It’s very good that I can still find reasons, opportunity and (though this was not an expensive trip) the money to come and spend Thursday nights in places like this. As seen from outside the Ardlui Hotel, which even has its own train station.
There is still just under a month to go until I start teaching the latest intake, but plenty needs doing to be ready for that day. Hence the length of the morning meeting. I skulk around, visible as a shadow in the mirror, while my colleagues emerge in the direction of lunch.
It’s only the second day of September but the kids have started back at school, it is much cooler and damper than it was, and there’s this general feeling of decline (and I don’t even mean in political terms, though we’ve certainly got that too). Autumn is upon us, I fear. Well, let’s make the most of it.
It is far easier to buy this kind of stuff in Hebden Bridge than it is to purchase, say, socks, or useful modern technology. This is just one of at least three shops of this kind here, and it’s not even that big a town. There is something of an optical illusion going on here — things are not quite as big as they seem…
Going on somewhere between me and these two was a Sunday morning football match — the guy on the left started out as the goalkeeper but after about 15 minutes, having conceded two, he decided his shoulder wasn’t up to it so pulled out. First game of the season, too. At least his girlfriend was in attendance: which might have influenced the assessment of the injury’s seriousness. Behind them both — a bit of Leeds. August finally comes to an end; it seems a long time since I was in Orkney.
I’ll go with that. In fact I’d quite like this T-shirt, which is one reason I took a photograph of it. As seen on platform 17 of Leeds station this morning.
Our Victorian house has always provided various nooks and crannies in which spiders can happily make a living, but like various types of fruit, the species has had a particularly good 2025 — at least at our place. Some mass hatching, then subsequent occupation, occurred in the spring. Alternative versions of this shot are currently available: Spider Above Bath, Spider(s) In Kitchen, Spider Lurking Above Front Door…. take your pick.
Thursday market manoeuvers. “I know it’s in here somewhere — I just have to move a few things around to find it…”
There was a big overflight of geese tonight. They came in waves, sub-flocks of 20-30 at a time (I count 22 in this particular group). Wherever the destination, they were leaving for somewhere else. There’s something a little melancholy about it all — the first intimations of autumn.
5.15pm on day 5,115 and it’s the start of the 15th year of the blog. All of which is numerologically pleasing but has nothing to do with the shot, and the shot has nothing to do with my birthday as such. As the stormtrooper helmet was there, it got worn by Mark, at least for a short time. Tony looks on in his usual measured fashion.
Being 42 