Tuesday 24th March 2026, 7.00pm (day 5,325)
I got out of the house, at least. One doesn’t often see trains like this, but let’s enjoy it while it lasts, and take a relaxed attitude, as this person seems to be doing.
Not so busy
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: empty
Late night on Garnett Street
Tuesday 10th March 2026, 9.45pm (day 5,311)
OK, not that late I suppose, but nevertheless this is the latest shot in a given day since 30th September — which, as this one is, was taken in Bradford. Clearly that city has become my go-to spot for evenings out. I did do more interesting things today than hang around this empty car park for some industrial unit or other, by the way. But as a subject for the camera it worked OK. The manhole cover to the bottom right does annoy me a bit, but I couldn’t crop it without also losing the important red.
Friday market, dead
Friday 3rd January 2025, 3.35pm (day 4,880)
This was never going to be the busiest or most retail-friendly Friday market day of the year, but even so, it was particularly absent of life today. Anyone who wants to pick up a yellow and blue plastic crane, though — here it is. Or was.
Raffle prize
Monday 16th December 2024, 6.50pm (day 4,862)
More inaccurate replication of some animal or other — koalas are just not this big, or this colour, though nevertheless, that is what it is supposed to be. 4th prize in the Christmas raffle of the Hebden Bridge Picture House (£1/ticket, if you’re interested). This was very early in the evening: the place filled up by the start of the movie, which was Conclave: very good (another unsolicited advertisement).
Post-movie
Friday 30th August 2024, 10.00pm (day 4,754)
I have several times tried to capture a version of this shot, but it’s never really worked before. I’m quite happy with this one, though. Most of the thirty or so people who were watching have already departed and yet still the credits roll, down to the stage where only the assistant catering key grip’s mother is still watching them. The movie? Trap — which, I suppose, was OK, at least for a while.
Making an effort
Tuesday 20th August 2024, 8.40am (day 4,744)
The title of this post can have multiple meanings today — for me, and, presumably, for him. Being on campus at all in August requires some kind of effort, but particularly at 8.40am: this is actually the earliest Manchester shot I have published in well over a year. But we were both there, and my day went well enough: I hope his did too.
The Crown lies empty
Friday 1st March 2024, 4.25pm (day 4,572)
Several public houses premises in and around Hebden Bridge have lain empty for years. This is the old Crown Inn in the town centre: at my back as I took this photo was Marshall’s Bar; neither of them made it through 2020 and have remained closed and empty since. Some pubs on the approach roads to town (like the Woodsman Inn) have been lying derelict for two decades now. Yet the contradictions of the property market are such that it seems now, by law, only new café-bars and restaurants are allowed to open in the town. It is clearly cheaper and more desirable to convert a former bank into a pub than convert a former pub into a reopened pub.
First one on the tube
Friday 9th February 2024, 6.25am (day 4,551)
If the train from Toronto to the airport is counted, what you see here is the start of the third stage of the five that comprised my journey home: the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow Terminal 5. You don’t often see tube trains like this, and in fact all the way through to King’s Cross it seemed quiet. From there, to Leeds, then home by 11.20am; 12.5 hours from Toronto to Hebden Bridge, via London, is not bad at all.
Behind the pub, late
Sunday 27th August 2023, 10.05pm (day 4,385)
Gosh, this year of my life starts with two consecutive nights out. But then again it is a holiday weekend. We are the last ones out behind the Railway, in fact. This picture appeals purely because of the lights.
The latest restoration project
Monday 15th May 2023, 10.45am (day 4,281)
A whole house has appeared upstairs — a desirable property, it seems, albeit one in need of restoration, and unfurnished. It looks like the wife is on a restoration project. Quite possibly this will be on the office floor until 2026, or thereabouts.
Being 42 