Friday 22nd May 2020, 11.40am (day 3,193)
An awkward spot to tag, for sure. It takes a certain devotion. Though the river is very low at the moment, with it not having rained properly for weeks.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photos
White hat, passing by
Thursday 21st May 2020, 1.15pm (day 3,192)
One of those shots where if I’d had any longer to think about it, it probably wouldn’t have turned out as interesting. But this hat — attached to a person of course, but they’re not the subject of the photo — was spotted passing below my house today, and I just got the shot before they walked on into the shadows.
The magpie exercises
Wednesday 20th May 2020, 9.00am (day 3,191)
“And stretch that right leg… hold it…. hold it…. feel those calves working!… and rest.”
A shame the bird’s body is a bit grainy but this was done on a very long zoom. And on a beautiful morning, as you can see. The blog’s third magpie, according to my over-detailed files.
Road resurfacing
Tuesday 19th May 2020, 5.20pm (day 3,190)
OK, this picture isn’t high art but at least it’s something different, as the council decide to take advantage of the lack of traffic and resurface the road outside our house. I’m glad there is still a semblance of working life out there but I’d quite like to go to work myself, on occasional days (did I really say that? It’s true though). This is only the fourth picture to feature people who are not family members since the end of March.
Up on t’ moor
Monday 18th May 2020, 12.40pm (day 3,189)
I’m still trying to keep the step count up, but the weather turned rather grim. Being up on the moors above the town in squally drizzle made the exercise less pleasant than it might have been. But it kept me moving.
The moor here is a riot of cottongrass. I feel it comes out at the wrong time of year — it looks like it should be a December plant, a proxy for snow.
Planning activities
Sunday 17th May 2020, 5.40pm (day 3,188)
I know I am not the only one to whom this has happened, but I have lost all the little things, outside my immediate home, that gave my life pleasure. Except one — and that one thing is walking, experiencing the countryside. I spent the day reading, planning, looking forward. That’s a large part of the fun, in fact.
And yes, I need the reading glasses to do it. So they can take their rightful place on the stage.
Heptonstall over the buttercups
Saturday 16th May 2020, 2.15pm (day 3,187)
I reckon that under these circumstances, everyone is getting to know their immediate local environment better than they might have done last year. Reached through the woods near my house, the meadows on the upper terraces of the valley, near Old Town, are currently a riot of buttercups. Their yellow carpet is a more natural version of those blankets of oil-seed rape that one gets in more arable districts: and more pleasing, somehow.
Kitchen abstract
Friday 15th May 2020, 6.25pm (day 3,186)
And so it has come to this after eight weeks of lockdown — abstract shapes in the washing-up bowl. And on a Friday evening too. But they are pleasing shapes, at least to me.
Plumlets
Thursday 14th May 2020, 5.25pm (day 3,185)
The plum tree in the garden is warming up for one of its summers of abundance. It has hundreds of these little plumlets happily soaking up the sunshine. If you want fresh plums, come see us in August. Hell, you might even be able to travel by then.
On Garrowby Hill
Wednesday 13th May 2020, 11.10am (day 3,184)
Since I paid a visit to Manchester on 21st March, every picture on here has been taken in the county of Yorkshire, but I am not ‘staying at home’ and nor, any longer, am I supposed to be. Garrowby Hill is the highest part of Bishop Wilton Wold, and the trees shown here stand on the highest point of the old East Riding of Yorkshire, meaning this is number 11 of my county top collection. I passed three people all day at no greater risk to my health than I suffer from simply reading the news at the moment.
When I came home after this walk, Clare was upset as an old family friend has committed suicide. Already depressed, lockdown was for him the last straw and he hanged himself. What did ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ mean for him? How many more of these hidden tragedies will there be, lost in the chaos but no less real than the ones that make the statistics?
We need to restart our lives and our economy, and right soon. ‘Zero risk’ does not exist.
Being 42 