I have no idea what the weather’s been like in the rest of the world but in the UK this late February, as anyone round here will tell you, it has been extremely pleasant. Even 7.55am on a Monday morning looked OK in these conditions. It’d be nice to think this is spring arriving and bedding in, but it must be recalled that this time last year, it snowed.
Piles of frog spawn filled various random bits of water (such as, literally, roadside puddles) on my walk yesterday and an equally huge pile filled the ornamental pond in my in-laws’ garden this morning. Now you’ve seen the size of a frog, right? These rafts of spawn were two feet wide. There must have been mass spawn-laying orgies taking place on Friday night. Wouldn’t we all like to be invited to such parties.
I continue with my attempt to re-cover the whole Lake District, having already done it all once. Hesk Fell is certainly one of the 330 LD peaks that I am now glad I never have to return to a third time; it’s not awful, but as this picture makes evident, it’s just a big grassy moorland, although it does have a decent view. Those are the Scafells in the distance, the highest peaks in England. Someone has made a very great effort to bring those stones up to build the summit cairn, as there certainly aren’t any that occur naturally on the ground for some distance in any direction, so let’s pay homage to their effort with today’s picture (others can be found on my walking blog, if you are interested…).
Beautifully — some might even say, ridiculously — warm day today for February, with temperatures up to 20ºC in Hebden Bridge. It’s the half-term holidays as well as the weekend and all this tempted people out, including me, as the afternoon saw a decamp up to the in-laws’ place in Morecambe. Preston station was busy and well-lit; on such days it’s hard not to admire the durability and aesthetic qualities of your basic Victorian station architecture — love those pillars.
I know I’m anthropomorphosising, but please tell me you see this bumblebee’s grumpy little face… long nose, protuberant jaw, etc. It’s like, “I know it was a nice sunny day today, but bloody hell is it early in the year to get up.” However… respect the pollinators, that’s what we have to do….
Just an arrangement of rectangles, colours and graffiti that I liked on this Wednesday morning. But why the alarmed-looking bear? Guess only the artist knows.
The world moves round in its orbit, the North Pole points more and more towards the sun, and we see light in bits of Hebden Bridge that have not seen light since November. It’s always a positive step when the sun comes back to the front of the house in the mornings, which should happen this week.
Today was such an uneventful day that this is a rare photowhack — the one and only photo taken on a given day. There have been about 15 of these days over the lifespan of the blog.
One of those shots where I took it — as one of several attempts to capture the nice morning light at Hebden Bridge station this morning — then thought no more about it. Only when it got uploaded onto the laptop did I notice the effect on this person’s head. Do they have bright pink hair? No, but there is a second red signal light on that side of the tracks.
When I said yesterday that I was close by friends, I meant Pegs and Dan, who live in the highly attractive place that is Aberdour, and which we last visited in May, when the views were just as good as they were today. That’s Edinburgh over there — see Arthur’s Seat to the left, the castle in the centre. A hard place to just walk away from, but I have to go home, and will be back some day.
It’s been a little while (three weeks) since my football habit directly made an appearance on the blog but I like this shot. The blues, Burntisland Shipyard, on the attack here, scored a last-minute goal to win 3-2. Why did I come to this game? I just like the name. Burntisland Shipyard. (And I have friends who live down the road.)
Being 42 