I was all packed and ready to go on my Atlatnic journey on schedule. But with a 24-hour flight delay to sit through first, the mild irony of this bus, the latest (irrelevant) ‘rail replacement’, did occur to me.
I’m off tomorrow though. My Internet connection will be unpredictable until the end of November, so for the next three weeks I’ll upload when I can.
This was supposed to be my last full day here before travelling, but bad weather has meant my flight being postponed 24 hours. That probably means bad weather in St Helena, but my experience outdoors in Yorkshire today suggests the conditions might spread up the whole of the Atlantic, frankly — this afternoon was dreadful, with rain and high winds.
None of which stopped 23 (including the referee) madmen in shorts competing this afternoon in division 2 of the Halifax and District Football League — or me (and about five other people) choosing to watch them. Here at Warley Rangers you are only fifteen promotions, and a few ground improvements, from the Premier League, so it still matters.
This is Wainhouse Tower‘s second appearance on the blog — the world’s tallest folly, dontcha know.
I am aware that this is an extremely dull photo but sometimes putting up a really dull one is the only way of epitomising the day. The whole Covid testing racket is just such classic 21st century: the private sector creams off cash from us all based on claims that it’s the only way forward, there is no alternative, no dissent to be had. I pay £75 to be told I don’t have a virus that a) I’ve already had b) I’ve (twice) been vaccinated against c) I have no symptoms of. And before 8am, too.
Still, at least I have been given my official “UNINFECTED!” bar code, stamp on my forehead, tattoo, whatever. So I’m off to St Helena — a day later than originally planned, but I will be there from Tuesday. And then sat in quarantine for 10 more days, but that’s a whole other story that is still to come.
As being made by the guy on the “Dosa” stall in St. George’s Square, Hebden Bridge, this lunchtime. I did eat my lunch out today, although not here. Although this is a little out of focus, I like the mixture of colours and textures on this shot.
Hebden Bridge in autumn plumage. A nice place to be. Cold at the moment, though, but the trees look good.
A considerably more pleasant morning’s weather than on Monday. The buildings at the end of Booth Street in Manchester pretend to be neolithic sarsen stones marking the sunrise.
Although this has been given a certain extra layer of grim by being taken through a rain-spattered window, it is nevertheless a reasonable depiction of what the weather was like this morning I don’t know what the face of the guy walking along the roof was looking like, but I’m damn sure I wasn’t going out there today. This is one reason why I am spending most of November 2021 out of the country — but more on that over the next few days.
Halifax Minster is a great, soot-coated monolith of a church, and its gate provides a suitably Gothic (and autumnal) vista for this year’s Halloween shot, with Clare playing the part of the spectral apparition. Maybe. Anyway, with this shot, the town of Halifax hauls itself up to 9th place in the ‘all-time list’ (see the stats), with its 34th appearance on this blog.
Following my comments yesterday, at least the trains were still running in the other direction from home, so as often seems to happen on a Saturday, I found myself changing at Leeds station. I’ve been thinking of a shot like this for a while; taken specifically from the stairs going down to platform 16, and therefore looking across the whole width of the station. Busy scenes, and let’s demand they stay that way.
Could the great railway pioneers of Britain — people of vision and enterprise, greats like Brunel, say, or Stephenson — have conceived of the ‘rail replacement bus’, do you think? Particularly at 7.50am when it’s not even light yet? At least it was an opportunity for a study in yellow and blue.
Being 42 