Friday 28th April 2017, 3.55pm (day 2,073)
Is he engaging in some Japanese-style blossom worship? (You see Japan — we have blossom too….) Or just clambering along a precarious wall, as small boys do to entertain themselves and worry their parents?
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: photos
In Chinatown
Thursday 27th April 2017, 10.55am (day 2,072)
Even if the Chinese Arch is visible, almost side-on, in the background. I don’t know if this is a photo of anything. I don’t think I’ve been taking photos of specific things over the last few days. This is more about colours, shapes, textures. Maybe that’s where my head is.
Canal life, April evening
Wednesday 26th April 2017, 6.50pm (day 2,071)
A number of Hebden Bridge’s residents live on canal barges like these and I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to do so on a permanent basis. I’ve been on a couple of the boats and they are cosy, but I definitely don’t think it’s suited for anyone that has a really serious hoarding habit, which probably rules out me and (more especially) the wife. A sunny day today, but chilly, hence the stove bring run here at full operation.
Summit Tunnel, interior
Tuesday 25th April 2017, 1.05pm (day 2,070)
Some pictures make it onto here for the novelty value more than anything else — so here’s what the Summit Tunnel (the longest railway tunnel in the world when it was opened in 1841, dontcha know) looks like from the inside when the driver forgets to turn the interior lights on in the carriage. Which he then realised, and corrected, some two seconds after I pressed the shutter. Bet you are glad then that I was able to capture this fascinating study of Victorian tunnel architecture.
Free food (spring season)
Monday 24th April 2017, 2.10pm (day 2,069)
Wild garlic — the spring version of free food. (Blackberries are the autumn bounty.)
England (the flat bit with big skies)
Sunday 23rd April 2017, 1.25pm (day 2,068)
And so, the journey home — deliberately done away from motorways, and rest stops, and all that crap. It took a couple of hours longer than it did on Thursday, but it was infinitely more relaxing, and hey, here is the English countryside, in all its rape-flower-coloured spring plumage. Taken just outside the village of Heckington, somewhere in the wilds of Lincolnshire.
And as I said I would do 11 different places in 11 days, here they were: Manchester, Wolverhampton, Lancaster, Morecambe, the Solway Firth, Haworth, Hebden Bridge, Markham Moor, Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Heckington. These things keep me happy.
The non-league crowd
Saturday 22nd April 2017, 3.35pm (day 2,067)
In my own way I am a collector, mainly of places, and this football season have made more of an effort to get around some of the nooks and crannies of the game around England and (once) Scotland. Today saw a visit to King’s Lynn Town FC of the Evo-Stik Premier League, the seventh tier of English football. The thirteenth game of my season sees its seventh different competition, which is a decent return, though one I can better next year with some effort. The thing worth noticing about English football is just how deep down it goes. 554 people came along today to this game: in almost any other country this level of the game would hardly exist. I like this shot of the home fans behind the goal their team were attacking in the first half — after half-time they go to the other end. The last game of their season ended well for King’s Lynn as they beat Chesham 3-1.
Cartridge graveyard
Friday 21st April 2017, 1.15pm (day 2,066)
An exhibit in the Centre for Computing History, in Cambridge: basically a large unit on an industrial estate full of absolutely every old home computer and game system ever released (anyone remember the Jupiter Ace, for example?) — geek heaven in other words. This exhibit is, apparently, all real landfill waste from somewhere in the USA — disposed of after the Atari market collapsed in 1982, all because of a very cruddy E. T. game, apparently. So it can now seem a metaphor for our consumer society, or something. Good museum though.
Rest stop (A well-known hamburger restaurant)
Thursday 20th April 2017, 3.20pm (day 2,065)
I don’t do many road trips, I mean, using cars and motorways, but today, and the next few days, is an exception. That means I don’t often get to enjoy the delights of rest stops, service stations, whatever you want to call them. Not that these are places designed to inspire much photography, but I don’t mind this shot, taken through a screen at Markham Moor services on the A1, somewhere in Nottinghamshire. No endorsement of McDonalds’ is implied, although I think their 99p for a tea is fair enough (plenty of other similar places will be prepared to charge £2.50 for same).
The afternoon pint
Wednesday 19th April 2017, 3.30pm (day 2,064)
An indolent day, still off work, and yes, I was in the pub at 3.30pm, although only for one. Well, maybe a couple. There is something melancholy about it, I know.
Being 42 