My ability to summon a robin now does not even need to involve any digging. Just go and sit down in the garden for five minutes and he turns up anyway, just to check things out. With largely frozen soil at the moment, though, I guess he’s probably hungry. This may well be the same bird as depicted here or here: the photos are all taken in the same place (our allotment) and robins are territorial beasts.
I am on sabbatical, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop going to campus. Sometimes I just need to stretch my legs. And there are certain inspirational qualities it provides: today, these included the light, particularly as experienced outside the Stopford Building on Oxford Road this morning.
Snow was forecast and duly arrived, though it was hardly a winter apocalypse. It did make the town look good, though. This graveyard sits on the hillside across the valley from my house: it takes a long zoom to pick it out in a photo and, usually it’s all rather brown and unprominent. But I like the way the snow picks out the headstones, like rim-light, almost.
Joe bought me a book of Indian-style recipes for Christmas. I wanted to try some tonight, but many of the more obscure spices that were suggested were beyond my kitchen’s existing remit. But we have a very good Asian food store in Hebden Bridge. Now I know what curry leaves and tamarind actually look (and smell) like. Nigella seeds proved beyond everyone, however.
There are worse things to do on a fairly pleasant Sunday morning, whether for the players or the people watching. Or the people taking photographs, not just of the action but also the backdrop: wind turbines and all.
As seen on the canalised part of the River Calder, in Brighouse, early this afternoon. I hope it was enjoying the sunshine, as it gave its demonstration of fluid dynamics.
Let’s have a lot less vehicle-related morbidity and much more healthy outdoor exercise, miles (well, OK, about a mile) from the nearest traffic. Alfred Wainwright, who does know what he’s talking about, describes the summit thus:
here, on the summit of little Helm Crag, a midget of a mountain, is a remarkable array of rocks, upstanding and fallen, of singular interest and fascinating appearance, that yield a quality of reward out of all proportion to the short and simple climb. The uppermost reaches of Scafell and Helvellyn and Skiddaw can show nothing like Helm Crag’s crown of shattered and petrified stone: indeed, its highest point, a pinnacle of rock thrust out above a dark abyss, is not to be attained by walking and is brought underfoot only by precarious manoeuvers of the body. This is one of the very few summits in Lakeland reached only by climbing rocks, and it is certainly (but not for that reason alone) one of the very best.
And he’s right. Even in the mist, this is a great spot. And those two rocks do look like a lion and a lamb, don’t you think? That’s their official name, anyway. (For more pictures from today see my other blog.)
I am sure my day in Manchester was better than it was for the driver of this bike, lying at the junction of Princess Street and Whitworth Street, a place I walk past every time I go to work. So, seeing where the debris lay and knowing this junction and its patterns of traffic and pedestrians and stop/go signals, I suggest that this is what happened here — the bike was coming downhill, down Princess Street, as was its due, and the the car that it hit (bits of which were also scattered around), coming uphill, decided to turn right across its path. Shite driving therefore, lack of attention and care: at least the motorcyclist lived (I checked the story on the Manchester Evening News site), but that’s scant consolation I am sure.
Those of us in exile in the beer garden must have our reasons…. perhaps just misanthropy, in my case. The two women doubtless have their own thoughts on this. But the weather was OK so why not? Is that even a bit of light in the evening sky? I believe so.
The Midland’s second appearance on the blog, after this shot, 2,627 days ago– which is less vivid, and I prefer this one. It’s nice that we’re getting some sunshine, which in the last few weeks of 2023, was at a premium.
Being 42 