Back to Oxford, so I can perform an aspect of my job that still does bring pleasure, and sit in a library for at least two days. The walk to my accommodation took place partly along this stream, a branch of the Thames. Perhaps I did this shot, in spirit, on Saturday, but I’m doing it again. Note the heron hanging around inconspicuously in the centre, hoping that the prey won’t notice it.
A dull day in every sense. The glorious sunshine that we experienced on Saturday has been replaced by grey mist and drizzle. This explains a lot about the British psyche. Don’t get used to it being nice, because within a couple of days it’ll all turn to crud again.
It looks like I may have laid these captions over the photo with some editing software but that’s not the case. Instead these were hanging above Briggate, in Leeds, because someone had clearly decided that positive-sounding, but actually meaningless, exhortations to solidarity are just what the country needs to get us through this time of incompetency.
High pressure and warm air idling up from Spain, apparently, made this surely the warmest and most pleasant November 12th in my lifetime — even on St Helena last year it was not as nice as this. I refuse to consider this a bad thing: not on the day, at least. I’m sure the ducks think it’s better than the alternative as well.
Should I be worried that I now have friends — not just ‘friends of my Dad’ — who are reaching septuagenarian status? Well, here we are. I have known Steve at least 20 years so when our friendship began he was younger than I am now, maybe that’s a scary thought too. Certainly he has appeared on this blog more than anyone else except my immediate family (me, Clare, Joe) and sneaks into the bottom right here for his 13th appearance. I guess I could have done better to photograph this event but it was a pretty low-key thing and to be honest I was knackered anyway after a long day of work. It was a nice beginning to the weekend though.
I’m sure it’s up to something useful. One of those shots which, I am very aware, would have benefited from better symmetry, but there’s only so much preparatory work one can do while stood in the middle of a street.
9th November 2021 was the day on which I landed on St Helena. No such adventures await me this November, but then again, I don’t have to spend ten days in quarantine again. It was too nice a morning to stay indoors, wherever I was.
In this case the “White House” is a pub, up on the A58 road above Littleborough. Normally my journey to and from work would not take me near this place but thanks to the long and sorry litany of reasons why no one responsible for the UK train network was in the slightest bit bothered about running a service this morning, I ended up driving. Passing this point at 6am, all was still dark, but at least when I returned later, the sun had come out for a while. The hill on the horizon is Brown Wardle, at about 401m or 1,315 feet above sea level.
Clare has her daily fix of brain food, but though this particular game is on her phone, she brings it up for my entertainment. I get most of them first go, to be honest. This one’s easy: we were there, not three months ago.
Actually she looks just like the kind of person who I would trust to deliver a really good cake. And it certainly looks that way, though I didn’t try the produce.
Being 42 