Apologies to this stranger for the somewhat unflattering portrait, but it’s a picture of myself, really: particularly as I was feeling on the train into work today. At least the summer holiday is now clearly in view ahead.
I paid £24 to guarantee a window seat for my daylight flight and then found I was sat right over the wing — and as it was an Airbus A380, the most monstrous vehicle (with two decks, and hence stairs inside), this was such a bloody large wing I got to see nothing of the land below, and hence no photos. I was confined to seat 63A for much of the flight, too, thanks to my neighbour spending almost all of the 6.5 hour journey in this position. How anyone can sleep on a plane is beyond me, even at night; I have no idea exactly what time zone we were over when I took this, but the time stamp is what my camera said, and we were really very far from it being the hours of darkness.
One of those rare ‘post-midnight’ shots for a given day: I didn’t get back from Wales until after 12 on Wednesday night, or was it Thursday morning. By the time I did, the wife had dozed off, so she didn’t particularly complain when I got off one final shot (so to speak). And no, she doesn’t have an ankle-bracelet tattoo; it’s insect repellent, I believe. Postscript: C did insist I add an observation that she gave me permission to use the shot…
There have been various flights depicted on here down the years and, I am guessing, my total amount of sleep achieved across all of them probably comes to little more than an hour or two. Ten minute dozes might have been snatched here and there on flights once a year, maybe. Johannesburg to Istanbul last night was no different for me. My neighbour did OK but failed to share the knack.
It’s approaching chucking out time on Monday night in the White Swan but Hugo doesn’t want to go anywhere. He’s quite comfy, thank you.
Thora is, of course, not a mogwai — the creature that spawns the Gremlins in the movie of that name — but she sure looks like one.
7:10am on 7/10. People have their observable routines. With teaching having started and my having 9am classes here and there, I have been catching the 6:55am train at Hebden Bridge. This becomes the 7:10 at Rochdale, and each time I’ve caught it, these two have got on. Today, they almost immediately dozed off. I sympathise. They look comfortable enough together, and good luck to them.
My first picture from the European mainland since I was in Bucharest on 2nd February 2020. To get to this point required me to negotiate a 55-minute queue at St. Pancras station, then three trains, then this bus, proving that other countries can do ‘Rail Replacement Buses’ just as enthusiastically as we can in the UK. And there was still another bus to come after this one. I now feel like the guy sat opposite me here — time for an early night.
It is, perhaps, a little early to be taking a nap, but it was Sunday, after all. We’ve all been there.
Being 42 