The whole flower-in-pub theme appeared a few days ago, but let’s return to it: it is, at least, a different pub, different flower, different day. Limited horizons this week but that ends today as 10 days off work now beckons, so let’s see what trouble I can get into.
There has been a considerable amount of travelling evident over the last two months, and it’s not quite finished yet: I have one more trip to make, coming up. But this week it has been time to settle in back home, and expect most of July and all of August to be much the same, I have writing to get on with. Meanwhile, though, a hole in an old bucket. It might not be in Canada, or Namibia, but it’s still something to enjoy.
My last day in Toronto. I could say ‘on this trip’ or I could say ‘forever’ and the fact is I don’t know at the moment, ‘cos it’s the future, and as yet undetermined. But I do hope to return.
Waiting out a 6-hour flight delay was made more entertaining by watching Spain v Italy in the Firkin pub on Yonge Street: location for what remains my favourite shot yet taken in Canada, namely this one on 14/10/2021. Both these guys were cheering for the same team, specifically Spain: and both went away happy, as they duly won, 1-0.
I continue to munch air miles in 2024, as I have returned to Toronto for a couple of weeks’ work. On my first afternoon I was wondering what picture I should get to best represent the city where I’ve already spent 17 days of my life. The CN Tower, or other big, tall buildings? Another of the fine collection of murals? But in the end, let’s go with a pub, as there are some fine drinking holes to be found here — including the Imperial pub downtown, as pure a 1970s relic of interior design as I have ever seen. It still has working aquaria, for heaven’s sake. I saw the girl’s reflection in the mirrored pillar and tried it.
I still have one walk left to do in my Lake District project and today might have been a day to go — but no. Good weather in 2024 has been at a premium. And so, that particular milestone will have to wait another three weeks at least.
May ends with a burst of sunshine and this shot offers the chance to inspect the range of slightly-toasted pink and vaguely brown skin tones that the average English visage offers up at this time of year. My Friday evenings may seem to often be spent at the pub, and specifically this pub (the Railway), I admit — but in fact this is the first one for eight weeks.
This creature generally seems to keep watch over the entrance to the Standard pub in Jamestown — though not very attentively, at least at this point in time. I like the colour co-ordination in evidence on this shot. The palate is certainly consistent between cat, walls and steps.
Trixie makes her debut appearance on the blog but as she has been formally inducted into the ‘pub pack’ I am sure she will return. There are two types of people: ones who feed begging dogs snacks and ones who don’t. I am in the latter group, but I seem to definitely be in the minority.
It was a tense one, but I think Jack (on the left and playing white) just nicked it in the end.
Several public houses premises in and around Hebden Bridge have lain empty for years. This is the old Crown Inn in the town centre: at my back as I took this photo was Marshall’s Bar; neither of them made it through 2020 and have remained closed and empty since. Some pubs on the approach roads to town (like the Woodsman Inn) have been lying derelict for two decades now. Yet the contradictions of the property market are such that it seems now, by law, only new café-bars and restaurants are allowed to open in the town. It is clearly cheaper and more desirable to convert a former bank into a pub than convert a former pub into a reopened pub.
Being 42 