It’s a Saturday, it’s a time for relaxation, and drinking. It’s still raining. It’s the Hebden Bridge “Steampunk” theme weekend, what this really does to advance the cause of social justice I haven’t worked out yet but people turn up in places dressed in Victoriana. All these things combine in today’s shot.
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.
Sunday afternoon at the pub, one of the first pleasantly sunny and agreeable days in weeks. I mean, the world is still a bag of shit, but there’s music, tobacco, beer, sunshine.
One of my more indolent weekends. In twenty years’ time I’ll probably be this guy.
Gradually, the businesses damaged in the floods of 26th December are reopening. This is Calans, a small pub in the town centre that only opened in the first place about a month before the flood. Welcome back indeed, the beer inside is very fine (free advertising).
Sunday afternoon, and a lazy one. Well, it was a very warm and sunny day and the last few days have been busy enough.
There are many buildings in Hebden Bridge still in some state of repair or other following the Boxing Day disaster, though to be strict about it, this place — the old Hole in the Wall pub (last pictured fulfilling that role some time in November 2012) — was being rebuilt months before that happened. Still some way to go too, if this sneaky look inside is anything to go by.
A sign of the utter uneventfulness of my day — this was a photowhack, the one and only picture I took today.
We worked out today that come September it will be twenty years since I met James, we shared a flat in my final year at Leeds University, subsequently he was best man at my wedding (coming up for 17 years ago). We haven’t seen each other much lately as he has lived in Taiwan for more than a decade now, but he passed through Manchester today, as did I briefly. Last time I saw him was 2011 not long before I started doing this blog so today was his first chance to appear on it. I know he normally looks happier than this but that’s what overnight flights from Asia do to the complexion, I guess. Good to see you mate, sorry it wasn’t for longer.
Since the Boxing Day floods took out 95% of the town centre four months ago, five of Hebden Bridge’s pubs have reopened: the White Lion (which never shut), the Old Gate, the Crown, the Trades Club and the Fox and Goose. However, this leaves seven that remain closed: the White Swan, the Shoulder of Mutton, Nelson’s, the Sports & Social, Stubbing Wharf, the Albert and the one that I and many friends feel most keenly, the Railway. Martin and Shelley, pictured here, are members of the Railway diaspora, drinkers in exile (in this case in the Old Gate). Perhaps we will all return home some time soon but to be honest at the moment there is little sign of it.
An unnecessarily tautological name for a drinking establishment, perhaps. Who cares on such an utterly beautiful day as today.
