Couldn’t decide between two pictures today and went with this one largely to avoid having two pictures in the same weekend taken in the cinema. But this one will do. It has been a while since something has used the dry dock in Hebden town centre, but this barge obliged today while also being quite well-decorated, although what a tsunami has to do with the water on a canal does pass me by. Wishful thinking perhaps?
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.
It’s very good that I can still find reasons, opportunity and (though this was not an expensive trip) the money to come and spend Thursday nights in places like this. As seen from outside the Ardlui Hotel, which even has its own train station.
Ever further northward we travel. Only one shot in the near-14 years of this blog has been taken from further north and still been in the UK — that being the one in Thurso on 13/7/25 — but this is a status it will keep only 24 hours. Who cares anyway, Lybster harbour was a tranquil spot on a beautiful evening. Impossible to believe that 150 years ago the herring industry meant this was one of the busiest ports in the country. It isn’t now, for sure.
Attending to the roof does seem to be his primary task, going on the strip of felt that is either not yet attached to the front, or is partway through being removed. It’s a fairly low-power way to house oneself, I imagine — and maybe in a few years time, once AI eats 95% of all electricity generated, anywhere, many more of us will be having to engage with it. (Note: not one pixel nor letter of this or any other of my blogs has been generated by AI, nor ever will be.)
The Thames breaks up into a number of channels as it flows through Oxford. This one isn’t marked on the map as the main river, but the water, flowing in the direction seen ahead, will be back there, and heading down to London, fairly soon. An unscheduled morning here, but I am home now.
Though we have been staying in London over the weekend, this part of the Thames is further upstream, just past Marlow, where the river forms the Buckinghamshire/Berkshire border for a while. I am very happy with this shot, as it turned out just as was hoped when I pressed the shutter. It seems to sum up two things about the Thames at this point — the wildlife and natural qualities are pretty good, and there’s certainly a lot of blatant displays of wealth around.
Took myself on a day out into the countryside, specifically to the little town of Lübben, which lies about an hour’s train journey south of Berlin, further up the River Spree. Here, the river breaks into a series of creeks and canals, on which, today, a substantial number of tourists were floating around in either a self-propelled manner or on Venice-style gondolas, only piloted by gruff-looking East German types. But let’s go with this person-free shot, instead. One has to be pleased with the colour contrast here.
It’s our silver wedding anniversary this week. “Take me overseas!” the wife demanded, so I said, ‘sure’, and we have headed to the Isle of Wight. Well, you have to cross the sea to get there: starting with Portsmouth Harbour, pictured.
My limited experience of vehicles like the ‘Sweet Basil’ (its name is just visible on one side of the prow) is that they are nice, peaceful ways to get around the place — but they take their time. And living on one for a week might be just about doable: any longer and I’d be, like, where’s the bath? Nevertheless downsizing has an obvious appeal, at some gut level.
Being 42 