The Thursday market is the place to come in Hebden Bridge for fish, vegetables, food of all kinds, and I certainly indulged today. Was it warm? No — autumn is in the post, I feel, but that’s why we stock up with food at this time of year.
My 2023 Christmas present off Clare — the ticket for this gig — finally pays off. I guess you either know this band or you don’t: most likely it will be the track “Where Is My Mind” that rings bells, particularly if you’ve seen Fight Club. Having thought they were firmly on the “disbanded band” list, it turns out they reformed in 2004 and have been happily touring and releasing albums for the last 20 years without my noticing, but hey. Nice to finally make their live acquaintance. Here, the bassist seems to be consciously avoiding the limelight.
The title of this post can have multiple meanings today — for me, and, presumably, for him. Being on campus at all in August requires some kind of effort, but particularly at 8.40am: this is actually the earliest Manchester shot I have published in well over a year. But we were both there, and my day went well enough: I hope his did too.
Following the success of Happy Valley and its evident impact on Hebden Bridge’s tourist trade/appeal to stag and hen parties the BBC have been persudaded to return, having taken over chunks of the town centre and at least two of its pubs over August. Although apparently, this time, HB might be pretending to be Todmorden. Whatever…
This is now a standard sight on a Sunday in HB town centre. But I include it today more because of noticing the participant in the middle — one of those things you don’t see until uploading it to the laptop, later.
Apparently this guy is a recently-retired player for Pocklington Town FC — my hosts for the day — and others think his moving on has seriousy degraded the team in question. All this is hearsay. I captured him and his dog in a nice enough way, anyway. Note also: the dartboard behind has no 25 ring. Why, I do not know.
I used to smoke tobacco, but quit in 2008 (it remains the only one of my addictions which I can claim to have truly quit). Still, I couldn’t care less whether others still want to use the stuff, and it does sometimes look good. This is, of course, an optical illusion, but an effective one.
One of those rare ‘post-midnight’ shots for a given day: I didn’t get back from Wales until after 12 on Wednesday night, or was it Thursday morning. By the time I did, the wife had dozed off, so she didn’t particularly complain when I got off one final shot (so to speak). And no, she doesn’t have an ankle-bracelet tattoo; it’s insect repellent, I believe. Postscript: C did insist I add an observation that she gave me permission to use the shot…
As no one really gives a toss whether I turn up at the office or not — particularly not in August — why not take the opportunity to get on a train, do a few hours’ work on the day, but still then take the afternoon off and spend it somewhere nice and sunny? The Conwy/Llandudno region is a fine-looking part of the world (as we discovered when we came here eight years ago). These kinds of regular Days Out are probably what it will take to keep me going for the rest of my life, spiritually — so let’s take the chances while they still come. And when the trains are working.
If you ask me, ‘hybrid’ meetings and conferences are a disaster, certainly if you’re one of the online participants. But online-only gigs work well enough, particularly when most of the others in the ‘room’ are located in Canada. So let’s proclaim from the upstairs office, instead: from where we get to look at the little details of other people’s offices.
Being 42 