On this, the 101st day that London has appeared on this blog, we had left for home by 10am, but there was still time to discover another of the quiet little corners that make this a pleasant city in so many ways, and partly explain why I come back so often. Granville Square sits not fifty yards off the Kings Cross Road, right in the centre of the city, but you wouldn’t know it on this glorious June morning.
No apologies today for adding the second football-related celebration of the weekend. At the start of this ravaged season — just one aspect of our emptied recent lives — there were many reasons to not anticipate that it would end at Wembley stadium, but here we are. The final whistle has just gone and those fans of Morecambe FC that were permitted to enter, as part of an attendance of 9,083, still greatly below the capacity of this fine ground, celebrate the 1-0 win (with thanks to an admittedly outrageous penalty) over Newport County that takes them up to the third level of English football for the first time in their history. And thanks to Clare (who was also present, of course) — I could be there. A poor game, yes, but a great day out.
And this is also the 100th London pic to appear on the blog, meaning the capital turns up about once every five weeks, on average.
If you can’t see why it’s a good idea to put a plank of wood like this in one’s garden water butt, you’ve clearly never had to get the drowned corpse of an indeterminate creature out of one, as we once did. Anyway, over the last few months, it has been colonised. The slime came first — now, this rather more photogenic red fungus, or that is what I assume it is. Who knows, give it a couple of thousand years and we might have entire civilisations existing in this water butt universe.
Rimington FC, in orange, wait to be presented with the trophy for winning the East Lancashire League’s end-of-season rump competition — what was allowed them after the wasted (and perhaps pointless) months of lockdown. 400 people gathered at Padiham FC’s fine little ground on the edge of Burnley, witnessed a magnificent game of football (4-4 with the winners taking it on penalties), remembering how good it is to come together, and not to stay lonely and apart. The kid sums up these feelings.
We can’t have the more resource-efficient carafes of fruit juice because that way we will get the plague, or something Then again, there seemed only three people breakfasting this morning in the hotel, like the scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when the main characters go out for dinner and it’s like, ‘where is everyone?’. Nah, we don’t do that kind of thing, in the anticipated future. The mirror in the background doubles up on the number of cartons, and also makes this a self-portrait, kind of.
Gosh — sunny and warm weather, and a night out with friends. Embrace both, infeed. But like Manchester, the city of Sheffield is only half-alive, so much is boarded up, shuttered, or simply closed. Huge numbers have been vaccinated and still we are pushed the fiction that everyday life has become ‘unsafe’, that asserting our freedom is selfish. This virus will be around for the rest of our lives. Time to get used to it.
This one is here more because I like the shapes and patterns than anything else. But I suppose there’s an ongoing sense of frustration at the remnants of lockdown, which hangs around like an irritating guest at a party that can’t get started with him there. We are in the ‘we’re doing it because we said three months ago that we would’ stage, as far as Authority goes — for of course, they cannot be seen to have changed their minds. Going on the front pages of the papers today even the media are not bothered any more. But Mytholmroyd station car park remains largely unused.
Went out on a walk, not that the weather is getting any better — atypically, May 2021 has been a cold and grey month in the UK. These calves, particularly the black one, look as grumpy about this as I feel.
Have I yet done 2021’s duckling/gosling pic? No? Well, here you are then. These balls of fluff can get up to a decent speed in the water, you have to give them that.
Morecambe FC’s impressive season continues but even though fans have been graciously allowed to return to grounds thanks to the decrees of Our Glorious Leaders, this is in arbitrarily low numbers, so no chance of getting tickets for the play-off semi-final this lunchtime. A hunt around the local hostelries ended up with Clare (the real MFC fan) and I (the hanger-on) watching it in Halifax. The effort was worth it; they will be at Wembley on the 31st. Go Shrimps…!
Being 42 