Time passes, we are mortal. Swifty (Derek) was only seven years older than me — but he caught pneumonia not long ago, and that was it. Today was his funeral. Too many people now who have featured on here who have died.
A hundred years ago the town of Burnley had 103,000 people in it; these days it has about 78,000, so around a quarter fewer. They still seem pretty closely packed in, though.
With a storm bringing down a number of trees across the north of England, I was obliged to sit on buses for some time today, instead of getting the train. But never mind. This is one of those shots that I like just because of the way the light has fallen, particularly on her face. The little signs dotted around the place — well, those are just the visual litter of the modern world.
It was still there when I passed it again in the early evening, too. Shocking, what is the world coming to, etc etc.
Anyone prepared to do some detective work, based on the evidence of the road sign in the background, could perhaps work out where this was taken and maybe even the service on which we were travelling. But I’m sure for a summer Friday afternoon, this is too much to trouble with.
One wouldn’t think Burnley would be on a direct route from Leeds to Liverpool but the canal bearing that name does take a rather roundabout course. It’s a pastoral spot in a town that doesn’t have a reputation for rural charm. The rule of thirds works well enough on this shot.
Now here’s a fairly unique combination: witnessed on the edge of Burnley this afternoon. But as I typed the title of this post, it struck me that it sounded like one of those ‘what 3 words’ geolocation things. So I tried it, and magnificently, “goalie.pylon.llama” does correspond to a 3 x 3m square of land on South Island, New Zealand, to the west of the town of Greymouth — as this page proves. There could be a whole new game in this.
And yes, football’s back. In some ways, anyway.
This is how Christmas works this year. We saw my side of the immediate family today — these people are not them, but we gathered in the same place, Towneley Park in Burnley. We didn’t bring our own seating either, but it worked out anyway. It was good to see them — but it shouldn’t have to be this way.
The Leeds and Liverpool canal takes a very roundabout route to link its titular cities. Here it is going through Burnley, a stretch which is a nice bit of greenery in the middle of that what is, otherwise, a workaday town. But it also feels very neglected, becoming swamped in places by algae (a sign that there are too many nitrates in the water) and litter (a sign that some people shouldn’t be let out of doors). This coot takes advantage of examples of both.
The town of Burnley has nearly 75,000 people in it and lies less than a dozen miles from my house, so one might have expected it to have appeared on the blog more than three times in the last seven years — and all three of them (6/4/12, 1/19/12 and 22/11/15) were taken at Turf Moor, the home of Burnley FC. Is there much other reason to go to Burnley? Not if the evidence of my life is anything to go by, but I did find cause to visit today for non-footballing reasons. The garage was nothing to do with it, but I do like the scene, even if there’s not quite the desired symmetry to the shot.
Being 42 