Not that I’ve had anything to do with the preliminaries since completing my marking duties in January, but graduation season is here. Congratulations to all. Although I’d take these three more seriously if any one of them looked a bit happier about it.
And so, the journey back, via Brighton, St Pancras, King’s Cross, Leeds and Hebden Bridge stations. Pictured — the fourth of these. It’s now time to find inspiration at home for a while, in various senses.
Since the 10th April, which was day 4,612 and hence 88 days, or 12.5 weeks ago, there have only been 8 pictures taken in Hebden Bridge, a sign of how much travelling I have been doing. But today was the last full day of it all. I may still get another Brighton or London picture on my way home tomorrow but after that I am at home for most of the rest of the summer. It’s been good to use my sabbatical properly, and valuable to have a change of scene: but I also want to go home, not move around so much, settle back in to home comforts, food, the movie collection, friends, that kind of thing.
To bring it all this to an end, then: more Brighton. Both piers, the active and the ruined, have appeared on here before — but not together, I think. Farewell to the south coast, for now: how long before I am back? No idea.
When I was on holiday in Namibia a couple of months ago, one of the places I stayed had these great pictures on the walls, black and white aerial shots of grazing wildlife, like zebras, wildebeest, elephants. Devil’s Dyke above Brighton could not offer any fauna that was quite so exotic this afternoon, but the cows were contented enough, and this shot is my homage to those Namibian pics. I am pretty sure there are 32 here: you may count differently…
It’s still not high summer tourist season yet — give it another week or so, until the kids start finishing school. Anyway, today the weather was very poor, so no one felt like going to Brighton Pier to drive around in little electric vehicles and wondering whether they will obey the ‘no bumping’ signs. While I do like this shot (which is why I chose it), it is another example of how true symmetry in life is only occasionally achieved.
Brighton still hangs on to its place in the top 10 of ‘Most Depicted Locations’ on this blog, but its rate of appearance has declined in recent years, for various reasons. I came for a couple of days in 2022, but that has been it since 2018. However, here we are, back again for the last burst of the summer holiday down South. The Pavilion was built by King George IV when he was Prince Regent, and really is one of the tackiest palaces anywhere on the planet, particularly inside. But nowadays it’s part of the fabric, and is one of those unique buildings that instantly identifies the location of a shot.
The Mary Rose went down in the Solent during a battle in 1545 and then sat on the sea floor for 437 years until what remained of it was raised in 1982. I remember watching this event on TV in my teens and then not long after, on my only previous visit to Portsmouth, visiting a mouldering hulk that was hanging in a big shed being sprayed constantly with water to stop it drying out catastrophically. Four decades on and the Mary Rose‘s transition from the mud of the sea floor to hanging off a wall has been completed, and what we’re all rewarded with is one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever visited, for sure. The amount of stuff — not just weapons, but personal effects, foodstuffs, even the skeleton of the ship’s pet ratcatching dog — that came up with the wreck is astonishing. Not an easy thing to photograph with my mediocre equipment, but I gave it a shot.
He’s just discovered running. Which means he’s discovering the pleasure of chasing things. The gull will tolerate it for now: revenge will come later, when the kid’s chips get stolen.
This cameo played out in the grounds of Carisbrooke Castle, in the centre of the Isle of Wight — worth a visit, if you want a recommendation. It was the place that Clare and I saw out much of our silver wedding anniversary: we were married on 2nd July 1999, and have made it this far, at least.
The southern coast of the Isle of Wight is one of the best places in the world to find fossils. This is not, I now realise, because more creatures somehow died here in the past. In fact it is because the entirety of this coast is sliding, fairly rapidly, into the English Channel, and so things long buried are regularly uncovered. Look at the erosion here — and the obvious geology, sandstone on the left, chalk thereafter. If you want my considered opinion I wouldn’t buy property too near this coast.
I have yet to start bringing my own deckchairs to beaches, and Clare and I remain, hopefully, more active than this — we reached Shanklin beach today, on the east coast of the Isle of Wight, after a 7.75 mile walk that you can read more about on my other blog. But in spirit, here we are. Give us ten years — maybe fifteen — and our bodies may be here too.
Being 42 