I have a commitment to try to avoid repeating myself on this blog: but of all the views that have appeared more than once, this one, the one looking west from my house, has been the most often repeated. And for good reason. It has saved many an otherwise drab day.
And yes, we do already have snow, have had for three days in fact. After the whole year has seemed to be running late climatically — winter has hit early, and quite hard.
The weather has switched from decency to foulness pretty quickly. Having once more gone into Manchester, this time with Joe to sort him and me out a new phone each, our train journey home was terminated at Todmorden due to flooding on the line somewhere between Hebden Bridge and Sowerby Bridge, so we were on the bus for the last leg of the journey. Dull this picture is, but it epitomises how it’s all suddenly got dark, cold and damp. Welcome to November for real….
Back in the foul summer of 2012, 29th August to be precise, the blog featured a photo of this building (the headquarters of AQA, the examinations authority) with a heavy storm brewing behind it. At that time the office from which I took the picture was occupied by an admin colleague, while I was stuck in a cold and dim room on the north side of the building, without a view, that I never liked and never felt at home in, which is why it never featured on the blog (I think only two pictures were ever taken in there). Happy to say that this summer I moved, and my view is now much better — although the weather looks much the same on this shot (but it’s November, rather than August, so we’ll let it off somewhat).
An early start this morning. This slip road leads up to the flyover under which I cross the Mancunian Way each time I walk to the office.
Anyone unfamiliar with Manchester might imagine for a moment this pic is Photoshopped, but no, you really can see upward of 11 buses in a row on Oxford Road at certain points in time (not to mention the two or three more that were just to my left as I took this). On the one level this kind of phenomenon amuses me, but on the other hand I can’t help thinking of the other communities out there (like Sabden, Shap) that might benefit from having a spare bus or two now and again.
The line of pylons that reaches over the railway line around Mills Hill station has of late been the subject of building works, as seen here. So this photo fits itself into two vague categories of picture that I have been nurturing recently: blokes high up doing their jobs (like this one) and pictures of power installations taken at high speed from trains, as depicted last week. Do pylons count as ‘architecture’ (a more formal category of picture on this site)? Yes, I think they should. They dominate the landscape as much as any other engineered structure.
Having never been to Cambridge in my life until January this year, it’s a definite discovery of 2016. I returned today for a seminar and will be back there in a fortnight, too. Parts of it are as beautiful as anywhere I have ever been, like a fairytale almost, particularly with the golden leaves of autumn. This picture depicts none of that, but I like it anyway; most of the place seems to look something like this, including all the bicycles.
I try to keep this blog apolitical, but it’s not always easy. I was educated into the idea that we were making steady progress toward some better future. In 2016 that is a view of the world that, at best, has taken a severe blow. But at least someone is here with this guy.
The leeks have grown way better this year than in any previous year. We could say it’s the good weather — and it continues to be mild and pleasant, Wednesday’s sprinkling of snow notwithstanding — but actually I reckon it’s the discovery of ‘Baby Bio’ fertiliser. Which probably means these no longer count as ‘organic’, but what the hell, the one we ate this evening was very tasty. Not that you eat these bits of the plant, however.
Well, I did say a few days back that there were likely to be a lot of Manchester urban scenes over the next few weeks, as that’s where I’ll be spending most of my time. Got to work now and again, I suppose. It’s an attractive enough city, at least, the bits I walk through are.
Being 42 