I’m not even trying to hide the fact that I went to another football match this morning. For a while, the light was good. Better, then, than staying inside. This is how I make my life calculations these days.
Quite enjoyed yesterday’s trip to Portsmouth, or at least Portchester, but I can’t say Southampton has endeared itself to me as a place this weekend, and that continued this morning when I attempted to leave it. With the railway closed for engineering works we were obliged to contend with that modern phenomenon, the ‘Rail Replacement Bus’. What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg, as, brilliantly, the authorities had decided that the perfect day to run these operations would be one on which Southampton FC were playing at home against Arsenal. Christ knows what it was like after the match — but fortunately by then, I was well away.
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.
Sunday. Nominally a day of rest. Time to take in a bit of nature and contemplate the meaning of life, or whatever else takes one’s fancy. Time to bag my first urban county top, hence why I dragged the family to Derby today, making this the city’s third appearance on the blog. But a good day was had. If only the pubs would open.
Another very beautiful (but frosty) winter’s morning, part of which we spent walking from our hotel back to New Street station through a near-deserted Birmingham city centre. I don’t know this place well; it seems a strange mix of time periods, blocks of urban desolation suddenly becoming US-style skyscraper downtown and then a bit further on, leafy suburbia. Anyway, this shot relies on two things: the narrow slot between two small road signs and the flare effect having behaved itself well.
The departure lounge is a kind of limbo state. You’ve sort of left the country, the real world, behind, but you’re not yet at your final destination or even properly travelling yet. Time stops behaving as it does out there. A beer at 8.20 on a Sunday morning is quite tolerated. But there’s nothing really to do: the system may as well suck some more money out of you while you wait. I would like to see libraries, cinemas and gyms in departure lounges. But I doubt it’ll ever happen.
It was the city of Derby I was heading to last night for my evening out, and a very good evening out I had. Having not been there (blog-wise) before I was keen for the place to feature on the blog as the latest new location, but walking through it back to the railway station this morning, it really did feel like a very nondescript place. All car showrooms, parking lots and industrial estates. So the above is pretty much the best you’ll get of Derby on a Sunday morning. Sorry.
A pleasant, relaxing Sunday, with everyone toking their caffeine and generally chilling out. Everyone should have a day like this at least once a week.
What makes this post somewhat exceptional in the general scheme of things is not so much its aesthetics but the time of its taking. I mean…. on a Sunday? And this place was packed at that time. We’d gone down to offload a bunch of Joe’s old toys, but nearly couldn’t get a plot despite getting up at 4.45am and arriving there an hour later at most. And at 6am people were turning up demanding to know whether we had any PS3 games. Blimey. Free-market capitalism, eh. I guess it works at this local scale.
After yesterday’s night out we stayed over in Leeds at our friend, Caroline’s. As was revealed, her kitchen catches some great morning light. This is about as natural a shot of Joe as it is possible to get at the moment – note the rock ‘n’ roll hairstyle…
Being 42 