Mulling over the choices for today’s photo I said to Clare, “Is this one a bit too pathetic?”, and she replied, “maybe, but it sums her up quite well, it’s Trixie’s role to look neurotic and a bit pathetic”. This is true — except when a strange dog dares to approach her, then she turns very territorial. She hogs the fire, too. But of course we know all these things about her because she’s part of the pack.
“Hmmmff. Another day of having my needs ignored. Look at that couple over there. Eating sausages for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile, I just get another cold floor and the leash. And they keep expecting me to fetch their bloody balls for them as well.”
This pub at Manchester Victoria station has not been opened all that long (a couple of years by now, I think) but it has rapidly become a Pub of Choice in the city. I don’t do advertising on this blog, except when I do. The dog belongs to one of the regular bar staff: when she’s working, it just hangs out, happily enough, with the rest of us.
Day two of the journey home, so a day spent largely behind the wheel. Only at the lunchtime stop, Annandale Water services (it’s been on before) was there the chance for photography. All motorway service stations are places of transience: if anyone stops for longer than 30 minutes, which is about what we managed, I would wonder why. So this little critter shouldn’t be too worried. I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough.
I was taking a shot of the dog, when the guy turned around as well to finish it off. Yes, the 2025-26 football season — at least, some its ‘pre-season friendly stage’ — is up and running…
“If I stare at him in the right way, perhaps some of the food will leap off the plate.” It didn’t work though, Milo. I’m immune. (Well, maybe I gave him a bit later on.)
Matilda the cat still holds the record for the most appearances on here by an animal, having reached six before she passed on a couple of years ago. This courtyard, which I pass through on one of my two routes from home to town, was her spot: all of her portraits were taken here. Well, she seems to have a replacement. Certainly there were demands today for some kind of acknowledgement.
Fellow pack member Trixie gets her close ups done, and as a result becomes the latest animal to make a confirmed second appearance on the blog (her debut was on 3/4/24). I think between us we just about got the focus right.
The weather was no worse today, and perhaps I should have made more of this, but I had done a few miles yesterday and there seemed little need to go any further than the pub, with the outside tables filling up for the first time this year. Long may the sunshine last — which of course it won’t, in Britain it never does. This couple stayed for only a short time, so presumably were being more active.
Struggled to find a particularly interesting photo once I got to the end of the day, but this one will do, with its frisky dogs and imposing architecture. This is the church of Waltham Abbey, in Essex, where I happened to find myself for the afternoon. The last of all the great monasteries of England to succumb to the corporate raiding of Henry VIII in 1540. The church still stands, but all the rest of it is just ruined old walls and gravestones.
Being 42 