Friday afternoon, and it’s been a six-day working week. But the next time this bell dings, I can go home. And I am the one responsible for dinging it this time round. I’ll wait until the appointed time, though.
I apologise, as much to myself as anyone else, for the uneventfulness of life at this time. The scaffolders are busy in Hebden however; there were already at least four major scaffolding installations visible from home (including next door), and this fifth went up during the day. A growth industry it seems.
This seems a pretty sensible response to the recent weather. The general pose sums up how I feel about it, anyway.
Too nice a day to have lunch sat inside, and a few minutes after I made this decision this group joined me in the courtyard. This space has appeared on here several times before, and as it’s still not exactly easy to work out how to get in it, this is as many people as I’ve ever seen using it at one time.
A versatile flower, the rose is used for decoration, food, flavour, giving to people to indicate affection etc. Those thorns are damn prickly though. The one that has taken over one corner of our garden is an irritant rather than a decoration. This isn’t it, however; this one is to be found in Hebden Bridge town centre.
The ‘Knowledge Building Summer Institute’ conference got me to Wageningen last year. No chance (or, at least, no money) to get out to Montreal for the 2023 version, however, so it was a day in hybrid-land for me. Or rather, thanks to the time difference, an evening. And on a Sunday too. But a voluntary one, and fairly interesting.
After 26.5 miles over the last two days — and in warm, sunny weather too — a day of rest was called for. Clearly the June heat is encouraging many people to expose more flesh than is usual, although with the number of stag and hen parties that pass through Hebden these days, this is becoming a more common sight.
There are worse places to be at 8.20am on a Friday morning, that’s true. In 2007, the view down Wastwater to the mountains at its head (l-r: Yewbarrow, Great Gable, Lingmell) was voted ‘Britain’s Best View’ in an ITV programme (see this page); and you have to agree that it makes a good case. And I don’t even care that a car has got into the shot, in fact I quite like it — thanks to the person stood just to its right, also photographing this magnificent slice of land.
I am fond of the genre that is the Formal Sheep Portrait. They do pose — I mean, I’m not saying they know they’re having their picture taken, but they’re quite happy to stand still and check you out while you formulate the shot. This one is taken on the slopes of Irton Pike, in the west of the Lake District: it’s Muncaster Fell that is in the background, sporting a heavy growth of rhododendrons, hence the dusting of pink.
Third post in a week to be taken in the garden, but it’s still sunny and there’s not much else going on that offers a change of scene. This tennis ball has been sat pretty much in the same position for weeks now, and both Clare and I have acknowledged that neither of us have the slightest idea where it came from. It offers an opportunity for a still life, nevertheless.
Being 42 