Hot and sunny in London yesterday it may have been, but in Manchester this afternoon it was neither of these things, particularly not when I had to walk all the way along Oxford Road getting soaked. At least this girl had an umbrella, even if, like me, she was otherwise dressed for rather nicer conditions.
It’s bigger than a puddle, but not quite big enough to be a flood. Hence, a fluddle, pictured at the back of the George pub in Torrisholme, Morecambe. However the first day of 2015 panned out for you, here in north-west Lancashire, it was very wet.
Well, it may have been snow. Only I and the nearest meteorologist know for sure. A happy Christmas to one and all, wherever you may be, whatever you may have done.
Didn’t even take a photo today until after the sun went down, which at this time of year is pretty early, and it’s going to get earlier yet. The evening was a very damp one, and hopefully this shot of the canal towpath reflects that (pun not intended).
Actually today was a relatively pleasant day — apart from this 30-minute period in the afternoon. Look in the background — even the Canada goose is taking shelter.
First full day in Rome. It would be easy here to slip into just doing a series of photos of the tourist sights. Today we saw the Colosseum (impressive, but as expected, heaving with people), the Baths of Caracalla (stupendously impressive, and with a notable absence of coach parties) and the Palatine Hill.
The latter was worth visiting but notable for being the place where we were caught in a severe thunderstorm for an hour or so, which is when I took this shot, of these two Chinese women in their waterproof ponchos (being touted at €5 each while it was raining), in the first of the two spots in which we tried to avoid the rain. I like the strange positioning of the hand of the one in green, and yes, her friend is standing on one leg at this point.
Two otherwise rock-solid photo opportunities were snatched away from me today by poor weather. My first plan was to do a walk in the Lakes, and even after that was cancelled due to forecast thunderstorms, a 5K run in Halifax which Clare and Joe had planned was also postponed for ‘safety reasons’ (e.g. it would have been a bit wet). Wet it was, so I fell back on this random architectural curiosity, a church that seems to have misplaced most of itself. I assumed as the result of WW2 bombing but apparently it has been like this even longer, since a fire destroyed most of it in 1930. Hardly the best photo I’ve taken — I manage to make it look even wonkier than it already is — but it’ll do.
‘”Nice weather for ducks”, they said. “Come to sunny Yorkshire”, they said. Well, this sucks. And all my friends have buggered off to Spain this morning without me.’
Very few people bothered today, on either side of the tables. Not surprised, though — the weather was dismal.
Being 42 