Sunday 8th March 2026, 3.15pm (day 5,309)
A Sunday afternoon game of cribbage. I won 3-2, by the way. As C pointed out when she first saw this, sometimes a blur is exactly the point of the shot.
Clare deals crib
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: pub
Derelict pub
Saturday 28th February 2026, 1.40pm (day 5,301)
The Lostock Arms, just outside the railway station of Lostock near Bolton, may once have been a busy and thriving place — but it obviously wasn’t busy enough, in the long run. I have no idea how long it has been closed but the longer it does stay empty, the more work it’ll need to return to life. Probably it is caught in some kind of planning limbo: there are a couple of old pubs along the A646 through the Calder Valley that have been in this state for a quarter of a century now (like the Woodman in Charlestown). As a society we seem no better at using our building stock in efficient ways than we do most other aspects of our environment.
First flames
Wednesday 18th February 2026, 4.30pm (day 5,291)
Brrrr! It’s cold outside. Get that fire lit!
Jack
Thursday 12th February, 6.00pm (day 5,285)
Hello, friend. The bloody thing is that today was another wake. Too many, too fast.
Celebrating a life
Monday 2nd February 2026, 2.35pm (day 5,275)
I do not know exactly how many people have appeared on this blog and subsequently died, for I cannot account for all the strangers who have been in shots. As of today, though, there are certainly at least six such people among friends and family. Steve Cooper — always known in the pub as ‘Little Steve’ (not that the other Steve is particularly large) had appeared three times, most recently on 28th March 2025. He passed away on 6th January aged 63, today was his funeral and then wake at the Railway, where it had to be. Other members of the crew are pictured looking happy, which is the main reason I pick the shot — as the booklet on the table announces, it was meant to be a celebratin, not sorrowful. But Steve will be missed, as will all friends when they are no longer with us.
In the doorway
Friday 23rd January 2026, 5.00pm (day 5,265)
It’s Friday, it’s 5pm and, well, we’re in the usual place. It’d be great if the golden glow behind the beer glass was some tropical sunset, but sadly not, In fact we’ve barely seen sunshine for two weeks.
Hugo, portrait
Tuesday 20th January 2026, 5.30pm (day 5,262)
A fourth appearance for Hugo, and this portrait sums up his general character as well as anything. Since we last saw him I believe he has lost a couple of crucial parts of his anatomy (y’know) but it doesn’t seem to have changed him much.
Jax, New Year’s Eve
Wednesday 31st December 2025, 8.40pm (day 5,242)
It’s just a day like any other of course but thanks to its position in the calendar there does seem a certain obligation to mark it. A modicum of sociability was thereby achieved, though we didn’t stay out until midnight. Jax becomes, probably, the person with the longest gap between first and second appearances on here — that is also her to the right of this portrait from January 2015.
Happy New Year to her and to you all. Of all the places I visited in 2025, Orkney was definitely the best — at the end of that week Clare and I were, virtually, both planning moves there. It’ll never happen though. This picture of Stromness was the last one taken there (August 2nd at 6.40am, the earliest shot of the year) and evokes the memories very well. My favourite picture of the year photographically is probably the one of the guide at the Great Tapestry of Scotland on June 8th in Galashiels — it just turned out very well and as I hoped it would. What will 2026 bring? Let’s find out.
Re-engaging with the favourite child
Tuesday 23rd December 2025, 5.30pm (day 5,234)
Joe’s first appearance since — chainsaw in hand — 4th August. It’s Christmas. It’s time to re-engage.
Re: the title. You do understand Joe is our only child, right? Just checking.
Worst beer logo ever?
Friday 5th December 2025, 4.50pm (day 5,216)
This brand of beer (not mine, but the wife drinks it) has recently appeared at the Railway and the almost unanimous contention among the clientele is that its logo is quite the worst and most inappropriate piece of branding ever seen there — and it appears on the pump, too (an ugly, blocky, monstrous columnar thing that now dominates the bar). Why does a sweaty male figure who looks like a cross between Boris Yeltsin and Boris Johnson — definitely a Boris then — somehow epitomise a Spanish beer with a woman’s name? And did I really have nothing better to photograph on a Friday? Both of these things seem to have come to pass, though.
Being 42 