After 19 different places in 23 days, London becomes the first location to make it on two days in a row since the beginning of July. This was actually the first photo I took today. While intending that my wanderings around parts of the East End of London would lead to some good photo opportunities — cobbled streets, urchins picking whelks out from mudbanks on the Thames, that kind of thing — most of it looks like this these days.
He was running, mostly. A few minutes after I took this one he passed me on another lap. When I was running — this is a while ago now — I would never have thought of doing so on a Friday evening, but each to their own.
Back at work in Manchester for the first time since the 3rd. This is usually my first proper sight of the city on any given morning.
A few shots of cinema (or TV, or laptop) screens have featured on here down the years. I suppose it’s a bit of a cheat, but I returned to work today, spent all day at home (work+home, it’s the 21st century way), and there wasn’t much else to look at. Anyway, I quite like this one, the focus seems effective, though of course that’s the work of the cinematographer rather than me — hence the point about cheating.
The movie is Anatomy of a Murder, pretty good, maybe 20 minutes too long though.
The River Calder is the one that runs through Hebden Bridge, and I found out today it’s actually rather longer than I have been thinking it is for the last 20 years or so. I knew it debouched into the Aire but I thought this happened not far past Brighouse: in fact it’s about twenty miles further on than that, in Castleford. Here in Wakefield the Calder (not the Aire) is a wide beast, and navigable by barges, at least if those orange things weren’t in the way. (In the background, the Hepworth Art Gallery. It was news to me that there was an art gallery in Wakefield, too.)
This street has always looked something like this; although the content of the advertising boards has probably changed. I thought about making it monochrome but the red dress was too much of a temptation not to.
Did I mention Joe was back here for a couple of weeks? Well, here he is. The blanket was not unreasonable considering the recent weather. Great encouragement to spend an afternoon in. The movie — Gimme Shelter.
When the lady dropped off her coins, the busker immediately said he would play her a request: which she seemed quite happy about. I suppose this could be a shopping centre anywhere in Britain, but it happens to be Bury, to the north of Manchester.
Anyone prepared to do some detective work, based on the evidence of the road sign in the background, could perhaps work out where this was taken and maybe even the service on which we were travelling. But I’m sure for a summer Friday afternoon, this is too much to trouble with.
There are many worse ways, and places, to spend a Thursday. Taken from the Howtown to Pooley Bridge ‘pleasure steamer’ service, following a good walk up Place Fell; soon to be duly recorded on the Wainwrights blog.
Being 42 