Tuesday 17th April 2018, 8.25am (day 2,427)
The bees know what we’re doing… and they’re very unhappy.
Or maybe it’s a mural on the side of the New Union. Whatever…
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: 48
Back to school
Monday 16th April 2018, 10.25am (day 2,426)
2017-18 is my thirteenth academic year at the University of Manchester, meaning that today was the 39th opening day of a term there. Samuel Alexander has seen more than me, certainly as a bust in the foyer of his eponymous building: but according to his memorial he did 31 years as a functioning professor (of Philosophy) so I’ll catch him up in, er…. 2036.
Crosby beach
Sunday 15th April 2018, 3.20pm (day 2,425)
Optimism in the face of bleakness. These are the qualities that have kept the British seaside going for many generations now.
The man in the middle
Saturday 14th April 2018, 2.30pm (day 2,424)
Hate ’em or hate ’em, the game couldn’t run without them, at any level — particularly way down in the football capillaries, which is where I was today (West Riding County Amateur League, competition 30 of the season)…
The speaker makes a joke
Friday 13th April 2018, 10.25am (day 2,423)
Some of the nice people who invited me to Ljubljana to do my thing. Whatever the speaker has said, Polona (on the right), Lyn, and the gentleman whose name I can’t remember, certainly think it was funny. So that’s it for my brief time in Slovenia — it looked very pretty, but becomes just another place that I wish I’d had more time to spend in.
View from my hotel room, Ljubljana
Thursday 12th April 2018, 9.20am (day 2,422)
Having finally got to my destination late last night, this was the view that awaited from my room in the morning. Not that it lasted long — around twenty minutes later, clouds descended, the mountains disappeared and it hasn’t stopped raining since.
Beyond its rather damp weather, though (which is apparently normal for this time of year), Ljubljana is certainly very pretty, and — especially for a capital city — very small, only just over 250,000 people. So Slovenia becomes a new country for the blog, though not for me, as I was here once before, in 2003. The mountains in the background (the Polhograjski Dolomiti) are basically the easternmost extension of the Alps.
In Amsterdam
Wednesday 11th April 2018, 1.05pm (day 2,421)
The story of how I ended up spending this afternoon in Amsterdam is a long one, and to spare you the details I will say only, ask Air France (more specifically their trade union). But I guess there are worse places to be laid over for a few hours, particularly when it was a pleasant, sunny day. Ample excuse to feature it on the blog for the first time since January 2012, thus, 6.3 years ago more or less. Time I came back here for a proper visit.
Insisting it’s spring
Tuesday 10th April 2018, 12.20pm (day 2,420)
Back to cold, rainy weather. But if I keep posting pictures of spring perhaps when I look back I will remember this as a warm April morning. The blossom is out in ‘my’ courtyard at work, at least, but back in 2014 (for example) it looked like this in February. A sign of the lateness of the weather patterns this year.
Enjoying the sunshine
Monday 9th April 2018, 11.50am (day 2,419)
Hey, the sun was shining! And it was warm! Until the evening, anyway…
Excuse to break the run of what had been 18 days since the last time there was a morning shot, on 19th March. Even if today’s was only just in the morning.
Stepping stones
Sunday 8th April 2018, 2.55pm (day 2,418)
Last day before the return to work, and fortunately, the weather seems to have relented (for now) and decided to give us a taste of spring. A day for a short walk in the woods then. I like the formal qualities of this shot, the way the parties on the other bank gather themselves into groups; though the two in the middle background seem to spoil it just a little bit.
Being 42 