Tag Archives: gallery

Happy Christmas, peasants: love, Northern Rail

Wednesday 28th December 2022, 2.05pm (day 4,143)

I didn’t go out today, and alongside the poor weather, here is a good reason why. I don’t normally do this kind of thing on here, but observations must be made, in photo form, of the ‘helpful’ information currently available on the Northern Rail web site. Nobody in ‘Authority’ really gives a toss one way or the other, so here we are. Twelve and a half years in power and this bunch of idiots can’t even provide a working railway. Or is it the unions’ fault, somehow? For what though, expecting that all that rubbish spoken in 2020 about how important ‘keyworkers’ are might actually translate into an ability, two years later, to at least sustain their rewards in the face of the rising cost of living? (See also nurses, postal workers, etc.)

So be it. The two trips I have to make before the (ostensible) resumption of ‘the usual service’ on 9th Jan. could have been done on the trains, instead I am obliged to use less environmentally sustainable means. Sadly I don’t expect 2023 to be much different, throughout.

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Cheap Bella shot

Tuesday 27th December 2022, 9.45am (day 4,142)

Bella, 27/12/22

Bella becomes the latest animal to make a definite second appearance on the blog, following her debut on Christmas Day 2015. Seven years on, little has changed about her, including this, her main tactic for persuading humans to give her food; if dogs know about the concept of a raison d’etre, the acquisition of food is Bella’s.

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Direct male line

Monday 26th December 2022, 12.05pm (day 4,141)

Family tree, 26/12/22

A day spent with family. My sister Vicki pulled out this scroll before lunch: her family tree as far back as it has so far been taken — so mine too, of course. With Joe also in the room we have here fifteen generations of male line Whitworths documented, ending (thus far…) with him, and starting, at the top left of this image, with Thomas W., born in 1585 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. The two Abrahams you also see here didn’t get out of the same place, and I must add that my father Ian was also born in Ashton (in 1944). This says a lot about the Whitworths, I feel. And as Vicki pointed out — shouldn’t we be running the place by now?

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The Christmas Day Walk

Sunday 25th December 2022, 12.55pm (day 4,140)

Xmas Day walk, 25/12/22

The family’s annual concession of a bit of exercise, alongside the eating and drinking that is also to come. We were only about another fifteen minutes from the pub at this point. Happy Christmas to you all.

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In Cheesus

Saturday 24th December 2022, 2.15pm (day 4,139)

Cheesus, 24/12/22

Cheesus being the name of one of the many eateries-stroke-café-cum-bars that are now, by law, the only kind of retail establishment allowed to open in Hebden Bridge. It served a fine grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and why not a Christ reference today — it is his birthday celebration tomorrow, after all. Enjoy tomorrow, however you intend to spend it.

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The market packs up

Friday 23rd December 2022, 4.05pm (day 4,138)

Empty market, 23/12/22

This was a busy scene earlier in the day but by dusk, things are packing up. A blob of drizzle that I did not spot in time would normally be grounds to reject the shot but here it provides a kind of ghostly highlight for the last remaining bits and pieces that are heading into the storage shed behind. I like the little ‘eyes’ peeking out over things on the left, too.

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Leaving for England

Thursday 22nd December 2022, 9.40am (day 4,137)

Clare & Joe, Dundee, 22/12/22

It’s not really accurate to say that we came up to Dundee to bring Joe “home” for Christmas. Home, for him, is up here now. You can’t see the windows of his place on this shot but it’s close by. But he was returned to Yorkshire, at least — by 4pm. I like the zones of red on this shot, spacing themselves across the bottom.

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Desperate Dan, and others

Wednesday 21st December 2022, 11.45am (day 4,136)

Desperate Dan, 21/12/22

The Winter Solstice was spent getting the Christmas shopping done in Dundee, which among other things, is the home of D. C. Thomson, publisher of the famous (in the UK, anyway) comics the Beano and Dandy. The latter no longer comes out except as an annual, but for the 75 years that it was published, the character Desperate Dan was in every issue: and here is his statue in the city centre. The other shoppers don’t seem bothered, though.

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Edinburgh Castle

Tuesday 20th December 2022, 1.15pm (day 4,135)

Edinburgh Castle, 20/12/22

This is a fine building — or, rather, a complex of buildings. Taken, with a long zoom, from the slopes of Allermuir Hill, the north-eastern terminus of the Pentland Hills. Behind, across the Firth of Forth, the shore of Fife. It’s somewhere other than home, anyway.

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Mist is born

Monday 19th December 2022, 3.20pm (day 4,134)

Canal mist, 19/12/22

This shot is taken a few hundred yards down the canal from the one captured on Friday, and as is very clear, there’s been a considerable thaw in the meantime. But there remain remnants of ice on the water, sublimating these tendrils into the far warmer air.

Six shots in a row in Hebden Bridge, and eight of the last nine. There’ll be variety tomorrow though.

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