Sometimes there is no better place to spend a glorious evening than somewhere like Marsden FC. Not quite perfection — there were too many insects buzzing around for that — but not bad, not bad at all.
The Butchers’ Arms is a football ground, home to Droylsden FC of east Manchester, but there is no intention to class this as a football-related shot. I am pleased with this one because it was the shot I wanted to capture when I pressed the shutter — and it’s always nice when it works out that way, particularly in the evening when there’s not much light to work with. The lonely ‘Book Your Party’ sign is definitely part of the composition.
In real terms the 1st January is of course, no different from any other day but we give it this symbolism, don’t we. No one can predict exactly what the new year will bring but unless something untoward happens I will definitely be travelling more outside the UK than I have since 2019, with at least one trip back to Toronto already booked, plus a return to St Helena, and hopefully a couple of other places too. Let’s start the year with Halifax, though: not far from home, but all the same, worth a visit now and again. With this shot — the 49th time I have depicted the place on here — it overtakes Moscow to become the 7th most-pictured location.
Dalton Mills must have once been a major operation, going on the size of the building. Now it is ringed with fencing and ‘Trespassers Keep Out!’ notices — and some random vehicles, parked there in defiance of the possibility that the whole thing might just crumble down to street level at some point in the near future. It looks good, though, and whatever the plans are for it, I doubt that renovation will improve its aesthetic.
On Friday 13th, let’s go ghost-spotting. This spectral figure appeared from round some old cotton-spinning equipment in a former mill at New Lanark, Robert Owen’s planned industrial settlement in the gorge of the River Clyde. Or maybe it’s just a projection in one corner of the museum, visited as we made our way to Scotland to begin (finally) a summer holiday. But whether put on for the tourists or not, it’s still a ghost, in some form.
No social commentary whatsoever. I like the shapes, the shadows. Good to get out, even if only to Brighouse.
“But how shall I know the day of my birth in future years, O Holy Seer of Signs?”
“Drew, stand beside the river and look for the day on which the sun sets between the two pillars. Thus shall you know it.”
I’m 51 today. This is now the tenth year of the blog. And life goes on, one day at a time.
This is New Mills, Derbyshire, a place with some impressive verticals, perched as it is above a deep gorge formed by the River Goyt. I spent the afternoon and evening here and it’s a shame I didn’t manage to arrive until 3.15pm, by which time it was already getting rather gloomy. A place to revisit with some better light.
Thanks to the stats that are faithfully kept for this blog (and which, for me and my compulsive chronicling, are a significant element of keeping this going), I know also that New Mills is the 300th different, identifiable location to be depicted on here. Obviously the count depends how I slice certain places (particularly the Lake District) but this is how it’s come out. This is one new place every 10.1 days or thereabouts, a supply which shows no signs of running out, so let’s just keep exploring. I might not be able to save the world but I would like to see more of it, before I go.
This has not been an active couple of days. I have spent almost all of both of them at home working. Fortunately I have yet to exhaust the photographic possibilities in the immediate area. This is the factory across the street (see also 5th September, for instance), looking to me like the cover of Led Zeppelin’s finest moment(s), the Physical Graffiti album. But perhaps it’s been a long year, not to mention 33 hours in the house on my own not talking to anyone, and I am starting to hallucinate.
Being 42 