Today was the first day of the new academic year in Manchester. I skulked at home and hid away so profoundly that I never even left the house, the first such day while doing this blog. So I had to find inspiration at home. My old Victorian house is helpful in that regard, if only because of its occasional decrepitude. This is by my front door step – the furthest I got out today. I’ll meet the new students tomorrow.
Alternate Sundays a market sets up in the centre of Hebden Bridge, five minutes’ walk from my house. This stall is always there with its amazing profusion of pots, packets, jars, bottles and bags of great Mediterranean food, all presided over by this otherwise cliched Yorkshireman. No picture snatched in passing can capture it, but there’s enough in this picture to make the glands begin watering anyway.
The defining feature of today has to be the weather. All day it was good. The first thing seen when the curtains were opened this morning was the valley below filled with a thick tendril of mist – which I did my best to capture here. The rest of the day was a glorious return to summer, much-needed after what feels like two weeks of autumn. I hope it remains like this tomorrow, for another walk, but actually, I don’t really care. I’m on my weekend.
Hebden Bridge is known for being packed full of ‘independent’ stores. This means that you can’t buy many useful things, like a pair of pants or a washing machine, but you can find five or six retailers here from whom you can buy a chamomile-scented candle shaped like a pyramid.
However, when one wants to get an otherwise reluctant child to do something with you just after school chucking-out time, the fact that we have an old, traditional sweet shop (candy store) is something of a bonus.
I was lacking inspiration today: it’d been pretty mundane (work at home, take the boy to school, cook dinner etc). But with the high winds today, the skies kept opening and closing up, and this was the best effort I could get. It’s a shame about the telephone wire, but it’s still quite a nice shot.
Why would anyone in Britain buy blackberries at this time of year? Why would anyone equipped with a freezer and a few hours on a September morning have to buy them at any time of year? Particularly ones shipped in from Mexico, which, unbelievably, I have seen on offer in our local stores in the middle of a British autumn. I cannot think of a more ridiculous illustration of how we have utterly f***ed up food production and its relationship to our long-term survival.
I also like blackberries. Particularly in a pie.
I nearly put up a picture of the Championship table, to show the mighty Brighton & Hove Albion FC top after yet another win. Who knows, perhaps that will be my last chance. But I suspect not. So we’ll have a picture of this impressive fungus instead, which might not be there next week either.
After 6 days of work, I finally reach the weekend. After 6 days of rain, the sun finally comes out. And it’s about time I put a photograph of the wife up here.
Recently, any emergence of the topic of the return to school has meant that grouching and complaining is sure to follow from Joe. Nor does he profess himself ‘bothered’ about seeing his friend Ishmael again after their weeks off.
At 3.05pm out come this fairly bouncy pair of kids and Ishmael asks if Joe can come round for tea. ‘How was school?’ ‘Boring!’ J cries in an enthusiastic voice. It’s like the Lord’s Prayer. It’s just one of those automatic responses you give without conscious thought.
Joe goes back to school tomorrow after his summer vacation. On this photo you can almost see the rain still falling. Someone’s telling us, ‘That’s your summer mate. That was it, gone. It’ll be back in another three-quarters of a year.’
Being 42 