Thursday 27th August 2026, 3.10pm (day 5,481)
I don’t do “retail therapy”. I just needed a new pair of shoes. There’s a wedding coming up and certain standards are expected.
Shoes are needed
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: monochrome
China Lane
Sunday 16th August 2026, 10.55am (day 5,470)
The alley of China Lane lies on the shortest walking route between Victoria and Piccadilly stations in Manchester and when I’m walking between them — as I was this morning — it is always worth looking down to see if the opportunity arises for a shot — specifically, this one. Why is it called China Lane? No idea, but as it is lined with warehouses and located right beside Piccadilly Basin on the canal, maybe it’s a tea reference.
Clifton Suspension Bridge
Wednesday 5th August 2026, 1.30pm (day 5,459)
Up until Tuesday afternoon Bristol was the largest city in the UK that I had never previously visited, but it can now pass on that honour to Coventry. A first full day here revealed many things of interest but to illustrate them I pick what is almost certainly the city’s most depicted feature. Why not, though? I am partial to a good bridge and in the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the place certainly has one of those: this is an extremely handsome and impressive construction, even now. The road deck is nearly 250 feet above the water below — how does one even start going about such an enterprise? OK, build the towers first, but then what? But that is why I am not or never will be Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed it — though did not live to see it completed.
Collection point
Saturday 4th July 2026, 1.15pm (day 5,427)
Having celebrated Hebden’s attractive qualities yesterday I am also permitted to be relieved that the football season has restarted so I have excuses to leave it on Saturdays, when it becomes too full for its own good — and go drink in some other town’s pubs instead. Like Wrexham in North Wales, for example. Which, this being taken in a Wetherspoons (if you have ever drunk in the UK surely you know of these places), looks much the same as anywhere else, of course. But I don’t mind them.
Broad Law, summit architecture
Wednesday 27th May 2026, 11.05am (day 5,389)
The drive home — with a walk on the way, to the summit of Broad Law, the highest point in the Scottish Borders at 2,760 feet. There was not a great deal to see on the way up, but the top is graced by this construction, a VOR beacon (that is, Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range — so now you know). Should every mountain have one? Well, probably not, but this one does.
Chester’s station pubs
Saturday 9th May 2026, 12.10pm (day 5,371)
Chester is a city that has maintained its pre-WW2 architecture better than most, and going black-and-white seems appropriate today. It also hides the anomaly that is the bright blue of the sign for bus stop S3. Yes, I was in the beer garden of the Town Crier at this point, but at least it was after noon. Just.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Monday 30th March 2026, 5.15pm (day 5,331)
This memorial consists of 2,711 stone slabs — officially ‘stelae’ — of varying height arrayed across an acre of ground near the Brandenburg Gate: more land formerly occupied by a part of the Berlin Wall, in fact. For more, see this page. That’s three pictures out of four that highlight a less favourable element of this country’s history but at least they seem to be prepared to remember in public.
Waiting in Terminal 5
Thursday 26th March 2026, 4.05pm (day 5,327)
Time for a holiday. This one at the instigation of the wife, for various reasons, but I am happy to tag along for the ride, and for the break. You can find out the destination tomorrow, although it’s somewhere the blog has visited before. As is Terminal 5 of Heathrow airport, where we and a few thousand others waited for the beginning of the fourth leg of our journey (after two trains and the Elizabeth Line).
I went for this shot because of the illuminated cup of hot beverage to the right, and I guess it works, but yes, I would like to take out the plug sockets.
The Friday market is damp
Friday 20th February 2026, 3.50pm (day 5,293)
Damp, and packing up early. So much of 2026 thus far has been dull and drizzly weather — nothing poor, not in West Yorkshire anyway: other places have had snow, or storms, but not us. We have just remained clamped under the same grey clouds for weeks now.
Jack
Thursday 12th February, 6.00pm (day 5,285)
Hello, friend. The bloody thing is that today was another wake. Too many, too fast.
Being 42 