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.
The Midland’s second appearance on the blog, after this shot, 2,627 days ago– which is less vivid, and I prefer this one. It’s nice that we’re getting some sunshine, which in the last few weeks of 2023, was at a premium.
Once more I was in the work cocoon — specifically, the email cocoon — all day, only emerging as the skies looked like this. Another day, then, where there was not much to photograph, but at least it’s the weekend.
Scafell, on the left, is the second-highest mountain in England at 3,162 feet (964m) and even Slight Side, the pimple below the sun, is 2,499 feet, so no dwarf. I decided that ascending both was a good idea on a day which reached the high 20s Celsius, and on which breezes were just a dream, happening elsewhere. This was, perhaps, the slowest walk I have done since I was a toddler. But they were bagged. (See the Wainwrights blog for the gory details if you like.)
As seen from the Walthamstow Travelodge, looking south. Yes, I’m in London again. I like London. There are things to do here.
Wednesday night is Taco Night at the St Helena Yacht Club, probably the busiest single social gathering I have yet attended on the island, and in full swing behind me as I took this picture. But the outlook is west, across James Bay: the next land in that direction is Brazil.
It’s not really the aurora of course. But the sunset tonight was doing a reasonable impression of it. The nights draw in….
Spectacular View of the Last Two Days, number 1. This is the view from Carn Glas-choire, historic Top of Nairnshire, my 52nd County Top (see my other blog). In the background to the left, Braeriach, which is the third-highest mountain in the whole of the UK, at 1,296 m (4,252 ft). A magnificent panorama, and total vindication of my CT project: giving me an excuse to visit parts of my country that I have never before seen. This one was well worth the effort.
Today I, and around 250 other people, walked from Arnside to Grange-over-Sands — an easy, flat walk of about 5.5 miles. The complication is that between these two places lies the northern reach of Morecambe Bay, the largest expanse of intertidal land in Great Britain. But in that also lay the fun of the day — the chance to (safely) get a couple of miles away from permanently dry land, into a space that is neither one thing nor the other, a limbo state between land and sea — with a healthy dose of sky, too.
I deliberately cranked up the contrast on this shot because I like the way that all the people look like dashes of paint descending from a horizon that is insubstantial but definitely there. As if we are trapped within a sheet of glass, aware of the heavens above us but unable to reach them.
A glorious day today, spent entirely outside, getting healthy exercise. Work, in a formal sense, was just something other people were doing, and the day was all the better for it. I do not apologise for the Jesus & Mary Chain reference either, as no one should for referring to such a seminal musical beat combo.
Being 42 