Saturday 17th June 2023, 12.55pm (day 4,314)
Normal rain too, that is, not a thunderstorm (although we did have one of those later in the evening). Can I be the first to come out with that hardy perennial phrase — ‘That’s the summer over’.
Rain!
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: scaffolding
Scaffolders on Eiffel Street
Thursday 15th June 2023, 1.20pm (day 4,312)
I apologise, as much to myself as anyone else, for the uneventfulness of life at this time. The scaffolders are busy in Hebden however; there were already at least four major scaffolding installations visible from home (including next door), and this fifth went up during the day. A growth industry it seems.
Rebuilding (study with green)
Tuesday 18th April 2023, 4.55pm (day 4,254)
Photographically I still mildly regret not looking out of the window at about 3am on the morning of 2nd August last year and seeing this building aflame. This picture is taken from my house so we’d have got a good view: as it was, I did smell the burning and hear a distant alarm but once my subconscious had determined that none of this was coming from our living room, or similar, I went back to sleep and missed the opportunity. Never mind. The rebuilding is under way, as you can see. I like the green on this shot, which is what caught my eye in the first place.
Lancaster House, Princess Street
Monday 16th January 2023, 2.25pm (day 4,162)
There still doesn’t seem to be a great deal going on in Manchester, but at least the light was good today. Lancaster House stands on the intersection of Princess and Whitworth Streets, and is a good example of the Victorian tendency to stick these grandiose flourishes at the top of any given commercial building. Does it assert some kind of dominance, or did they just have a lot of stone left over? Either way, I like it.
Dalton Mills, Keighley
Saturday 5th November 2022, 1.35pm (day 4,090)
Dalton Mills must have once been a major operation, going on the size of the building. Now it is ringed with fencing and ‘Trespassers Keep Out!’ notices — and some random vehicles, parked there in defiance of the possibility that the whole thing might just crumble down to street level at some point in the near future. It looks good, though, and whatever the plans are for it, I doubt that renovation will improve its aesthetic.
Scaffolded home
Thursday 13th October 2022, 9.20am (day 4,067)
As I post this on Saturday, I already know that both Thursday and Friday were highly uneventful, even by recent standards. Changes to this state of lethargy are afoot, but not this week. In fact the most exciting thing to happen lately was the erection of scaffolding around our house, meaning you can climb up to have a look in our windows if you like; though we’d rather you didn’t. It’s not even for work we need doing: we are just passively wrapped in metal for a few days. That’s scaffolding two days in a row, isn’t it?
Weather defence
Wednesday 12th October 2022, 8.20am (day 4,066)
I recall a time when I imposed a block on further pictures of building sites in Manchester, but needs must. The Town Hall is still undergoing its years-long renovation — first pictured back in January 2018, for heaven’s sake. On this picture, no endorsement is intended: other weather defence options are available. I presume.
A little-used balcony
Wednesday 3rd August 2022, 10.30am (day 3,996)
An estate agent might still describe this a “Manchester city centre apartment, including private balcony, with intimate views of the River Medlock below”. The reality is that this building has been swathed in scaffolding for months now (certainly since at least early February, as this pic proves), and the Medlock is a litter-speckled concrete drainage channel at this point. I doubt those stairs have much purpose in existence, either.
Scaffold tunnel
Friday 4th February 2022, 5.30pm (day 3,816)
The endless building and rebuilding of Manchester does not seem to have particularly slowed down as a result of the last two years of bollocks, although seeing as no one has any money any more except Mark Zuckerberg it seems, I don’t know who’s going to inhabit all these new buildings. This scaffold tunnel rises over my walking route to work and I’ve been passing through it in both directions for some months, thinking it would make a decent picture; this evening it gets its chance.
The roofers
Tuesday 20th April 2021, 1.55pm (day 3,526)
A day working at home gained interest through getting a masterclass in roofing from these guys working on the house over the road. At the beginning of the day that roof looked like the one of no. 31 next door. Roofing’s one of those specialist talents that very few people have, but which we all need, isn’t it? And I’d take some persuading to spend a whole day on that scaffold (constructed by another professional group that we need to just trust).
