Can’t say I had the greatest day at work today but at least it was sunny outside. A walk in the woods helped, a little. I guess because these trees are more sheltered than most, they’ve barely begun to turn yet — just the merest splash of autumn has hit them, thus far.
The second day in a row to feature a pic of birds asserting their rights over human-designed territory. These geese had decided they were crossing the main road in Hebden Bridge this morning, and that’s just the way it was. In the end, the woman in the dungarees saw them safely to the other side.
Seen in St John’s Gardens, Manchester. This used to be a cemetery, hence the existence of this decorative cross in the middle, and obviously it’s a good vantage point to keep an eye on humans eating their lunch around the garden (as I was at this point). The impression given by these three pigeons, particularly the butch one on the right, is of nightclub bouncers, ready to pounce on any slight infraction of behaviour.
No point claiming that I did anything other than this kind of thing today — and there were almost another three hours of it to go after I took this shot. Jet lag, I seem to have avoided. Work lag, I have.
I have never seen snow falling anywhere as early in a year as 17th October, but Iceland lived up to its name this morning and duly delivered, as my first flight home returned me to Keflavik. This seems even to have caught Icelanders unaware, seeing as it caused my second flight to be delayed two hours while we waited, seemingly endlessly, for the wings of our aircraft to be de-iced (“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking…. We are eighth in the queue for de-icing…. [45 minutes later] We are sixth in the queue….”). But I did get home in the end.
At one level this is a cheap rodent shot, but it does epitomise a particular feature of Toronto’s urban scene — because there are thousands, tens of thousands perhaps, of these critters around every tree and greenish space in the city. They’re all brown, too, rather than grey (as most of the UK’s squirrels are) or red (as a very few of them are). If anything, this example is uncharacteristically pale compared to his city brethren. Either way they’re lining themselves up as the runner-up species locally, I’m telling you.
Last day in Toronto. Home tomorrow, as long as my government decides to let me back into the country.
A trip out of the city. The suburb of King City is not as hick as this picture may make it appear, but I like this shot because it makes it seem like one of those tiny North American places with ridiculously grandiose names. You can almost see the weatherbeaten sign at the city limits: “KING CITY, ONTARIO (population: 47)”.
Yonge Street is the spine of Toronto, defining the point at which the west side becomes the right side and vice versa. As it is the address of the nearest pub to my hotel, I’ve been hanging out there a lot in the evenings. This picture pleases me because it’s basically the one I hoped would come out when I took the shot. The guy sitting in the gutter looks enveloped by the red tail lights that appear to have passed on both sides of him.
There are many good murals around this city — and this one is particularly fine. No further comment necessary.
These are the people I have come all the way to Toronto to work with — because we all decided, no, we are not going to sit and try to interact behind screens. We needed to work together. Ahmad on the left, Dina on the right. They look kinda happy about the prospect, as I was.
Being 42 