Hollingworth Lake is a reservoir, and for 200 years has also been a sort of strange, inland beach resort, where thousands of people once flocked on weekends — something that can still seem as if it’s the case. Even at 9.35 on a Sunday, early morning sunshine had brought lots of people out today, including me (because it’s healthy). The birdlife didn’t really care however. They watch us, just as we watch them, I am sure.
One can expect many of the small seaside towns of Britain to look fairly desolate on, say, a wet Tuesday in February. But Rhyl, North Wales, where I happened to find myself this evening, manages to look like this in mid-July at the end of the sunniest period in a couple of decades. It’s quite an achievement.
Another very pleasant day to round off the weekend. We should all aspire to the level of relaxation evident in these gulls, even if the ‘lake’ they are on is an old gravel pit, or something (now a nature reserve in Heysham, Lancashire).
Brighton and Hove Albion’s players celebrate the third goal in today’s 3-1 win over West Bromwich Albion, their first win of the season and first in the top division of English football since 1983. And Joe and I were there to see it. Much fun was had by all.
The title of the shot is as much aspiration as description. Today I am in Morecambe. Tomorrow, I will be over in the Lake District, on the other side of the Bay; the fells forming the horizon are (left to right) Dow Crag, Grey Friar and Coniston Old Man. Let’s have a week off work, somewhere beautiful. That’s a decent aspiration….
To conclude a very good weekend in Brighton…. The half-marathon is finishing off behind me (with the wife due in at any moment) but I have pictured that before, so here is a different scene, one of the city’s most famous buildings, crowned by soaring seagulls, which seems appropriate….
MediaCityUK is something like the biggest TV production facility in the UK, or is it Europe, and the biggest property development in the North-West of England, or is it the whole of the UK. Either way, during my visit there today I decided the best photo I got was this one of the local wildlife.
They came, they saw, they conquered. Blackpool FC (‘The Seasiders’) 0, Brighton & Hove Albion FC (‘The Seagulls’) 1. This picture taken from the away end at Bloomfield Road stadium, during one of longueurs which characterised the match — not a great one, it has to be said, but the right result. For the seagulls, anyway.
In Northern England it’s never possible to be that far from the sea, but here in Hebden Bridge we are about as far as you can get. Nevertheless these seagulls seemed to wish to make the old bridge their home this morning. Of course, what they don’t know is that I’m the Hebden Bridge Seagull in these parts (see the Brighton & Hove Albion thing).
Being 42 