Today was a pleasant, sunny morning, all the way in to the final stretch of the walk to campus, when suddenly everything became covered in a light and melancholy mist. It didn’t last long, but at least gave the locality a bit of atmosphere.
The underbelly of the Mancunian Way isn’t the most glamorous spot in the city, but somehow this combination of graffiti and beer bottles looks relaxing.
My first Manchester shot for four weeks — and the first one before 10am for five weeks. These two facts are not unrelated, the connecting factor being ‘going to work’, or at least, visiting the office. Not that Manchester has yet busied up much (will it ever do so again?) although January is always a quieter time, which is why I like it, particularly when the sun shines.
Did something I had not done since 28th July, and went to campus. The scenes are much the same as they have ever been, but the weather is certainly very fine at the moment. A ‘goodlife’ indeed, even at 8.05am.
I am sure that with better photographic equipment than mine one could have made this look like a lovely soft star of sunbeams, sparkling gently through the foliage on this lovely September morning. But hey, the main A57 motorway — the Mancunian Way — is a few yards to the left of this shot, and this is as firmly big-city as yesterday’s morning picture. So I beg forgiveness. I do like this little spot, an oasis in the morning walk to work — it’s featured before.
The door hides itself in the dark centre of the underpass beneath the Mancunian Way. It is always closed. Sometimes it rattles to itself in a sinister fashion, as if there is a mythical beast trapped within, and it’s the entrance to some foul dungeon, Manchester’s Moria. Today, though, it loomed open, but there were no surprises within — as the road sign and glimpsed wheelbarrow imply, just more bloody building site stuff.
The last couple of days have been sunnier but today was as gloomy and grey a day as it is possible to envision south of the Arctic Circle. Wet, too. My two-mile walk to work in Manchester was done in a constant drizzle. Like me, the guy on the right here stood under the Mancunian Way overpass for a few minutes to take a break from it all. How low the light was here can be judged by the blur on the second figure, left of centre, who was just walking at ordinary speed as I pressed the shutter.
A colourful scene depicted from under the Mancunian Way this morning, on another beautifully sunny day. By all forecasts a storm is coming in and I’m not in Manchester again for days yet, so this might be the last time you see the city like this all year. Or, indeed, that I do.
The third thousand begins under the Mancunian Way, a familiar scene from my walk to the office. This tent has been there for a few days now, I don’t know whether it is being occupied. Six pictures from the last seven in Manchester: in fact, in February there may end up more pictures from there than home in Hebden Bridge, which I don’t think has happened before.
The title of this post is taken from the graffiti in the background. I hope he did have a good day, but I have no way of knowing for sure.
Being 42 