Monday 24th May 2021, 3.20pm (day 3,560)
Have I yet done 2021’s duckling/gosling pic? No? Well, here you are then. These balls of fluff can get up to a decent speed in the water, you have to give them that.
Rule 1: Follow mother
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: Rochdale canal
The Canal Street lock
Friday 30th April 2021, 9.20am (day 3,536)
It’s always nice to see Canal Street, in the centre of Manchester, actively live up to its name. Lock open, rather than lockdown. Perhaps I could have stood a bit to the left and made this a more symmetrical shot, but never mind. The guy at the gate has busted the photographer.
The canal at Mytholmroyd
Saturday 2nd January 2021, 1.55pm (day 3,418)
Amongst its other functions, this blog serves to record the weather patterns, and neither of the last two winters (2018/19, 19/20) have seen any real snow. The last truly white period, at least where I have been, was in March 2018. Today wasn’t a frozen apocalypse, but it did mean that 2021 has already seen more snow in Hebden Bridge — or, here, Mytholmroyd, just down the road — than the last two calendar years combined. I’m not objecting. It does provide good photography material.
Boat for sale
Sunday 29th November 2020, 12.05pm (day 3,384)
Misty weather discouraged a walk up anywhere high, but a nine-mile stroll along the Rochdale Canal to Todmorden and back at least stretched the legs today. While not really visible on this shot, this boat did have the remnants of a ‘For Sale’ sign painted on the side; I guess by now it’s probably quite a bargain, if you’re prepared to do the salvage work.
Canal Street lock(down), Manchester
Thursday 22nd October 2020, 9.25am (day 3,346)
The Rochdale Canal has featured many times on this blog, most recently eleven days ago, near Todmorden. This shot is taken in the centre of Manchester, on Canal Street, as urban (and metrosexual) as you get, but you wouldn’t know that from this shot. When I returned past this point in the afternoon, all the leaves had gone, suggesting the lock had been opened at some point during the day — a small sign of life in what remains a mostly comatose city, just waiting for the Tory Party to take it down and stomp it underfoot for a few more weeks.
Woodhouse Road Bridge
Sunday 11th October 2020, 10.45am (day 3,335)
Far too nice a morning to stay indoors today and wait like little sheep to be told that we need to stay indoors a lot more, like until Christmas. A walk along the Rochdale Canal in the morning lightened the spirits and boosted the immune system, which is, of course, why we do it.
Watershed
Monday 20th July 2020, 2.15pm (day 3,252)
I went on a walk today along the Rochdale Canal from Littleborough to Walsden. Along that route one passes across the main watershed of northern England, which is marked by this sculpture, and poetry that you may enjoy (although the third and fourth lines are illegible on this reproduction — my apologies). If I were to have passed water at this spot, random chance would have led to it either bouncing to the left, and thus flowing into the Irish Sea at via the rivers Roch, Irwell and Mersey. Or, to the right — to flow into the North Sea, via the Calder, Aire and Humber. A very real line — as the poem says, a “liquid equinox” — but not a visible one, not without this memorial. Nice touch.
Mother keeps an eye out
Sunday 7th June 2020, 2.30pm (day 3,209)
These kinds of things are universal, aren’t they. I probably had a similar look when seeing Joe off into town that first time.
This was taken on the Rochdale Canal in Mytholmroyd, making this the first time there have been two pictures in a row from outside of Hebden Bridge since March 10th and 11th.
Five geese
Tuesday 24th December 2019, 11.05am (day 3,043)
These geese entered my viewfinder then began all lining up at the side of the canal for no reason I could establish for a minute or two. Then I realised they were getting to the side because a narrowboat was coming down. So these guys/geese are probably just looking irritated because they had to shuffle out of the way. Still, it could be worse — many of their relatives will be on dinner plates tomorrow.
Canal Street lock, Manchester
Monday 24th June 2019, 9.05am (day 2,860)
It’s nice to be reminded that the canal that runs through the very centre of Manchester still operates properly, a couple of hundred years after it was first built; and as ever, shots like these also remind me that this is the same canal, the Rochdale Canal, as runs through Hebden Bridge. So this boat could have been chugging through my home town a week or so ago. I imagine a few things about this scene have changed since the 1820s, however.
Being 42 