Saturday 13th August 2016, 2.15pm (day 1,815)

I feel I’ve shown what I wanted to show about this tree, so that gratifies me.

I feel I’ve shown what I wanted to show about this tree, so that gratifies me.

Doubtless there is a parent just out of shot waiting to make the strategic grab if necessary, but at some point in the future these two will be going through their big scary doors all by themselves. Good luck to them. Pictured at Manchester Victoria station, as I ventured there purely for shopping purposes — the return to work can wait another 36 hours or so.

As I start back at work on Sunday, I would like to make the most of the remaining days of the holiday; hence today’s family gathering. My Dad (well, some of him) makes his fourth appearance on the blog; my Mum (somewhat shamefully, perhaps) her second, Clare and Joe, you know.

Not a bad morning for it, though there was rain later. This is never going to be a position you ever see me in, by the way.

Conwy is a few miles from Llandudno. First-ever visit there today, and what a beautiful and interesting place — there were many potential candidates for today’s photo. But in the end, had to go with the castle. This is premium castle. Built, along with its accompanying town walls, in only four years, in the 13th century by Edward I. Public engineering projects in this epoch take longer (look at Manchester city centre for instance). Then again this was a fortress of occupation: no Welsh were allowed to live within the Conwy walls.

Well, my summer holiday hasn’t finished yet, so there’s scope yet for more of this kind of thing. I could say this is a typical English seaside scene, but actually we’re in Wales — Llandudno in fact. First impressions: it’s like Aberystwyth, but bigger and with lots more Liverpudlians.

A relaxing day, spent enjoying pleasant weather, which has by no means always been the case in this relatively dull summer. No complaints today though. Taken at the Blue Pig beer festival.

A decent day of weather (it was nice to see blue skies for a change); I’m still off work so no reason not to go on a walk. Thornthwaite Crag was one of seven summits reached today, and has what is probably the tallest summit cairn in the Lake District.

I do the blog with a fairly crappy compact camera that needs replacing, only I can’t afford to at the moment. Rock gigs are like football matches, I’d probably be able to capture much better images of them if I had a proper lens or flash unit; in the low ambient light the participants tend to need to be stationary, which doesn’t happen that much. Best effort from tonight, where me, Clare and about 50 other people turned up to watch The Dictators go through their set: a band that can be dated by the fact they appear on a compilation I picked up last year of, not 70s punk, but 70s pre-punk… There were a few of people in the room aged under 40. But only a couple.

Clare says she here sees ‘only the dead one’ but the rest were good to go… and the apples in the background are also coming along nicely. Thing about raspberries though, they’re really just weeds; they seem to grow everywhere except where was actually intended.