Friday 1st June 2018, 5.05pm (day 2,472)
It landed on me. We communed for a minute. I took a photo, it flew off but it had done its job.
God, I’m getting grey. Slowly but surely.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: gallery
6.30am trains
Thursday 31st May 2018, 6.30am (day 2,471)
Most of the local train service remains a scandal of national proportions (some 2,000 trains cancelled across Northern’s domain since the new timetable was launched, blunderingly, on 20th May) but I must admit I have been a small locus of punctuality all week. But no one should have to suffer a 6.30am train too often. Or, two of them.
In Carol’s garden
Wednesday 30th May 2018, 9.20am (day 2,470)
Our exertions of yesterday finished late enough to make crashing at the in-laws’ desirable. Morecambe was still a fine, sunny place this morning however. These flowers may, or may not, be columbines — the identification is hesitant. I like the one in the centre, though, just opening up, stretching its tentacles like a little octopus. Or pentopus maybe.
Over the boulders
Tuesday 29th May 2018, 1.40pm (day 2,469)
“Come on a walk up Scafell Pike, son. It’ll be fun. You can have the pleasure of attaining the highest point in England,” says I, a few weeks back. I’m sure there were points today when Joe cursed me for letting me talk him into this particular hike — particularly here on Ill Crag, one of the subsidiary peaks nearby, and the first outrageous excrescence of boulders into the journey. This picture can also be presented with the benefit of hindsight and knowing that in fact, there’s worse still to come before the summit — all 3,210 feet of it (978 metres) — is attained.
But he made it. And it was a beautiful day.
Replacements
Monday 28th May 2018, 1.40pm (day 2,468)
While you were all, I’m sure, having an exciting holiday weekend (should your country celebrate this time of year, which many seem to), I was in Halifax replacing my phone, as yesterday’s model was tossed casually into a vat of water towards the end of Sunday (OK, OK, it was the toilet). £51.99 + bus fare + about 20 minutes of my time, surprisingly quick replacement but then again that’s the system for you. Let’s put it behind me. Or under me. Whatever.
Excessive tie-dye
Sunday 27th May 2018, 10.00am (day 2,467)
Bank Holiday weekend. The stalls are out to capture the tourists. Clearly we have become the Yorkshire equivalent of Nimbin, perceived as a hippy enclave. No one round here wears this. Well, OK, maybe a couple of people.
Goslings
Saturday 26th May 2018, 2.20pm (day 2,466)
Are the babies of all species innately cute? Is this just something nature does? Well, OK, not flies, maybe, but the rule seems to hold for most birds and mammals at least. These goslings were being closely watched by Mum on the canal at Mytholmroyd this afternoon.
Rainy day
Friday 25th May 2018, 5.30pm (day 2,465)
Not an eventful day, and it won’t be an eventful weekend. Rain fell for the first time in three weeks, but it was of the light, refreshing kind that the plants needed before everything begun withering away. No sitting outside the pub this evening, however.
March of the giants
Thursday 24th May 2018, 8.55pm (day 2,464)
Unorthodoxy in the route to and from work for the second day in a row — even more so today as a train strike and an unmissable commitment on campus meant I hired a car and drove in to work in Manchester for only the third time ever, and the first two of those were both in August 2005. But it was a nice day, and the views from the last legs of the drive, over the tops from Littleborough to Cragg Vale, provided some recompense.
Northern Fail (Rochdale station, unexpectedly)
Wednesday 23rd May 2018, 7.40am (day 2,463)
There is nothing to complain about regarding the weather, at the moment. It has been glorious, for about three weeks now, certainly since the weekend in Scotland, May 5-7.
There is everything to complain about regarding the state of our local Northern Rail service, a metaphorical view of which could see the recent timetable change as a pint of week-old milk poured into some already dodgy sauce and, consequently, it curdling alarmingly. Was turfed off my original train at Rochdale, hence here you see almost the entire population of said train trying to get on the next one, which will itself already be busy. I waited a little longer, got in 20 minutes late, and the sad thing is, this is now the new normal. Never have I encountered a large company offering such shoddy service before, close to collapse, and we might even have it better on this line than many others.
Being 42 