From Luddenden — setting for yesterday’s blue-sky picture — to London, which is rather bigger, but in which the weather continues to be very pleasant. The blues seen here come partly from the sky but also this glass, which was a vivid blue and caught the eye. Clare gets on, at least in part, for the second time in three days and soon will be surpassing Joe in terms of the number of blog appearances overall.
Some people may have gone back to work today, but neither Clare nor I did. So, a game of Mensa Connections it was, then. She won. 2-0 as it happens.
This trip down to London also offered the chance to pick up a County Top (see the other blog); specifically Bushey Heath, the highest point in the historic county of Middlesex, swallowed up by London in 1965 although at least it still retains a county cricket team. It wasn’t major mountaineering, though. Clare here strolls through the woods near Bentley Priory (an ecclesiastical relic? no, a premium housing estate) in one of those shots that chews up the bandwidth thanks to all the foliage.
The first weekend away of the year. You can tell we’re in First Class because of the menu: stock up on the complimentary drinks and food, and the relatively small premium paid for these tickets is effectively refunded. Sometimes the food you want is even available.
Clare has her little daily projects too. Maybe that’s one reason why we’ve managed to stick it out for 25 years (and counting) as a couple. 2019 had its temperature scarf, one line per day; 2021 was recorded on this quilt, one square per day recording weather conditions. Ask C what the coding is…
Halifax Minster is a great, soot-coated monolith of a church, and its gate provides a suitably Gothic (and autumnal) vista for this year’s Halloween shot, with Clare playing the part of the spectral apparition. Maybe. Anyway, with this shot, the town of Halifax hauls itself up to 9th place in the ‘all-time list’ (see the stats), with its 34th appearance on this blog.
As this blog cycles (seemingly endlessly) around the calendar there are certain fixed points, and 26th October is one of them — Clare’s birthday. Here she is celebrating it with lunch in the White Lion — her parents, my in-laws, unseen to the left. Happy happies to her: I shall demur from reporting the exact number, but it’s several years fewer than me, anyway.
A day out at the football, and it was Clare’s idea. She sits there looking rather amused at the boisterous but harmless fellow Morecambe FC fans who took over The Leopard pub near Doncaster station at lunchtime. The stencil of Pelé, to the right, also sets the tone. Sadly, no one was feeling as boisterous after watching a rather tame 1-0 defeat, but that was all still to come.
The beginning of what will probably be a trilogy of pictures. On Saturday Joe leaves home — at least for university, in Dundee. We took him out for dinner tonight, not very far away (hence this also becomes the 1,500th Hebden Bridge picture to feature on the blog). Of course I sincerely hope this will not be his ‘last supper’. But whether he will ever live here again in the truly permanent sense that he has for the last 18 years, five months and five days (he has never lived in any other house than he does now) — who knows… But that’s the thing about the future, isn’t it? Who knows?
Clare reaches the top of the steps that take one up onto the Bowder Stone — a famous attraction of the Lake District that I have never before seen. Its name is tautological, for a big Bowder (boulder) it certainly is; hollow it out, install plumbing, and I imagine a family of three could live inside in comfort.
Being 42 