Saturday 4th August 2012, 3.30pm (day 345)
The Blue Pig sits in the woods and opens at random and unpredictable times. It’s a kind of Harry Potterish pub. I quite like this shot because of the double reflection of the guy in the picture frames.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photography
The CIS building, Manchester
Friday 3rd August 2012, 3.40pm (day 344)
This building is only a couple of hundred yards from Victoria station but I never have normal cause to go past it. Today, after I had a meeting nearby, was an exception. When built in 1962 it was the tallest office building in the UK, at 399 feet, and it remained the tallest in Manchester until 2006 when the Beetham tower (510 feet) was built on Deansgate. It’s one of the group of buildings around this site that are the headquarters of the Co-operative Group (bank, stores, insurance, etc.).
I’ve never been inside it but it does have a significant role to play in my life. My mother and father both worked for the CIS but in separate buildings and only when this was built (when they were 18) did they begin working in the same place – and thus met. Arguably, then, if this hadn’t been built, I wouldn’t be here.
Above Oxenhope, evening
Thursday 2nd August 2012, 8.15pm (day 343)
The landscape shots on this blog tend to have been of the Lake District, but I must remember more often that I live in a pretty decent part of the world, too.
Pop-up Shop
Wednesday 1st August 2012, 12.30pm (day 342)
A few of these have emerged around Hebden Bridge in the last couple of weeks. Businesses that occupied premises that were damaged in the flood have been invited to set up shop (literally) where they can. They’re calling them ‘Pop-up Shops’ round town., The main road, Market Street, is still a dead zone – about 3 out of 20 shops open – but one of them, Valley Organics, has a temporary home in the Hope Baptist Chapel, pictured here. It doesn’t have electricity at the moment, as the chapel’s cellar was also flooded on both 22/23rd June and 9th July, but it’s a start. I’ll tell you one thing – a disaster like this sure helps you see who your friends are (yes, we’re looking at you, Punch Taverns).
Hey, it’s August. My birthday’s in August. That means I’m coming to the end of the first year of this blog.
Manchester ‘Olympic village’
Tuesday 31st July 2012, 3.50pm (day 341)
In some city down South the Olympics are on, and Manchester (which is hosting some of the football tournament’s games) gets in on the act with a ‘village’ built around Exchange Square, where the wheel used to be (see previous photos). Judging from this shot, it is doing about as well at filling its seats as London is.
Cynical? No, I’m not, not about the athletes anyway. But we all knew that the promises of a ‘people’s Games’ were rubbish when they were made in 2005, so why are we surprised it’s turned into a corporate love-fest in which the relatives and friends of athletes can’t see them perform, while swathes of corporate junket seats sit empty, because bigger profits are made that way? I also remember hearing that the ‘brand poiice’ don’t want anyone to link to the official Olympic site if they are going to be critical of it.
Unity Street, Hebden Bridge
Monday 30th July 2012, 6.00pm (day 340)
Hebden Bridge, and the British summer, and I have had a bit of a falling out over the last few weeks. It kind of started around June 21st and has gone on from there. Today, we all started toward a reconciliation of sorts. Let’s hope it continues.
Clouds devour Base Brown
Sunday 29th July 2012, 11.35am (day 339)
Seeing as when I do these walks the landscape photos are collected together on my other blog at 214wainwrights.wordpress.com , I have lately been trying to pick other pictures to put on here, that is, pictures that are not necessarily of the landscape but epitomise the day. Yesterday’s was an example of that.
However, I put a ‘landscape’ photo up here to draw attention to the other big theme of today – the bloody weather. Honestly. Most of the rest of the country had a good day today, but I can assure everyone that on the tops of Kirk Fell; Great Gable; and Green Gable, between 9am and noon today, it was revolting. I found it quite dispiriting and didn’t enjoy the walk until it was finished, when I had a sense of achievement. Base Brown was the fourth fell of the day, and I and these two other walkers watch as it stops having its rare moment of clarity and the big devouring cloud beast comes in again, just as we thought we might dry out for a few minutes.
Lisa and Kara in the Black Sail youth hostel
Saturday 28th July 2012, 10.15pm (day 338)
It’s Sunday night as I post this; I came back in the afternoon from what I could describe as a ‘weekend away in the Lake District’, but that doesn’t really sum it up very well. Actually I have just spent two days walking, through weather that could best be described as ‘mixed’ (see tomorrow’s post). I have bagged 9 – more than a quarter – of the fells remaining on my project and now have only 23 to go.
I broke the journey at the Black Sail youth hostel. Located at the head of the valley of Ennerdale, this is some two miles’ walk from the nearest other building, let alone road. It sleeps about 20 people and was about two-thirds full on Saturday night. It’s a great oasis in the hills. And it serves beer. These two were part of a group who worked in Edinburgh and were all parasitology researchers, or something. They drank wine with me and we played Yahtzee (Lisa, lying down in this picture, won) and we and the other guests could just forget the rain outside for a little while.
Caught stealing
Friday 27th July 2012, 9.50am (day 337)
Oh, you are so busted, my little rodent friend.
Making rabbit pie
Thursday 26th July 2012, 10.00pm (day 336)
Here I am at the in-laws’ for a bit. It’s the school summer vacation so Joe can stay up until late. Tearing him away from the TV or the DS is a good plan, teaching him the rudiments of cooking, with his gran Carol, an even better one. He can, at least, wield a Worcester sauce bottle with aplomb, as this proves.
Being 42 