, first here, then the Picture House across the road (The One-Hundred Year Old Man Who Jumped Out Of A Window And Disappeared — long title, great movie).
Actually today was a relatively pleasant day — apart from this 30-minute period in the afternoon. Look in the background — even the Canada goose is taking shelter.
The UK government hate public transport, and have done so, passionately, since the 1950s when they realised that, regardless of the effects on the environment and society, they could make much more money taxing private motor vehicles. They are also the type of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
This picture is taken from the Cumbrian Coast rail line which I happen to think is as beautiful a railway line as exists anywhere in the world. Cartmel Sands are the estuary of the rivers Crake and Leven, which empty Coniston Water and Windermere into Morecambe Bay. Every time I go over the bridge here it looks different, some alteration in the configuration of light, tide and season that refreshes the scene constantly.
I would — and do — travel on this rail line simply to see these kinds of thing, there does not have to be a particular destination in mind. But my government would never see this kind of value. They willfully refuse to, in fact.
I see no reason to explain this shot. It’s just an image I liked.
Man, today was a tough day to fulfill the daily commission. Mostly grey light, I was working indoors, very little going on. The only variety was that the house I was working in was my in-laws’, not my own, so the garden provided some minor options in one of the few bursts of light that emerged. But it’s hardly exciting. Don’t expect much different tomorrow either, I’ll warn you now…
For 25 years there have been seasons of outdoor promenade plays in Williamson’s Park, Lancaster. This is this year’s, and the first such performance I’ve seen. We were told not to photograph it, but when faced with a scene like this I bent the rules slightly — this is not actually the performance, the audience were just starting to gather at this point. I also hope it’s considered free advertising. What a spectacularly staged piece of work.
Looks nice? It isn’t. This is Himalayan Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera, introduced into the UK by some Victorian gentleman who, if he was still alive, should be made to crawl around the country stuffing the consequences of his marketing opportunity up his bottom. This is the major invasive weed around here, possibly even the biggest local environmental problem we have right now. I’d say ‘if you see this plant kill it’ but apparently the expert advice is that even that might just make it worse (as if it were a hydra, or something). The only answer seems to be to develop a taste for eating it — which no other UK species has yet managed, hence the problem.
This is also how I felt this morning after our night out in Liverpool. I hope this woman didn’t miss her train — she was asleep in the cafe at the railway station for some time.
As if there hadn’t been enough art last week, a trip to the Mondrian exhibition at the Tate in Liverpool. “Please don’t take pictures of the art,” we were told, “but you can take pictures of the view from the windows.” Well, OK then — here’s a bit of both.