This was the view looking up from the dentist’s chair in which I spent a not-entirely-enjoyable 40 minutes this morning. Could have been worse I suppose — and would have been, before convenient local anaesthetics were invented.
I’ve been to more than a few railway stations in my time, and whether in the UK or elsewhere, few are as gloriously industrial as Warrington Bank Quay. Yet on the other side of the tracks — the Town Hall, parks, leafy streets.
A holiday weekend — no work tomorrow! (Unless of course you work in one of the many professions in which this idea of a mandated holiday is just a pipe dream.) But it was an excuse to go out and enjoy company and dress in silly yellow hats, if that’s your bag.
No particular point being made with this one, I just think it is a nice portrait. Sometimes C and I try to stop ourselves going out in co-ordinated gear but with these two you get the feeling the choices are carefully made.
Let’s get on with another year, shall we? Three fowl (I assume, one duck, two geese) drifting by serenely on the Rochdale Canal is not any metaphor for life that I can think of, but it is a way of representing a peaceful (birth)day.
In my mind’s eye there is a perfectly symmetrical version of this shot. But in the absence of its reality, this one will do.
This was the third of eight railway stations passed through today (nine if you count Wageningen bus station) as I travelled from a small provincial town somewhere near the centre of the Netherlands to a small provincial town somewhere near the centre of Great Britain (Hebden Bridge). And so ends my 11th complete year of doing this blog.
Despite being in the centre of the Netherlands, Wageningen does officially have a beach, and this cyclist was on her way there; it’s on one of the arms of the Rhine. I paid it a brief visit, but just to check it out — I do stilll have some work to do.
This scene is very Dutch, even without sight of any canals, windmills, cheese, cannabis retailers and so on — all of which Wageningen has, I can assure you. There are plenty of bikes visible here however. Conversations in the pub this evening suggest that the Nethlerlands faces just the same problems that are familiar at home right now, such as rising energy bills, neoliberalist shite in power, etc., and I sympathise, belive me. But all the same it seems just such a civilised place, compared to almost anywhere else I can think of.
Welcome to the era of the ‘hybrid’ academic conference, run by hassled people in rooms trying to get the technology to work properly. If we could just stand up and talk it would be a lot more reliable. Still ,Marije — and the other members of the KBSI2022 team — did their best, and it has been worth coming over to the Netherlands, rather than sitting at home and doing all of this crap.
My first picture from the European mainland since I was in Bucharest on 2nd February 2020. To get to this point required me to negotiate a 55-minute queue at St. Pancras station, then three trains, then this bus, proving that other countries can do ‘Rail Replacement Buses’ just as enthusiastically as we can in the UK. And there was still another bus to come after this one. I now feel like the guy sat opposite me here — time for an early night.
Being 42 