Sunday 18th May 2014, 3.05pm (day 997)
“…what the **** are you looking at?”
Another beautiful day. Three days to go until a major milestone.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photography
Rhododendron flowers
Saturday 17th May 2014, 2.05pm (day 996)
An absolutely glorious day today, a perfect summer’s day. These flowers were pictured up in Midgehole, near the entrance to Hardcastle Crags, where we were gathering wild garlic to cook and eat with dinner. I love this time of year.
Café Mooch, lunchtime
Friday 16th May 2014, 12 noon (day 995)
It’s nice to travel, but it’s just as nice to come home. This is another of Hebden Bridge’s nice cafés, a good spot for a working lunch, which I had today. Been a good week.
Alexander takes a well-earned rest
Thursday 15th May 2014, 4.20pm (day 994)
My last day in Russia on this trip. I spent it at what must be at least the 20th university campus to grace this blog, Skolkovo, just outside Moscow, delivering a seminar and having it simultaneously translated into Russian by this guy. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced simultaneous translation but the effort and concentration it takes must be phenomenal, so he certainly earned his tea and pastries afterwards. Particularly as he must be all of what, 17? OK, I’m exaggerating slightly, but he was a little waif of a bloke.
Cossacks
Wednesday 14th May 2014, 7.50pm (day 993)
My hosts/friends at the Moscow School (the organisation that is the reason I come to visit Moscow so comparatively frequently) invited me to come to this event at the Russian Army Theatre this evening. Lots of folk dancing and its associated benefits like beautiful women, beautiful costumes and manly men doing manly things with swords, like these guys. And not done for the tourists either — in fact Russia is one of the few places in the world where this kind of cultural event is still seen as a normal evening’s entertainment, there were lots of families here tonight.
I still can’t quite grasp the nature of the Cossacks, are they a separate ethnic group, something one is born into, or a cultural choice one makes, sort of like declaring oneself a Celt or a Gaul? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure most of us would like an excuse to pull a face/pose like these two guys now and again.
And, by the way, I have one week left until day 1,000.
Church of the Ascension, Kolomenskoe, Moscow
Tuesday 13th May 2014, 1.30pm (day 992)
Second Russian church in three days, and another very beautiful building. This one is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and stands in the park of Kolomenskoe, overlooking the Moskva (Moscow) river, to the south-east of the city centre. It was built in 1532 to commemorate the birth of an heir to the throne, who turned out to be Ivan the Terrible, so perhaps the appeal to divine providence didn’t really work in this case. Bearing that in mind the storm clouds gathering around it this afternoon seem kind of symbolic.
Craig in the bar (and smoking)
Monday 12th May 2014, 9.55pm (day 991)
I am here in Moscow with three colleagues and since they heard about this blog they seem all day to have been competing to be featured on it. Craig wins 🙂
Posted also for the novelty value of being taken in a place where it is still legal to smoke in bars and restaurants. Apparently a ban is due to start in Russia in a few weeks, but looking at how many people here still do smoke, I wonder how well it will take.
St. Basil’s, sunset
Sunday 11th May 2014, 9.00pm (day 990)
Let’s face it. This really is one of the world’s best buildings, isn’t it?
Extended family tree (and member of it)
Saturday 10th May 2014, 6.45pm (day 989)
We had a kind of extended family gathering this evening. My Dad’s cousin Paul put together this huge scroll showing the family tree heading back several generations and at least two hundred years (very few of whom ever bothered to leave the Ashton-under-Lyne and Oldham area it seems). This young chap — name not caught — is on it somewhere. Good evening, though I had to leave early, as I’m flying to Russia early in the morning.
Outside the library
Friday 9th May 2014, 2.30pm (day 988)
I do spend time in Manchester now and again you know, when I’m not being distracted by snails (see yesterday) then campus can be a reasonably attractive spot.
Being 42 