We all risk missing spring this year, don’t we. I, however, intend to do my best to keep an eye on its developments. Without a spring, the year will just suck. Well, y’know, even more than it already does.
Bloody hell. How quickly did all that happen. How quickly did we let it all happen.
I spent my whole morning working out then posting my professional and academic opinion about the last few days. By the time I’d done that, I was, frankly, freaked out, so had to get out into the town just to see that it was still there, that it had not been consumed by the zombie apocalypse. And I was reassured. But bearing in mind that this poster has been up since a couple of days after the floods of February — then how much more can my home town take. How much more can we all take?
The media are not reality though. Talk to each other, folks.
So, it’s happened then. Britain is in a state of lockdown. Except maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s all voluntary, because with this government, remember that they don’t really have a clue about anything very much.
Either way I suspect I will be seeing a lot more of Hebden Bridge and home in the next few weeks. Or possibly months. For now I will do my best to keep this blog going, why should it become another victim of this pandemic? But how long I will sustain any creative juices in a world with greatly reduced horizons, I don’t know.
I must already be going slightly crazy, anyway. In these sprouting potatoes (for life, and the garden, must go on) I see little people, sitting in their boxes having a pre-planting natter. Or in the case of the couple to bottom right, a gentle cuddle.
I have exhibited no symptoms of viral infection. No one around me has exhibited them either. So I am not locking myself up in my house, not yet. What will be the overall impact on public health of the proposed lockdown (and along the way, creation of a police state)? On mental health, levels of domestic violence and abuse, et cetera? The UK is not the only country launching a massive experiment in depriving tens of millions of people that they have come to rather like. Maybe it will relieve pressure on the health service. But maybe it won’t.
Anyway this lockdown is not quite yet in operation. Hence, I got outside today, because there may not be many more chances in the next few weeks. This is the summit of Watson’s Dodd, above Thirlmere in the Lake District — behind, the peak of Helvellyn, at 3,117 feet the third-highest mountain in England.
Somehow it seems to be a time to say hi to old friends. It’s been a while since Mr B appeared on here.
Senior football across the UK was suspended as of yesterday. I, these guys (who have doubtless been coming to the same spot, probably with the same chairs, for decades) and three hundred other people got their fix at AFC Blackpool of the North West Counties league. The crowd included a large number of fans of Sunderland FC who had been due to play in the town this afternoon but could not. Alas, it then also began to include a number of the local idiots who saw here a chance to wind up these visitors free from the distractions of police or stewards. A microcosm of a usual Saturday for various people therefore.
The point is that if this kind of thing isn’t available, then for good or bad, people will go find it where they can. I suspect Britain, and the world, currently needs sport more than it realises.
This was one of those where I worried about whether the focus would be on the bird or on the foliage. But it worked out alright in the end. As a big fan of The Silence of the Lambs I cannot help but call this starling “Clarice”: love the winter plumage, all the same. Nor would I mess with that beak.
In case it’s not apparent, I’ve not been at work this week. This is not for virus-related reasons. I have no reason to suspect that I or anyone I’ve been in close contact with recently has become part of the 2020 media event of the year. But like most people, I am anticipating a period of time in the (possibly near) future where I have a couple of weeks left to my own devices, so no harm in getting some rehearsal done. I did bugger all today — except for making food, and getting through this double bill.
And for what it’s worth, I do think Doctor Sleep was a pretty worthy sequel to a classic movie, though whether Kubrick would have approved, I think probably not.
I said yesterday that Lincoln cathedral stands at the top of one of the few hills in Lincolnshire. This beauty — a radar station, apparently — stands near the summit of one of the others, Normanby Top (a County Top). This looks exactly as if God is waiting up there with his 3-wood, ready to smash it over the nearby water hazard (the North Sea) and out into Europe.
This is a truly monumental building, the first ever built that exceeded in height the Great Pyramid of Giza: and the only reason it lost its title as the world’s tallest in 1548 was because the spire was destroyed in a storm, and never rebuilt. Even today it can be seen for miles around, sitting as it does at the top of one of the few hills in Lincolnshire. It is proof that people 700 years ago can still show us a few things or two when it comes to engineering and architecture.
Being 42 