It’s Friday. It’s another ‘dog in the pub’ shot. Here is Ellie, a (I think) border collie/doberman cross. A few months old, terribly cute, on her first season, not quite sure about the attention she’s receiving… I like the posterising effect on this shot and the fact that the shoe of Simon, her owner, has snuck into the background.
Nice to have a friend appear on the blog. Tara’s second appearance as it happens; the first being back in April 2012. This shot is taken in the same place, same company, as that one. Life goes on and many things are seen but sometimes you come back to the same places, the same companions.
So, it’s my birthday. I’m 43. The name of this blog is now out of date but I might as well keep it. I could have tried to post a picture that represented the celebrations somehow but I didn’t do anything particularly different – although the afternoon was a fun one and spent with friends. While sitting at the Shoulder of Mutton pub in the centre of Hebden Bridge there was this parade of husky dogs, there must have been some kind of meeting of an owners’ club as they were everywhere. And why not show them off, because they were truly beautiful creatures, and obliging models too. So we’ll start the second year with a picture of one of them.
This is the worst thing I have had to post about on this blog.
Until 1.15pm today had been a very uneventful day. It then started raining: hard. Very, very hard.
By 2.15pm the road on which I live had become a river, and then we saw that the lane which goes into the woods was pouring out water (and stones). Whether it was just rainwater or whether, as some speculated, the old reservoir at the top of the woods had burst its banks, the normally placid mill stream turned into a torrent. Where it goes under the main Keighley Road and through a sluice pipe into the river, this backed up against the retaining wall to an astonishing degree, rising literally 15 feet in half an hour and eventually pouring through the gardens of the two houses nearest the bridge.
The owners of the house were not in. Myself and other neighbours tried to save vital items and – most importantly – the two dogs (which you have seen before on this blog). But most of the ground floors were taken out. Our house is uphill from the stream, so was fine (a couple of idiot drivers ploughing through the stream at 30mph being the main threat).
More photos and footage can be seen on YouTube and Facebook for those into their weather porn. For comparison, the lake you see in the woods at a couple of points is where we played mölkky the other day.
I’m supposed to be going to New Orleans tomorrow, by the way – but I ain’t promising anything. At the moment, Hebden Bridge is impassable to cars.
Tara is the dog of our friend Steve Grey who drinks in the local pub. Of all the people I have ever met Steve is the one who is closest to having a ‘daemon’ like the ones possessed by all the characters in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels – a companion soul who takes the form of an animal. Tara is Steve’s. They are almost impossible to imagine without one another.
I started this blog on August 26th, which means today is the end of my third month. Thus, I am a quarter of the way through the planned whole year, 12 months, 366 days (it’s a leap year next year, remember). I guess I’ve done quite well so far, but today I really lacked inspiration. Only this little, 3-month-old pup in the pub this evening really stood out. It was him, or another picture of Hebden Bridge, anyway.
