Second day of this two-day break in the Lake District with Joe. I make no apologies for uploading another landscape shot today, though let’s give it that slightly different angle and included in it someone else who was doing their best to capture what was, for a hill only 803 feet above sea level, a quite exceptional panorama. Latterbarrow rises to the north-east of the village of Hawkshead.
Joe is on his half-term holiday, so these two days I’m off work doing my part of the child care duties. And I decided to take him somewhere I liked. Why not.
Newspaper editors in London might also like to use this picture as evidence that today was not, despite their headlines, the day that the ‘Killer Storm Stopped Britain’. Or perhaps they were using ‘Britain’ as shorthand for ‘that small part of a decent-sized country which is nearest to London’ — as they so often do?
We had gone out last night to celebrate Clare’s birthday and stayed over in Leeds. I was inspired by great light in the hotel breakfast room but C. did the ‘no pictures!’ thing, perhaps not feeling as if she was looking at her best after the night before.
And the clocks are going back tonight. Guess that means it’s winter soon.
Also, a happy birthday to Clare, the wife — thirtysomething again today 🙂
Well, the ceiling of the terminal building anyway. The plane’s a model, in case you were wondering. Back home after four enjoyable days in Russia.
Another technically dubious picture of Russians letting it all hang out…. They do like a party, these guys.
I am a Brighton & Hove Albion fan but I am also a football fan, I just like going to games whoever is playing. When the work colleague with whom I’ve come to Moscow pointed out that we would be there when CSKA were hosting Manchester City in the Champions League, we decided we would go. She is a City fan but I was neutral in the matter. I just wanted the experience of going to a big game abroad, which I have only ever done once before (Benfica v FC Porto, December 1990).
Experience it definitely was, and a good one. It was also a cold one, below zero for most of it, including the last 15 minutes during which these 200 or so CSKA fans bravely took their shirts off. I apologise for the technical deficiencies of the shot but bear in mind this was taken at an angle, with a very long zoom, through plexiglass.
I should also point out that I have seen stories on my return regarding alleged racist chanting by the CSKA fans. As someone who was actually at the game, neutral, and understands basic Russian, I have to say that these allegations are at best dubious. In my informed and objective opinion there was no ‘racist chanting’ whatsoever evident at this game.
Yes, I’ve been travelling again, lucky me. Although I do intend to have four and a half months at home from mid-November until late March, because I’m getting rather tired of airports and stuff. However, there are compensations, like this, one of the world’s great views, surely. Russia is a vast country but this is its absolute centre.
Manchester’s Chinatown district is the third biggest in Europe, apparently. This arch, completed in 1987, crosses Faulkner Street (in the middle of which I was stood while taking this) at its junction with Nicholas Street. A wet day today, unpleasant weather.
The night falls earlier and earlier — but of course that is the time of year. The real shock to the system will come a week from today, when the clocks go back.
Being 42 