Post-Sunday lunch card gaming. Clare demanded to play cribbage for the first time in a long while. Only the Brighton & Hove Albion cards could be found. Didn’t faze her – she won 2-1.
Another less-than-exciting day: I am spending most of this week marking dissertations. One thing about the Railway is that it’s always had a very decent juke box. I don’t remember exactly what track was on at 4.40 this Thursday afternoon but whatever it was, this person was not the only one tapping at least one of their feet to it.
I took a picture of this mural on a visit to Glasgow a couple of years ago, but didn’t use it at the time: in fact, the one I took then was possibly better as from outside the pub courtyard we see her left hand coming down to pick up little insect-like pedestrians on the street. But from the courtyard of O’Neill’s pub the ‘Girl With a Magnifying Glass’ (look it up on Google Maps) seems to be inspecting the drinkers, somewhat scientifically…
It’s only the second day of September but the kids have started back at school, it is much cooler and damper than it was, and there’s this general feeling of decline (and I don’t even mean in political terms, though we’ve certainly got that too). Autumn is upon us, I fear. Well, let’s make the most of it.
5.15pm on day 5,115 and it’s the start of the 15th year of the blog. All of which is numerologically pleasing but has nothing to do with the shot, and the shot has nothing to do with my birthday as such. As the stormtrooper helmet was there, it got worn by Mark, at least for a short time. Tony looks on in his usual measured fashion.
This pub at Manchester Victoria station has not been opened all that long (a couple of years by now, I think) but it has rapidly become a Pub of Choice in the city. I don’t do advertising on this blog, except when I do. The dog belongs to one of the regular bar staff: when she’s working, it just hangs out, happily enough, with the rest of us.
I knew in advance that today’s shot would be taken at home in Hebden Bridge, meaning it would become the 2,000th HB shot to feature on here. Knowing also that not a great deal was going to happen on the day I thought I might as well make #HB2000 as typical as possible. Hi to Johnny and Mary therefore, who I see often enough in this spot, particularly in the summer. (In the winter we would be twenty yards to the right, and inside….)
I have had one of those weekends where I did virtually nothing but still reached the end feeling no more refreshed than I was on Friday afternoon. The Handmade Parade, in all its colour and movement, had been taking place earlier in the day but I do not feel I got a representative picture of it — the day was much more as seen here, kind of soft-focus and dim. The recent run of interiors therefore continues.
Pud (a.k.a. Sean) is definitely the local wizard with this machine. I mean, I try — others try — but Pud wins. Usually. Kind of like Manchester City, maybe not always, but quite a lot.
Took the wife out for dinner. Out of this kitchen came — or going on the time, had already come — a couple of reasonably decent fish dishes. I don’t believe I have yet to meet a chef who looks like the roly-poly stereotype depicted in the cartoon (and that picture is really why I took the shot): I don’t believe most of them have the time to eat enough to get fat, to be honest.
Being 42 