The weather was no worse today, and perhaps I should have made more of this, but I had done a few miles yesterday and there seemed little need to go any further than the pub, with the outside tables filling up for the first time this year. Long may the sunshine last — which of course it won’t, in Britain it never does. This couple stayed for only a short time, so presumably were being more active.
I was certainly enjoying the sunshine today — a glorious day. Whether the horse was or not, I can only speculate, but it looks contented enough. Taken towards the end of my first County Top walk for over two months: the houses in the background are part of the village of Huthwaite, the highest settlement in Nottinghamshire.
Whatever it is that pigeons do to communicate the information that it is time for a collective take-off, they do it well enough, and quite frequently, too. They will then fly around for a couple of circuits, come back to land (or roof) again, and wait a few minutes before doing it all again. Perhaps it’s just training.
A definite First Day of Spring. The buds on the apple tree anticipated it, however. Well, we call it a ‘tree’ but it’s more like a kind of skein of branches that wrap themselves around some vaguely solid thing that might or might not be a trunk. More like vines, almost. Either way, the apples should be along in a few months’ time.
Whatever happened on the 22nd February at 9.55am happened while I was in Dubai, so I do not know the details. But going on the location, at the junction of Booth Street and Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, the ‘serious collision’ was most likely between a car and a tram — something which really shouldn’t happen in broad daylight. The tram is never going to come off worse in such an encounter. One therefore assumes the memorial flowers — note the £3.50 price tag visible on one bunch — are for at least one occupant of the car. And their ghost keeps a careful watch.
(OK, actually I’m the ‘ghost’, but it does look a little eerie, and was something I did not notice at the time of taking the shot.)
The association between this pub and Halifax Minster is obvious, even before noticing the painting hanging inside, which depicts the choir ‘practising’ while swilling ale in the tavern; and it was painted in the 1790s, apparently. The beer inside is still decent but there wasn’t much singing going on tonight. This is one of the shots where you can check my timekeeping.
Onto the 7:56 from Hebden Bridge we pack, a cattle truck most days. But the physical intimacy doesn’t mean social contact. Taking photos in these circumstances is some kind of transgression, isn’t it? But wrapped in their worlds, no one noticed.
I don’t know whether St Bernadette’s — the church in the background — was busy on this Sunday morning, possibly it was. Hough End Playing Fields across the road certainly was, although this picture doesn’t capture the fact that at least half-a-dozen sports matches of various kinds were taking place around me at this point. I like the combination of the bright orange shirt and the slight dullness and tattiness of the background.
Crocuses are an annual marker, coming out at the same time each year. This being the case they work as a marker of Joe’s birthday, which is on Tuesday. Each year I remember 2003, which had a very warm first few days of March, spent mostly in Calderdale Royal Hospital while we waited (and Clare pushed, for days) for him to make his appearance. Crocuses were coming up everywhere then, and here are more, 22 years later.
Not many students are seen on campus at just after 9am on a Friday, then again, nor am I, all that often. She seems engrossed enough in something, anyway. I hope I managed to keep my class entertained too.
Being 42 