Here we are in Brighton — big football match to go to tomorrow and, oh yeah, Clare’s annual jog up and down the sea front in the Brighton half marathon. Nice to get down to the south coast before the sun went down today. Here’s to a good weekend…. the anticipation of which is somehow epitomised in this photo for me.
As of a couple of years ago our Meteorological Office started naming our winter storms in accordance with the convention for hurricanes, cyclones etc. — it’s more media-friendly, you can tweet about #StormDoris which is the one which apparently hit the UK today. I don’t personally know anyone called Doris, but I have gone off the name after today — however, we could of course have Storm Drew at this time next year.
Our multimedia guy, Peter, gets himself set up ready to film me talking about something or other in my office. I had to sound reasonably intelligent but really, it’s not going to make your day more interesting if you knew what the subject matter had been.
This leaf must have come down last autumn and ever since has been lying there, gradually decaying, into the layer of litter. Having somehow been shuffled to the edge of the deck, this morning it lay there catching the light in a pleasing manner. But this was an ephemeral beauty. The picture was taken at Hebden Bridge rail station and as I post this after passing the same point the next day, I did check on it — and it was gone, never to be seen again.
It’s the half-term holidays, meaning a week where it’s necessary to find ways to keep Joe productively occupied, at least to some extent. The ‘vertebra’ is actually a crankshaft for a model internal combustion engine — at least, that’s what it says on the box that has been hanging around since arriving at Christmas. Apparently, it’ll be a fully working model when the kit is constructed — as long as one doesn’t lose any bits along the way. Like springs…. now where did those damn springs go again?
Clearing away a bunch of dead foliage from the allotment this afternoon, I uncovered this beauty. It decided it was still far too early in the year to be exposed to the elements and crawled its way back under cover sharpish, but I managed to get a couple of shots off before it did so.
The room full of vintage arcade and computer games at the National Media Museum in Bradford is a cheap form of entertainment during weekends and school holidays — and as a result has featured on this blog before. This family seem to be enjoying their time on the collaborative game, Gauntlet — if you grew up in the 1980s I’m sure you remember it…
I spent the last few hours of the working week as an examiner for some assessed presentations. A stream of fresh and (usually) interesting 20- to 21-year-olds coming in to convince us of their plans for world domination. And you know? A few of them have a shot at it. I like this shot because of the tea ladies in the background (they had just cleared away the detritus of the morning shift), the left-hand student’s incipient bubblegum moment, the relatively grand surroundings of the very finely-named Whitworth building…. And that it’s Friday. I’ve had a 6-day week, I need a weekend.
The Railway pub was shut for nearly a year after being mostly destroyed in the flood of 26th December 2015. It has reopened in what feels like a few separate stages; the latest arriving today, when seating finally made a reappearance out at the front. Matt enjoys this fresh luxury, while trying not to mark his coat on the wet paint of the new battleship grey facade.
The third thousand begins under the Mancunian Way, a familiar scene from my walk to the office. This tent has been there for a few days now, I don’t know whether it is being occupied. Six pictures from the last seven in Manchester: in fact, in February there may end up more pictures from there than home in Hebden Bridge, which I don’t think has happened before.
Being 42 