It’s not that cold here, in fact local contacts are talking about it being ‘very nice’: which is their interpretation of rather grey, still weather and a temperature of about 2-3ºC. Fair enough I suppose — a fornight ago it was apparently below -20º with wind-chill. This ice track is artificially maintained; it just goes round and round in a circle, it would seem more fun to me if they ran it through the city streets like an alternative bus lane.
This is not particularly Toronto-specific. There are at least three, and probably more, blatant electrical wires running across the shot in various directions. There are all sorts of reflections intruding and the head resides above what appears to be a fusebox. Nevertheless this is certainly my most interesting shot of the day, it feels to me like a collage. (The food in this place had similar characteristics — that is, random and possibly incompatible things nevertheless pushed together into the same space — but that’s another story.)
Unable to secure my preferred window seat I was reduced this afternoon to craning the camera past the head of my neighbour (with her permission I would add), kicking in a long zoom and hoping for the best. The colour balance was destroyed, but in black and white I just about get away with it. If you count my couple of hours of stopover in 2017, which nevertheless produced a shot similar to this — the blog’s third visit to Toronto.
I wouldn’t want to come here in the wind and rain but on a glorious, sunny Sunday morning — which today was — I could not think of much better to do in London than revisit Hackney Marshes. It’s an evocative sight as you come over the bridge at the north end and see this view. The place is so big it’s still about 20 minutes’ walking from here to the other end.
London can pretty much provide access to all world cuisines, and in fact, Walthamstow on its own manages quite well. This Japanese ramen bar certainly hit the spot for my evening meal. There are a lot of brands of sake, aren’t there — I wonder if any of them taste any different from one another? It’s not a drink that seems to internalise a great deal of variety.
Well, we do still have a social life now and again. You wouldn’t necessarily perceive this from reading the blog, though: this is the latest shot in a given day since late November (and it’s still not all that late, though the evening did continue past this point).
I did get very close today to the ‘having nothing to photograph’ assessment — but I did get the marking done. Justification for the latest trip to the pub, anyway: I am now officially On Sabbatical. As I ordered the first pint of this period I was reminded that I do like pub regular Jim’s habit of claiming his daily bottle of red wine. But even that, I couldn’t get properly in focus.
A subject that comes round each year, I could have first pictured these at least a fortnight ago; I think that when the ladders were put up to get Manchester’s Christmas decorations down, they just installed the lanterns immediately, to save getting the ladders out again. Thus, at least a month before the Chinese New Year that they are there to celebrate. Never mind — today was my last chance to get them on for CNY 2024; I won’t now be in Manchester for three weeks.
This really is as exciting as it got today. I have a multitude of papers to grade and it rained. The phenomenon of the ‘unsatisfactory orange’ is, of course, a very First World Problem, and even then, I had a substitute to hand. No endorsement of particular biscuit brands is implied: other crunchy and chocolatey snacks are available.
Students from a quarter-century or more ago will know the UoM’s ‘North Campus’ as ‘UMIST’ — but this institution has long been merged out of existence, and quite a few of its buildings, like this one beside the Mancunian Way, have stood derelict for years. But there’s still an aspirational feel to this shot — climb the ladder and jump over the moon? And let’s get some blue sky into things. It’s been altogether too grey lately.
Being 42 