A wholly uneventful Sunday. Joe staggered downstairs some time in the early afternoon and presented me with a couple of bottles of Old Peculier and this card, displaying his rather understated sense of humour.
A weekend away with the family. Corse Hill sits in the middle of a gigantic wind farm and although not a dramatic spot, was a nice place to break the journey north to Scotland and did become my 32nd county top — and Clare and Joe have picked up a few as well. C. looks suitably satisfied, Joe’s checking his phone, but that’s what he does.
The first non-English shot since 18th September 2020, which was day 3,312; thus, a run of 259 English-only shots comes to an end.
Like many others, I assume — including his old man — Joe has neglected haircutting duties over the last few months. I have pointed out that the barbers’ have reopened, but still, the ponytail remains. Though if he could only take his headphones off for long enough to cut it, that would be a start.
Those nice people in Authority have promised not to threaten arrest for doing something as subversive as going on a walk, on one’s own, in countryside that doesn’t happen to reside within spitting distance of home. So Joe and I went out on a walk. I bagged my 600th Wainwright and Joe, his 50th. (Full details soon to be posted on my other blog.) Both those milestones came on Wether Hill, but that is a rather unphotogenic lump — Steel Knotts, its predecessor in each sequence, was rather better. It’s appeared before on the blog, too: pictured from a distance on 6/2/17.
Is Joe the only person in the world whose most recent birthday has been a lonely affair, deprived of real contact with friends and all but his immediate family? Of course not. But that doesn’t lessen the sense of sadness that I feel, while at the same time, celebrating the anniversary. Not just any birthday this year, either. He is 18, the age of legal responsibility, official adulthood. Whether that makes him feel any different than he did yesterday is his own concern. But somehow, I feel different.
Joe was born on 4th March 2003, so do the sums. Tomorrow he attains his maturity and I shall be the parent of an adult. My oh my.
It’s Joe, and his generation, that I feel sorriest for right now. He turns 18 in a few weeks yet is spending this time locked in a room with, or rather without, everyone else. At least he’s still prepared to get out into the landscape now and again: here, on Brown Wardle Hill, above Whitworth in Lancashire.
So schools and colleges had one day of life and now Bojo has said they’re unclean, like the rest of the country. So Joe gets to spend the next six weeks, maybe twelve, at home, while algorithms and their creators bicker to be given the right to determine his future. Conviviality and intimacy are things of the past, getting further away all the time.
Grim weather led to the cancellation of a planned day out and with Bojo the Clown having decreed all other options ‘unsafe’ (while he flaps around in his comedy trousers), we dug out the box set of The Singing Detective and sat and watched its seven hour span through the afternoon and evening. Classic TV, and as it was always a period piece, it hasn’t dated. Joe got through the lot though he seems less than attentive on this shot. It gave the day its main interest, but how I miss other people.
3,371 days into this blog (nine years, two months and 22 days) and I am buggered if I am going to let this profoundly boring and pointless period see it peter out through sheer lack of interest. But it’s not very interesting, is it. This is the true impact of this bloody virus. It’s made the world so goddamn boring, suddenly. (With no offence meant to my family members, pictured here, who are about the only things that are keeping me sane.)
Being 42 