My journey eastwards continued overnight. I slept not at all, I never do sleep on planes. So I could get a shot of this great cloudscape as the sun came up about ten minutes before we landed at Changi airport in Singapore (where, back in January 2013, I had a few hours’ stopover on my way to Australia). I guess with Singapore being the small size this is, I could here be in Malaysian or Indonesian airspace but what the hell, let’s not split hairs.
Regardless of anything else that has ever happened on any of my trips to the Middle East — I have never come away complaining about the food in any way. In my opinion — the nicest cuisine in the world…
So the first stop on my tour of Asia and Australia is Dubai, just for forty-eight hours. My colleague Alex and I were worked hard all day in the University of Manchester office that exists here, in the ‘Dubai Knowledge City’ — which like the rest of this place has been raised out of the desert over the last fifteen to twenty years or so. The towers in the background are the Marina Towers which apparently started the whole property boom off as this was the first place in which non-nationals had been allowed to buy freeholds in pretty much the whole of Arabia.
But though I don’t know this place, not after one day (who could) and so can’t call this a considered opinion — there’s something about it which just leaves me cold. It’s just the antithesis of things I like about the world, in so many different ways. The chopped-up palm trees are my attempt to somehow encapsulate these feelings. The symbolism is deliberate.
This is how I spent my day, up in a huge tin pipe, consuming inordinate amounts of fossil fuels and generally being a little bored. I got the usual window seat in the hope that, as it was a daytime flight, there would be plenty of photo opportunities, but there were clouds almost everywhere, including over places one would think would normally be rather sunny (like Iraq, for example). Thus, this interior — the 11th pic on the blog where I’ve been unable to specify what country I was in at the time.
However, I do know where I’m going, and barring the highly unexpected there will be four different countries coming up in the next three weeks, three of which I have not visited properly before (meaning, more than just changing planes there). But it’s a work trip — mostly — so you may just get a load of office interiors, particularly for this first few days….
My last full day in the UK for three and a bit weeks. There might be a photo from the airport tomorrow, but if there’s not this is the last of 117 consecutive UK pictures: not the longest run I’ve had but it does seem a while since I was last away (Germany, late November). It being Saturday, I went to the football; the ground is (as you can see in the background) Cheshunt FC, but the home team today were FC Romania, who groundshare there. This picture does not show that at all, but I like the red of the guy’s top against the muted tones of the stands and tarmac.
There was the chance of a Hebden Bridge picture this morning, but it didn’t come to pass, which means the one last Monday was the last for a month; I’m off on a substantial trip. The first stage of this was to go to London and have a Friday night out with (amongst others) these two lovely people, the wife and George, making her third appearance on the blog…. a good evening was had, for sure….
Last day in Manchester, certainly, for 33 days. Off tomorrow, on my most significant journey of 2019. So time for this year’s ‘cherry blossom in the Ellen Wilkinson Building’s secret courtyard’, then. I doubt it’ll still be there when I get back.
Just to show that I am still making occasional appearances on campus and, y’know, doing some work. My colleagues Susanne (left) and Pauline make a point about the concept mapping. I like that they are somewhat disembodied, but you can see that their hands are helping with the thinking time.
I needed to at least try to clear my head, in various ways. Sometimes I think that my project to walk all the Lake District twice has been over-extended, that I’d like to finish it now, or at least earlier than projected (which is some point in 2021). Then I go, and I remember why I go.
I like the walker visible on this shot, just past where the curving path seems to disappear higher up. Gives it a grander sense of scale. The valley is Borrowdale.
This year’s crop of baby leeks emerges from the soil in the seed tray on our window sill. I like this shot because though they each started out as the same configuration — a seed — they have all grown up in slightly different ways, each an individual. They all liked the burst of sunshine that came around 3pm but I hope they drank it in well, because about five minutes of sun was all we got today. The JPG file you are looking at has loaded properly, by the way. The bottom strip is the tray.
Being 42 