Tag Archives: 54

Mar 19 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

Woburn Sands

Saturday 16th March 2024, 11.05am (day 4,587)

Woburn Sands, 16/3/24

Among the activities booked in for this weekend in Milton Keynes was another County Top walk, which was a perfectly OK walk to do but turned out to be not all that exciting photographically. However, I quite like this one, if only for the way it seems to head back in stages through the landscape, starting with the allotments occupied by a mysterious single figure. This is the village of Woburn Sands, where I finished the walk: note that whatever it is named for, it’s not a beach — we are nowhere near the sea here.

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Mar 16 2024
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Daily Post, Interior

Enigma

Friday 15th March 2024, 12.30pm (day 4,586)

Enigma machine, 15/3/24

Found another excuse to leave home for a while and come for a weekend in Milton Keynes, which may not sound the most immediately glamorous destination, but it does have the significant draw of Bletchley Park. It was here that World War 2 was won, arguably, when a (largely female) staff of thousands worked tirelessly to crack German ciphers, mainly produced by the now-famous Enigma machines, of which the museum still has a few dozen, out of about 450 surviving ones apparently.

Do you know that if Enigma had ever enciphered a letter as itself, the code would have been near-impossible to crack? But this was its fatal weakness, giving just enough indication that particular strings of gibberish might just be commonly-used phrases like “Wetter für heute” [‘the weather for today…’] and allowing each daily machine setting to be worked out.

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Mar 14 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Flowers by the roadside

Thursday 14th March 2024, 12.20pm (day 4,585)

Flowers at no. 39, 14/3/24

From blue yesterday to this vivid red (with yellow shading) today. Dampness remains a constant, though.

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Mar 14 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Trolley park (study with blue)

Wednesday 13th March 2024, 11.25am (day 4,584)

Trolley park, 13/3/24

I know this blog has had its banal moments over the last 12.6 years but depicting the weekly supermarket shop is pushing the boundaries. Yet it was (mildly) interesting today if only because it took place in a different venue from normal, for the convenience on the day: and the trolley park caught my eye. I like the deep blue colours that contrast the dominant greyness. But is it exciting? No, that I am not claiming.

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Mar 13 2024
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Landscape

Mist in the valley

Tuesday 12th March 2024, 11.20am (day 4,583)

Amongst other things that 2024 has lacked (like, my teaching, a ceasefire), I do not yet recall one of those ‘first day of spring’ moments: the kind of day, in England anyway, where it suddenly warms up, the sun starts shining and everything goes, ‘Hello….’. If it has already happened, I missed it. And 12/3/24 wasn’t it either.

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Mar 12 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

Llandudno (the only sunny place in the UK?)

Monday 11th March 2024, 11.15am (day 4,582)

Llandudno, from air, 11/3/24

Having had the chance to survey reasonably large portions of Ulster, the Irish Sea, North Wales and bits of north-west England on my flight home — I would like to declare that at 11:15 this morning, Llandudno and the Great Orme, both definitely depicted here, constituted the only part of this whole slab of the world that could possibly be seeing any sunshine.

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Mar 12 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape, Sport

Inishowen’s Match of the Day

Sunday 10th March 2024, 11.25am (day 4,581)

Sea Rovers FC, 10/3/24

“Top o’ the morning to you and welcome to Ireland’s Northernmost Football Ground for today’s big match in the Inishowen League; unbeaten visitors Glenceely Colts arrive unbeaten all season, with second in the table Sea Rovers needing to win to have any chance of catching them…. but they’ll fancy their chances I think, don’t you Conor….?”

And right they were to do so. Sea Rovers (in red) 4, Glenceely Colts 2. This actually is Ireland’s northernmost football ground, located a short distance from Malin Head, the country’s northernmost point.

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Mar 09 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

The road to Fanad Head

Friday 8th March 2024, 3.25pm (day 4,579)

Road to Fanad Head, 8/3/24

After a month at home — well, it seems like a long time to me — a long weekend away was mandated, and why not return to Donegal, which definitely entertained on our last visit here about 18 months ago. There are reasons for this. I never made it all the way to Fanad Head at the end of this road, but the views along the way were of ample quality.

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Mar 09 2024
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Daily Post, Interior

At uni, late

Thursday 7th March 2024, 5.05pm (day 4,578)

Late uni class, 7/3/24

I am not often to be found at work after 5pm — not ‘in the office’ anyway — and heaven forbid that uni’s now seemingly random system of allocating timetable slots gives me a 5-6pm class next year, or any other year. I can feel the ennui even when spying on them from across the corner of the Ellen Wilkinson Building.

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Mar 07 2024
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Daily Post, Transport

Typical Hebden Bridge wing mirror

Wednesday 6th March 2024, 10.55am (day 4,577)

Wing mirror, 6/3/24

Sadly this is an all-too-common sight around the tight streets of Hebden Bridge, with the only place to park many cars being on the road. It’s not even just the traffic-facing side which gets whacked, I’ve seen (and, years ago when I still owned a car, experienced) enough examples of pedestrians taking them out too. Though admittedly it would take a pretty hefty person to cause this amount of damage.

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