A fifth day in a row in Hebden Bridge. One reason I have not got away from here this week has been the weather — far too poor to consider a walk anywhere, even though my diary may have allowed it. So I’ve just sat at home, feeling rather like this jackdaw looks. Then again these birds always appear somewhat pissed off.
Actually it became quite a nice day after this rain shower had done its thing. But at this point in time, those with brollies were grateful of them. Those without — like myself — well, we just had to make do.
After another hot and dry day it was a surprise when Hebden was drenched by a substantial storm in the early evening; such things can be expected in high summer, of course, but the surprise came more because there weren’t really all that many clouds around, and the sun mostly kept shining throughout. But rain it did, and hard; these two were not the only ones scuttling for cover.
After a good and enjoyable weekend — the comedown. Rain all day and the streets of Manchester still empty, this is a city with a lot of ‘recovery’ needed; and at the moment it’s not happening. From next week there’s more of a chance but there are a lot of political interests who, seemingly, would rather it didn’t — for whatever reason. “The struggles of the past have resulted in great gains”, quotes the Guardian (via its sponsored deckchair). Not this one, so far.
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.
The baby chard happily grows, waiting inside until things warm up — which going by the weather in the last few days, might be a while yet. I, on the other hand, just wait inside, not feeling like I grew much today, in any sense.
I wouldn’t usually put up a shot that was so out of focus but it certainly sums up the weather, and it made me smile that I had captured this duck shaking off the rain that fell constantly today. A smile was needed — life is run, at the moment, according to the whim of the weather and this was the most depressing of ‘weekend’ days thanks to the rain. A shame I couldn’t call this page ‘drake shake’ though.
Two days of more-or-less constant rain and the Hebden Water looked like this in mid-afternoon. The general approach to flood defence here still seems to be, essentially, just cross your fingers and hope.
An adequate metaphor for how things stand. Sunshine for now, but about to be swamped by dark clouds once more.
To distract me from going off on one, let’s note that this is day 3,333 of my blog, so one third of the way to 10,000 days. Multiplying up I note that is, roughly, 27.4 years, and so if I’m still posting in early January 2039, when I will be a few months off my 70th birthday, I will have reached day 10,000. I’m sure an actuary could give me the odds for my still being alive (and being 42) on that day. Whether such odds mean a damn in the current situation is another matter.
Today was considerably less mobile and active than yesterday. No football, even: making it the first Saturday I have voluntarily not attended a match since mid-February. The reason? Rain, constant rain, endless, all day. Apologies then for the boredom factor but at least we can still go to the pub.
