Now that’s a proper library. And I was here for scholarly purposes, too. Occasionally it is still possible to feel that in my profession, things are as they were a couple of centuries ago. I mean, in a good way.
Despite four HB pix in a row I have in fact spent most of the week in Manchester, but — to repeat a frequently-made recent point — it’s not been very exciting. Nor was today, but at least there was plenty of tea and coffee.
After two new countries (new to the blog, at least) and several new locations over the last week and a half, the pendulum swings, and the next three weeks see me mainly at home. I can’t promise excitement but I will do my best, better than today I hope, anyway. As you can see I’m pondering a change of style. (Actually the shoes were being bought for Joe.) And more place-related trivia — the first ever weekend of the blog where both Saturday and Sunday shots were taken in Manchester.
Ah, the departmental awayday, where we all turn up and profess to be interested in whatever it is we are awaydaying about. But the room had a certain grandeur to it (probably uncaptured in this shot of clutter). Suitable entertainment for my weekly appearance in Manchester?
The Arndale subsumes a huge chunk of Manchester under its architectural footprint. The third-biggest city centre shopping mall in Europe, or something like that. It’s safe to say that when it was built it wasn’t popular. My late Gran would not go in it; it was too large, too enclosed, too alien. These days it’s getting middle-aged, having been completed in 1979. But that still doesn’t make it as old as me.
“You know, Pamela, there’s nothing like a nice cool bath to smooth out the ruffles after a hard day’s scavenging.”
“Ooooo, I know, duck. Let me just….. ahhh, that’s better.”
“Love the eye-shadow too. Grey’s your colour.”
Second day in a row of some solitary bloke wandering around Manchester. Which is appropriate enough, because that’s how I’ve felt as my Unsabbatical continues this week. I have been walking past the bottom of these steps fairly frequently since the blog began, they make it today because of what I think is a happy combination of pedestrian and tree, the latter framing the top of the shot in a pleasant wave. A split second later and I’d have been too late. But then again I was feeling sluggish at 7.30am on a Thursday.
Another rather unexciting day on campus — the last two weeks have been more like an ‘unsabbatical’. A few shots might have made it today but I pick this one simply to manipulate the stats slightly, as this is taken at the same time as yesterday’s shot, 12:05pm: the first time there have been two consecutive days with the same time since Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd June last year (both at 3.50pm in London). These are the little coincidences that keep me pushing on with this project… well, sometimes.
Blog-wise, it’s two months since I pulled duty on a 6.32 train out of Hebden Bridge — arrives Manchester about 7.10, like this morning, if it’s feeling energetic. The bloke in yellow is the owner of the fold-up bike on the other side of the shot: he looks the least keen of all of them, but then again he has his onward transport sorted.
Back to work properly, but still a relatively balmy vibe over Manchester thanks to continuing good weather (it’s on the change, though), and a general lack of people of the academic persuasion. Why black and white today? Why not? I haven’t posted in monochrome for a while.
Being 42 