Sunday 18th November 2018, 12.45pm (day 2,642)
Sometimes I have to work on Sundays, though always at home. Today, a sudden desire for soft-boiled eggs was one unexpected consequence.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: monochrome
Altrincham Street extension
Tuesday 6th November 2018, 1.25pm (day 2,630)
Altrincham Street marks one of the edges of the Manchester campus. Officially, it ends just behind where this shot was taken: here, we are looking through a gate that blocks off this extension, squeezing itself through the gap between the car park and the (overcrowded and inadequate) cross-Manchester railway line on the right. Why this shot, and the second monochrome shot in a row? I just like the perspectives. And it’s a kind of non-space, forgotten, unused. In some cities there’d be a whole thriving community down here.
The Birchcliffe Centre
Monday 5th November 2018, 10.55am (day 2,629)
This building was built in 1899 as a Baptist chapel. Worship (and/or baptisms) haven’t taken place here since the 1970s, but it is now a conference centre and youth hostel. As it is only a few minutes’ walk from my house it was nice to work here today rather than in Manchester, but it does lie halfway up a fekkin’ steep hill, which I had to climb three times in the morning. Maybe that’s why the Baptists stopped worshipping here after a while, and moved to the much more conveniently sited Hope Baptist Chapel down in town…
Clare being 42
Friday 26th October 2018, 4.20pm (day 2,619)
I started this blog on 26th August 2011, my 42nd birthday — hence its name. We can now demonstrate that I am 2,619 days old than Clare, who reached that same milestone today. It is right and proper therefore that for this one day she can be both the subject of, and co-contributor, to the blog: as she is, today, “Being 42”.
As subject — above, Clare on the phone to Joe, who has been whisked off to Berlin for the weekend with 25 other 15- and 16-year olds on a school trip (no, I don’t really want to think about it either). We took advantage of this opportunity to bugger off down to London for a couple of days, but this shot is taken in Manchester’s Piccadilly Tavern before we got on the train. And no, it wasn’t deliberately taken at 4.20pm either. Honestly.
And as special guest contributor to the blog — we decided that as I was always going to offer one of her today, she would offer one of me. Here’s me descending to Euston tube station in London, later in the journey… being 42 years + 2,619 days old.
Happy 42nd birthday darling xxx…
First one up?
Friday 19th October 2018, 6.10am (day 2,612)
Pulled duty on the 6:32 train to Manchester for the first time in a while, making this the earliest true morning shot since January 2017. Maybe I wasn’t the first one up in the whole town but there weren’t many of us. A long week of work comes to an end. Is it Christmas yet?
Stuck at home (with this view)
Monday 1st October 2018, 8.55am (day 2,594)
The second monochrome shot in a row but it was a way of bringing some added interest to this view. I worked at home all day and did not leave the house. I know it’s a pretty distinctive view, in relative terms. But it is also everyday, for us at least.
In the junk shop
Sunday 30th September 2018, 3.45pm (day 2,593)
This is one of those junk shops that has grandiose self-image and calls itself an “Antiques Centre” but we’ll let it off. I believe this object is an old typesetting tray, the kind of thing useful when typefaces came as hundreds of small carved pieces of metal. What practical use to anyone it is nowadays, I cannot imagine, but on the other hand it is a pretty cool lump of wood if you ask me. Not that I decided to lug it home or anything.
The last keynote
Thursday 27th September 2018, 10.00am (day 2,590)
The idea for this shot came to me as I was listening to the last keynote speaker at the conference, and for me the last event of it, as I headed for Oulu airport straight after it had finished. It was a bugger to get all things in focus though, and when I managed it, he wasn’t quite doing the interesting things with his hands that he was on other shots: so they look a bit like a big lump here. Still, this is basically the shot that I was trying to capture.
Subway renovations, Hebden Bridge station
Wednesday 19th September 2018, 4.20pm (day 2,582)
We are getting longer platforms! And lifts to and from them, from the subway! It’s a miracle…. or will be, if we ever get the train service to match.
Back to Manchester (raining)
Wednesday 29th August 2018, 10.10am (day 2,561)
Felt obliged to put in an appearance in the big city for the first time (photographically) since signing off for my holiday on 3rd August. The weather brought melancholy in the morning, a feeling of autumn, though it did brighten up. The monochrome adds to the mood though really I only changed it to address a blob of anomalous colour (on the traffic sign in the background: near invisible here, a bright blue splodge in the original).
Being 42 