Maybe I have seen apple blossom flowering in north-west England, in December, before. But if I have, I didn’t photograph it. Well, there you go. It’s been mild…
(POSTSCRIPT: my mother, fount of knowledge on all things botanical, suggests this is probably a winter flowering cherry. So there you go. It’s still been very mild, however.)
Glorious day today. Had to go on a tedious errand to Halifax today but the weather was so nice that I took the opportunity to drive the scenic route home and capture the first real landscape shot to grace the blog for a while.
This blog has featured three photos taken in this park, each on one of my biannual trips to Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, one of the University of Manchester’s collaborative partners — the park and the college grounds are all basically the same place. I like Lamorbey Park, one of those ‘nice spots’ that the world still retains. Among its interesting and attractive birdlife are a colony of parakeets, clearly escaped pets, and unconcerned by the imminent winter despite their tropical origins. I know this is another out-of-focus shot, but the light was so dull and grey today, and in the end I was happy enough with the exotic fauna to live with the picture’s technical defects.
A fairly lazy but pleasant Sunday today. There are still things growing round here, occasionally in some profusion — which I guess is a good thing if you are the kind of creature (like a bird) who still needs to forage for their meals in mid-December. And no, I can’t remember what kinds of berries these are, I know I should know but there you go….
Altogether now… “in the old times…. in the old times…. in the old times… this was… NOT A CRIME!” If you don’t know this band, shame on you. You really should check them out.
Having originally commented that this photo could have been improved had I not been without any proper photo software, I have since changed it: going monochrome helped a lot I think.
There is often beauty in unexpected places. This is all done with concrete, graffiti and strips of fluorescent light.
These are the hardest of all days to document. I was in all day, did not leave the house for a moment, and it’s December — the least sunny month in the UK, in both senses. It rained all day, the light was grey and very dull. And I’ve been doing this for 840 days now, there are only so many bits of my house left to document. So here is a recent arrival — a cute Russian doll nativity scene, bought by the wife last weekend in the antiques centre. There’s three wise men, the shepherd, mother & child etc. Well, it is nearly Xmas.
I’m still without proper photo management software and it may be into January before I get it back, so I shall have to make do. It was my students’ graduation day today, I did get photos of the event but in the end I have gone with this one — largely because of Shaun the Sheep’s appearance, which amuses me.
Another beautiful morning in a long run of good weather (proving the idiotic newspapers wrong with their predictions of a dire early winter). The bridge carries Mayroyd Lane over the river Calder, near the railway station. Another oft-passed scene, but it has managed not to appear thus far on the blog.
After six days in a row without leaving Hebden Bridge, I make it into campus. Here’s a scene from near our building: the very finely-named Whitworth Park halls of residence (my surname is Whitworth in case you didn’t know).
The more significant event today was that the hard drive on my old MacBook has failed, which is going to make it trickier to do my photos properly until I get my new one, which may not now arrive until after Christmas. Bear with me… the photos are still being taken, but they almost certainly won’t get posted on a daily basis.
Being 42 