“Right you ‘orrible lot!”, cries the sergeant-major at the back. “This is the tidal limit of the Ribble right here and we will take no prisoners! Keep an eye out for that tidal bore which is due any minute now…. YOU! At the end! Wake up laddie!”
Hey, I’m sure gulls are as attuned to the hydrodynamics of their local area way more than any human. I had to look that stuff up on Wikipedia, but they knew it already — food is on its way upriver.
Weirs are the creation of engineers, and this one, on the River Dee in Chester, is nearly a thousand years old, built by the Normans. On the downstream side, the tidal estuary begins. The main beneficiaries of this are those upstream who are thus defended from tidal flooding, and the local birdlife, who find in it a very convenient place to go fishing. The one at the top has just eaten, in fact, but is still hanging around for more.
“And together now…. one, two, three, leg up and TUCK that head…. and now SLEEP.”
“Hang on, did we put anyone on watch? Ah, who cares.”
The goose certainly gives the impression of being rather annoyed with the mallard: who, in turn, seems to be making a conscious effort to get out of the way of its bigger cousin. Not an easy one to get right thanks to all the sparkles on the Hebden Water — as a result it’s overlit — but it just about works.
Although not as mild as it has been, today felt like one of those Sundays where it was perfectly permissible to take it easy. And in my local area, there are worse places to do this than down by — or in these guys’ case, on — the canal.
Welcome back to Dubai, for my third trip here after 2019 and last year. Purely for work, well, except today when I had a day off thanks to teaching all of the weekend that is to come. Dubai Creek is why the city is here, being the inlet of the Persian Gulf around which the original settlement was founded. These days it’s just another part of the big shopping mall that the city has become, albeit with cuter buildings and some cats. Oh yes, and lots of seagulls.
“Hi Bob. Good pickings today, don’t you think?”
“Definitely. Must be all those people driving back from their Christmasses in Scotland. Ahh… look, I see an abandoned Kit-kat over there.”
“Sure — see you later….”
2025 is ending with a very Hebden-bound period of time, but I can’t say I mind. The weather is not conducive to any walking plans (then again, in December it rarely is) and I’m just getting on with the reading. Our ‘Eiffel Tower’ is called thus because it marks the end of the row of houses known as Eiffel Buildings; it might not be as imposing as the one in Paris but it’s still a cute building. The birds and mist add the necessary atmospherics.
God, look at the time. If this looks like it is taken over some misty marshland somewhere, it’s an illusion — instead it was captured from the 3rd floor of the Ellen Wilkinson Building, as I made my leisurely way to my 4pm class, which doesn’t even manage to start before sunset at this time of year. And still ten days to go until the solstice.
“Who’s this guy then?”
“No idea. Another tourist with a thing for pigeons I suppose. Like London’s the only place that has them.”
“Pervert. Perhaps if I scowl at him he’ll go away.”
Being 42 