Tag Archives: Clare

Nov 02 2025
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Halloween party prep

Friday 31st October 2025, 7.55pm (day 5,181)

Clare and V, 31/10/25

I am against the exploitation of Halloween when it comes to the selling of vast amounts of ephemeral plastic tat. But we had an invite to a party tonight, the costumes we wore had been worn before and will be worn again — though maybe not that V mask which I found terribly uncomfortable and which, all evening, was worn purely for the photo opportunities. C’s ‘Corpse Bride’ wedding dress was definitely getting another outing, though. Preparations are, here, still in train (pun intended).

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Aug 20 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Laptop design work

Tuesday 19th August 2025, 8.40pm (day 5,108)

Legs and pattern, 19/8/25

Can hexagons be made to fit into squares? Clare is certainly hoping so. I believe it’s a crochet thing.

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Jul 30 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

St Magnus’s Cathedral

Wednesday 30th July 2025, 11.05am (day 5,088)

St Magnus's Cathedral, 30/7/25

St Magnus — originally Magnus Erlendssen — was one of the Norse Earls of Orkney. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea at the time to set up a kind of power-sharing agreement with his cousin Håkon, which lasted only as long as it took Håkon to capture Magnus and stick an axe into his parietal lobe. However, as Magnus was considered something of a pious dude and all-round good sort, after his nephew Rognvald subsequently deposed the usurper, he built this cathedral in tribute. This is pretty good going, as most of us these days will get a post mortem on Facebook and a few ‘likes’. I dunno, progress, eh?

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Jul 02 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Clare has another go

Tuesday 1st July 2025, 7.20pm (day 5,059)

Futile diary, 1/7/25

Many such items have appeared in our house down the years and I don’t deny I have my equivalents, but this latest one of Clare’s is particularly honest about whether there is any point to it all. The organising I mean, not life itself.

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Jun 14 2025
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Daily Post, Landscape

The last climb, for now

Friday 13th June 2025, 1.50pm (day 5,041)

Clare on last climb, 13/6/25

As part of the contract that is Being Married to Drew, Clare occasionally gets dragged up remote moorlands, like Meikle Says Law in the Lammermuir Hills — the top of this (a County Top) being somewhere in the vague brown moorland to top right. This was the final stage back to the car. I call it the ‘last climb for now’ because I assume she might be motivated to do another one or two in the future before one of us dies…. though who knows for sure?

This is the last of the shots from the current road trip in Scotland, a passage of time which has seen it overtake Australia as the second-most depicted country on here after England.

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Jun 12 2025
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

“One day lad, all this will be yours”

Wednesday 11th June 2025, 11.50am (day 5,039)

Doune Castle window, 11/6/25

Joe makes his first appearance on the blog since December. Why this window? Why the post title? This is Doune Castle, and some 51 years ago, in 1974, Michael Palin and Terry Jones were stood by this very window during the filming Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Doune stood in for at least four different castles in the movie. “But mother…..” “Father, lad, father.” “But father….. I don’t want to marry her, I just want to, want to…..” (The ignorant can check out the scene at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk)

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Mar 30 2025
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Daily Post, Sport, Transport

Clare, nine miles in

Sunday 30th March 2025, 1.10pm (day 4,966)

Clare running, canal, 30/3/25

The wife was doing her latest excessively long bout of exercise, as she trains up for her second marathon in April. 22 miles today I believe. 9 miles in, our paths crossed briefly, then, off she went eastwards.

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Feb 14 2025
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

The wife makes notes

Thursday 13th February 2025, 4.35pm (day 4,921)

Clare takes notes, 13/2/25

At least by recent standards, this has been (and will remain) a very uneventful week. But one can still take notes about it. Clare, indeed, can take notes about almost anything, a phenomenon I have been observing for more than a quarter of a century now. Note both the writing and the pointing hand: the information is being processed even at the moment of its creation…

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Sep 09 2024
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Meeting Joe halfway

Saturday 7th September 2024, 4.00pm (day 4,762)

Clare and Joe at Heaton Stannington, 7/9/24

With Joe now living in Dundee we have determined that Newcastle is the halfway point between us, geographically. Hence, this weekend, built around an evening out but also (it being me) a trip to a football match and a chance to laze around in the sunshine on the grassy acres of Heaton Stannington FC (a ground which thoroughly deserves the awards it has received for its beer, by the way).

Of course, the title of this blog has non-geographical implications too, as with all parents and their children. And if you saw pictures of me when I was Joe’s age (21) — this shot, particularly, is like looking at a magical mirror that projects one back in time. That’s me, in the summer of 1991, right there. Only with bigger feet.

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Aug 16 2024
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Asleep on my return

Thursday 15th August 2024, 12.25am (day 4,739)

Clare's feet, 15/8/24

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…

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