This is not the first time I have managed to get out of the UK during one of its wintrier spells only to find myself heading somewhere even colder; though the weather in northern Norway at the moment is also rather sunnier and more pleasant than at home. Taken from the plane at some unspecified spot between Trondheim and Bodø as I hopped up the coast on a succession of flights.
Enough of this winter, say I! I don’t see this as a winter shot. This is the first picture of spring. If we all exert our will on the weather surely we can psychically change it. Worth a try surely.
I’m leaving the UK tomorrow, I guess it is possible there could be a shot from Manchester airport (although I’m sat there as I type this, and nothing is inspiring me thus far), but more likely is that tomorrow will see the first non-UK shot since the one in Sheremetyevo airport on 25th October (day 2,253), a run of 129 days and the second-longest such run since I started on this blog. Let’s travel, though I’m not heading anywhere warmer…
I did make it into Manchester today, and home again — unlike those stuck on the M62 last night. My train to work passed over the gridlock on the motorway somewhere around Castleton. At home in the evening there were vague signs of a thaw but as one can see from this shot, it is putative at best. At least I’m getting out of here on Sunday. To the Arctic.
Clare would like to take some credit for this photo as she claims ‘she saw it first’. Consider it inspiration then…
Off school thanks to the continuing dreadful weather, Joe recreates his cancelled Food Tech class for our dinner tonight. Clare helps by holding the pan but otherwise the meal was his.
I like this pic: I like the various minuscule little details about our kitchen that you guys normally never see. The penguin calendar. The levitating compost bin. The mysterious letter ‘S’.
OK, so, we have had a bit of snow. This is Old Town, above Hebden Bridge, but most of the place looks like this at the moment. Things were functional round here but I was glad I didn’t have to schlep into Manchester…. no, those pleasures await me tomorrow, unless I can find a reason to avoid it.
Evidence of new tactics in the ongoing pigeon-duck conflict. “Hah. I knew this camouflage would eventually come in useful. Now I can spy on the ducks without fear of detection.”
“Er… Bob? The feet?”
“Oh bugger.”
Back home again, my town strangely empty this afternoon. Perhaps everyone was hunkering down for the promised ‘winter apocalypse’ that is, at least according to the media, about to devour the entire Northern Hemisphere in a kind of Game of Thrones scenario. Well, it’s a little chilly that’s true, but I’m sure we’ll live.
It’s getting on for a decade since I last tried to get myself (more precisely, my left knee) round 13.1 miles, but Clare still does it now and again in her regular 2:45. Hence, the Brighton half-marathon has become an annual staple of the blog, this is at least its third appearance. Well done to all the finishers, in whatever time they make it; I know what it takes…
Our tour of the south-east corner of England continues. Once again I find myself in Brighton, on a beautiful but very cold day. A day well spent all round.
I wonder how many reputed bits of the Berlin Wall there are remaining in the world. I used to have at least one bit of rubble that was definitely part of it, because I removed it myself, on my one visit to Berlin in September 1990 when there was still quite a bit of it standing and being pulled down by tourists. Every bit of it that I could see at that time had been heavily graffitied so either this big, relatively clean chunk standing in the Imperial War Museum in London is from something else, or (more likely) this stood on the inside, facing the no-man’s land that stood between East and West from 1961-1989.
Whatever. Decent museum, the IWM, takes an even-handed view of its subject matter. And free, for now.
Being 42 