A welcome sight on an early morning: by now in the year the sun is still not up for the first few trains. This is the earliest shot on any day, and the first pre-7am shot, since 30th November 2019.
An abstract, really; going monochrome also disguises a main feature of the shot, the impressively blue skies, reflecting another day of pleasantly Mediterranean weather. But this one is about the shapes and the textures.
Three weeks and two days until Joe goes off to university, the psychological implications of which (for us all) remain unexplored. But at least we can get the logistics prepared, so he accompanied me to Manchester today to pick up practical stuff, plates, cutlery, you know, things that mean he won’t have to eat off the floor. Will this be the last shot of him in this particular city? Impossible to say what the future will bring.
I had a work meeting today, that included lunch, face-to-face with two other people. The rail service is having its annual summer ‘upgrading’ spasm and so my journey to and from this meeting was a complex — but not, it should be said, unpunctual — tangle of three different trains, two buses and a taxi.
All in all then, a sense of normality returns (perhaps leaving out the bit about punctuality).
This one is here more because I like the shapes and patterns than anything else. But I suppose there’s an ongoing sense of frustration at the remnants of lockdown, which hangs around like an irritating guest at a party that can’t get started with him there. We are in the ‘we’re doing it because we said three months ago that we would’ stage, as far as Authority goes — for of course, they cannot be seen to have changed their minds. Going on the front pages of the papers today even the media are not bothered any more. But Mytholmroyd station car park remains largely unused.
They’ve still got a couple of minutes before the departure of the 12:21 from Leeds to Doncaster. But we run anyway in these situations, don’t we; almost instinctively. It takes a certain confidence not to do so.
The village of South Milford, east of Leeds, makes an exceptionally wet debut on the blog, and thus a rather grim one, despite being a pleasant place that hosted me entertainingly enough this afternoon. But it was damp, oh yes indeed.
One would like to think the Great Fear of 2020-21 is coming to an end, but I suspect absurdities like this stairway to remain, possibly permanently. An attempt to enforce ‘social distancing’ leads to everyone crowding closer together than they would otherwise have done. But it makes it look like Authority has Done Something, and we will probably never be permitted to go back and say — you know, all that stuff actually had no effect at all, did it? Too late now.
This morning was one of those occasions where a minor diversion from my usual route — in this case, leaving Victoria station by a different exit — helped me spot an opportunity for a picture. I had never noticed the S & M nature of this war memorial before. People pay to get trampled in this fashion: or so I’m informed. Actually I think the sub creature is an imp, or little devil of some kind, rather than a cherub: but the wings took longer to see.
A generally optimistic sheen to the day. Even the unused footbridge in the arse end of Victoria station has had a new coat of paint, and I suspect the pigeons know this somehow.
Being 42 