Sunday 22nd December 2019, 4.45pm (day 3,041)
‘Tis the Sunday before Christmas, and by now it is obligatory for every commercial establishment to have decorated somehow. But so be it — our decorations are up at home as well.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: cafe
3,000 days of little pleasures
Monday 11th November 2019, 1.30pm (day 3,000)
I started this blog on my 42nd birthday, 26th August 2011, and was just going to run it for a year in the first instance. Here I am eight years, two months and sixteen days later — day 3,000. Whatever the quality of the shots each day, I can honestly say I have never cheated; every day’s post has featured a photo taken, by me, on that day. No camera disasters, no broken SD cards, no waking up one morning with a nagging feeling of having forgotten something important. This blog has become, at least, an exercise in persistence.
But it also brings a little pleasure into each day, at least one moment where I am obliged to be creative. So if it’s all the same with the rest of the world… I will carry on for a while longer yet.
On the way home
Monday 26th November 2018, 11.40am (day 2,650)
Travelling, and working, and having a cup of tea, in Munich central station, which is so huge that you go two stops on the S-bahn train before you actually leave its awnings. I found my little corner of it for a time. A decent trip to Germany, but time to go home.
Pre-lecture cup of tea
Friday 9th November 2018, 9.35am (day 2,633)
Fridays are my teaching days at the moment, not every week (hence my ability to bugger off to the Lakes last Friday) but most of them. And it’s an all day thing. So visual variety is not a characteristic of my average Friday, my apologies. Things kick of at 10: the pre-lecture cup of tea from the cafe in the Bridgeford Street building is an essential preliminary.
Jenna’s mint tea
Wednesday 3rd October 2018, 10.40am (day 2,596)
A morning meeting with a colleague, held in the pleasant surroundings of the Christie Bistro. I had my usual builder’s brew but she went for the mint tea option and I was taken by the appearance of the leaves suspended in the water. As you see here. (I mean, that’s what this blog is, isn’t it? I show you what I see each day…)
Also, a minor milestone — I make this the blog’s 500th Manchester shot.
Day 2,500
Friday 29th June 2018, 12.30pm (day 2,500)
Day 2,500 of this blog — six years, ten months and three days, as it happens (give or take a couple of February 29ths). With this being an otherwise mundane day I kept my eye out for occurrences of the figure 2,500 and saw none at all, but there were a couple of £2.50 moments, like this one, which I considered near enough. I also admire this café for printing out all their menus — and laminating them — with a blatant spelling mistake on each: it’s there at the top.
Will there be 2,500 more days? I guess I’m keeping going, for now, though there won’t be a great deal happening over the next few weeks at least. Day 3,000 will come some time in late October 2019 I reckon: which doesn’t seem so far away.
Lunch in Café Muse
Monday 11th June 2018, 1.10pm (day 2,482)
With the closure of the Contact Theatre cafe, adjacent to my office, for all of 2018, Café Muse (at the Manchester Museum) has become the nicest place nearby to buy a lunch. I like this back room, with its tiles and incongruous porthole-style windows. A cool spot to hang out as the tropical weather continues.
Taken out for lunch
Wednesday 10th January 2018, 1.30pm (day 2,330)
I confidently predict January 2018 will play itself out without a great deal happening in any way. Being taken out for lunch (by the wife) was the main event of the day…
The former café
Wednesday 6th December 2017, 10.05am (day 2,295)
In the summer the university catering service decided they could no longer be troubled to run a café in my building at work — the seats still get used, but there’s no warmth to the place any more. Another shot with emptiness as its theme, like yesterday’s…. maybe this is some big existential crisis brewing.
Proteins priced individually
Wednesday 18th October 2017, 10.20am (day 2,246)
“Hi. I’d like the chicken caesar salad, a potato salad, and a plate of glutamine synthetase, please.”
“Certainly madam. That’ll be £3.50 for the two salads, and we have a special on glutamine synthetase today at just £2.50 for a plate. Unless you’d prefer an orotidylate decarboxylase wrap, at just £1.95?”
Being 42 