To conclude a very good weekend in Brighton…. The half-marathon is finishing off behind me (with the wife due in at any moment) but I have pictured that before, so here is a different scene, one of the city’s most famous buildings, crowned by soaring seagulls, which seems appropriate….
Mr Cope becomes the latest rock star to feature on the blog: looking every inch the part, he nevertheless is these days as much a mixture of solo busker, stand-up comedian and raconteur (particularly about old megalithic monuments) as he is anything else.
A curiosity: the ninth photo in a row to be taken outside Hebden Bridge, even though I have spent some time at home on each of these days. This is the longest such run: all other long runs of non-HB photos have been accrued thanks to some kind of travel away from home.
Accompanied Joe to an evening st school sorting out his choices of GCSE options in year 10: the latest step in the process by which dreams and aspirations become squeezed into systemic categories. But he seems keen enough. Here, am I trying to represent said aspirations? Is it a moody and atmospheric shot (in the unglamorous surroundings of the bus stop in Mytholmroyd)? Or just a bad photo?
Clare’s doing a course in London tomorrow (Saturday) so it seemed like an opportunity to get in a weekend away. Late trip though, so we were passing through Leeds station when Friday night was becoming busy.
It’s nice to travel, but it’s also nice to come home. So the family can feature on the blog for the first time for a while (as a duo, anyway). Not much is going to happen in the next few days, and it doesn’t look like we can expect the sun out, so I foresee more of this kind of thing.
Our window sill, and indeed our house generally, contain more pieces of deceased sheep than most people would consider normal. Souvenirs from a few Lakeland walks….
Restarted work today, albeit at home; and herein lies my photographic challenge for the next couple of weeks, as I’m really not doing a great deal else until about January 8th. This will be a very long run of Hebden Bridge pictures on the blog. This ex-guitar caught my eye today — apparently it is about to be customised (I believe the youth of today would say ‘pimped’) as part of Joe’s art homework. I like the shot because it is obviously a guitar, but could take a second glance to determine why it is a dead one.
We approach the anniversary of last year’s floods on December 26th, which took out most of Hebden Bridge’s town centre. Prior to that, this place, the Railway pub, had probably featured at least once a month for the four and a half years I’d been doing it, so say about 50 times…. But none since 22/12/15. I think this has been the last of all the businesses in the town to reopen after that day, but here you are…. One year to the day since last we drank there. Welcome back.
The Contact Theatre was built in 1999 and adjoins the Ellen Wilkinson Building where I work, helping close off my courtyard (you’ve seen that often enough), but it is a separate entity from the university. It focuses on youth theatre and involves young people in programming and hiring decisions, apparently. The picture also demonstrates that we have reached that time of year where I get to leave the office and it’s already dark. So be it… December it is.
Trafalgar Point sticks out into Morecambe Bay, as that is where I reside this weekend for the final hurrah of the wife’s 40th birthday celebrations — this time round, with her family. The good weather has definitely receded, at least for now, and this shot could have been discarded because of the rain on the lens but in the end I decided it was all atmosphere. With tonight being the last day of British Summer Time, this will be the last evening it is remotely light at this hour until March.
Being 42 