I’m sure birds have just as much of a developed weather sense as do humans. Why wouldn’t they? High winds, for a start, could really screw up that trip they were planning to make to, say, the local household waste centre. These guys may or may not be trying to sort some stuff out before the latest heavy shower comes rolling in, just as we might speed up our journey home from the shops in the face of a cloud like this.
We’re still not seeing a great deal of sunshine, and so this one was chosen mainly to demonstrate how the evenings are getting lighter, even down here in the valley. A place I am about to leave for a week: when I get back we should have sun at the front of the house again. Should it deign to shine.
My first Hebden Bridge picture in one whole month. It doesn’t seem like the pigeons have changed their behaviour much since I’ve been away: still the group callisthenics, tight circles around a carefully-chosen patch of town. They look impressive enough in black-and-white. Except for the one who’s broken formation, to the lower left.
The world turns. Bearing in mind that the earliest I have seen the sun reappear at one side of our house in the mornings is around 16th February, and assuming a basic symmetry on each side of the Winter Solstice, that means it’s about to disappear for the winter, an event that is rather less noticeable. But bearing in mind the clocks are going back in a few days, quite soon even this rather wan level of sunlight isn’t going to make it over the chimneys… and we’ll see it in February. (It’s not like winter in Tromsø though, that’s true.)
‘Pioneer Village’ really is the name of this district, with the building on which the letters are sat being the Toronto Subway station of that name. But I doubt the pioneers, of whatever nation, who first explored the regions north of Lake Ontario quite anticipated their village would end up looking like this. Decent sunset, though.
A sign of divine intervention above Lake Ontario this afternoon? Well, more likely explained by the fact that over there lies Billy Bishop Airport, Toronto’s downtown terminal for domestic flights. Something to look at, either way.
More weather, but it was better today, and anyway I don’t care as once again I am leaving the country. Whether conditions will be improved where I’m going, who knows. The first part of my journey was by rail — this shot was snapped at about 90mph somewhere in the vicinity of Peterborough.
Was sat in an office for all the first part of the day and a train for all the second part of it. But at least, when travelling home from Scotland, the Forth Bridges usually make an appearance, and they’re almost always worth photographing. The monochrome, as so often, conceals colour balance crimes caused mainly by the scene being viewed through the windows of the 13:59 from Aberdeen to Edinburgh (arrived 16:20).
Believe me, the St Helena Yacht Club is not as posh a place as it sounds. But it is certainly the best place in town to watch the sun set over the Atlantic, and on Wednesday nights there is a regular food night of some description. In early 2023 it was Taco Night — nowadays it has morphed into Fish Night. Either way, I was there early, and the guy with the impressively pointy beard is still setting up.
Amongst other things that 2024 has lacked (like, my teaching, a ceasefire), I do not yet recall one of those ‘first day of spring’ moments: the kind of day, in England anyway, where it suddenly warms up, the sun starts shining and everything goes, ‘Hello….’. If it has already happened, I missed it. And 12/3/24 wasn’t it either.
Being 42 