Sunday 24th December 2017, 1.55pm (day 2,313)
Christmas Eve games at the parents’. Brother-in-law Pete makes what may or may not have been a crucial move. Look at the lean…
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photos
The December non-league experience
Saturday 23rd December 2017, 4.35pm (day 2,312)
Latest stop on my 2017-18 tour of the football competitions of the UK, to the Northern Premier League Division 1 North, at Seel Park, Mossley: a game with two distinctions by the end. Number one, it was the foggiest game I have ever seen, in danger of being abandoned throughout most of the second half as it was becoming difficult to see from one side of the pitch to the other.
But I’m glad it wasn’t abandoned, as were the 217 other fans in the ground with me, because the second distinction was that this game had more goals in it than any other I have seen in my life, nine to be precise: result was Mossley 5, Kendal Town 4. An absolute cracker of a game from start to finish. I really am starting to wonder why it’s necessary to pay the Premier League premium to be entertained (which I was not, particularly, last Saturday). Thank you to everyone involved with this game in fact, for giving me a quite excellent pre-Christmas day out.
The last (real) Friday of 2017
Friday 22nd December 2017, 6.30pm (day 2,311)
The last working week of the year comes to an end. Every year, semester 1 is like a marathon. Sometimes I reach the end delirious and hyper. 2017 is not one of those years. Right now I feel utterly fatigued, just grateful to have reached this point without any significant loss of faculties. It would be good to slumber through the next eleven days to tell the truth — but I can’t, there are festive duties to perform of course. But that doesn’t mean I have to think much about them; that’s the good news.
Edge of the forest
Thursday 21st December 2017, 12.50pm (day 2,310)
Commercial forestry is not inherently a bad thing: there are many beautiful and well-managed plantations in England. But there are prices to pay, and when you see a ravaged landscape like this one — well, it does make you realise that this is not nurtured land. More like arboreal strip-mining, take the products and leave a wasteland behind. In this mist it looks almost apocalyptic, like the zombies are just over the horizon. Maybe one day Treebeard will stomp out of the remaining woods, like he does in The Two Towers, and swear vengeance against the human despoilers.
Asleep
Tuesday 19th December 2017, 9.35am (day 2,308)
This was the first photo I took today, and while I did in the end go on to take more, I didn’t really need to. As soon as I saw this, I thought – this is me, today. This is how I feel.
December scene, Hebden Bridge
Monday 18th December 2017, 10.50am (day 2,307)
Winter, as such, I don’t mind. I can take the cold and it tends to look nice (as here). It’s the darkness that pisses me off, and we haven’t even reached the Solstice yet. On winter days when I’m around home I can just about get it in me to go out when the sun finally struggles up, but otherwise, if it can’t be bothered, usually neither can I.
At the Amex stadium
Saturday 16th December 2017, 2.55pm (day 2,305)
Welcome back to the Amex Stadium, Brighton, venue for several previous shots: all of which were preludes to victories by the mighty Brighton and Hove Albion. Today’s score versus Burnley: 0-0, so I lose my 100% win-only record there, but still, a point’s a point.
Oxford Road, the past
Friday 15th December 2017, 9.10am (day 2,304)
A bit of play in the processing. But what the hell, I feel like the country’s regressed a century or so. Last-but-one day in Manchester this year — with the state of the trains at the moment, that is no bad thing.
Being 42 