The sunshine continues: if you hear any Britons complaining about the weather this spring, you have my permission to scoff. This jackdaw seems to be enjoying it just like the rest of us.
Thirteen and a half years, plus one day, into the life of this blog and it’s nice that I can still sometimes find new things to see that are literally just down the road from my house. This metal construction at the back of the gym has been depicted before from underneath — let’s see if I can find one… ah yes, here you go. But the shadows falling on it this morning — yes! the sun is shining — were rather pleasing.
The world turns. Bearing in mind that the earliest I have seen the sun reappear at one side of our house in the mornings is around 16th February, and assuming a basic symmetry on each side of the Winter Solstice, that means it’s about to disappear for the winter, an event that is rather less noticeable. But bearing in mind the clocks are going back in a few days, quite soon even this rather wan level of sunlight isn’t going to make it over the chimneys… and we’ll see it in February. (It’s not like winter in Tromsø though, that’s true.)
A metaphor of some kind? Quite possibly. We are all waiting for something. But at least the sun was shining on Hebden Bridge station this morning.
At this time of year you just take what comes, when it comes to the weather. This week it appears to be coming sunny — though cold. As you can see, most of the leaves are gone, but a few trees are still determined to sustain their blaze of glory for a little while longer yet.
After 26.5 miles over the last two days — and in warm, sunny weather too — a day of rest was called for. Clearly the June heat is encouraging many people to expose more flesh than is usual, although with the number of stag and hen parties that pass through Hebden these days, this is becoming a more common sight.
Mediterranean weather today, for sure — very pleasant. More of this weather, please — or will we get the June monsoon this year? I think the Piece Hall, restored a few years ago, also affects a kind of Mediterranean vibe, with its resemblance to a Roman forum. Either way, she was happy enough about being photographed, hence the wave.
I’m sure 2023 will involve plenty of football matches, just as its immediate predecessors have. It was in 2017 that I started going to at least one a week, and 2022 saw me attend 77 in total. I don’t put every one on here to avoid (too much) repetition but sometimes they deserve to appear, particularly when the light is good, as it was this afternoon at Eccleshill United, based in Bradford and playing at the 9th level of English football. Cold though, as you can see from the breath of the home player in blue, but it is January. End of my Christmas break — sadly, it’s time to go back to work.
Bolstered myself for a heavy day’s work in the library (yes, it was) with a necessary cup of tea on a sunny morning in Oxford. Behind, the Natural History Museum, which has not resisted the current trend for public buildings to be engaged in some major renovation project or other. [NOTE: thanks to follower John, who pointed out I had misidentified the building first time round.]
On we go then, with the next thousand, or four thousand, or whatever will be this blog’s allotted span. The illumination of this web, in some lost corner or other, was the most attractive option for today.
Being 42 