Having bummed around at home for two days I felt a need to broaden horizons, and the remainder of my break will be spent somewhere else: the first destination being somewhere I have never been before, and over the next few days you can find out where. We arrived there in time for dinner, only, but it was a good one, in a style of cuisine that might or might not be apparent from the crockery above and the kebab cooking away on the left.
My PhD student of the last five years, Sara, passed her viva voce examination today — with only minor corrections, a very good result (for a good thesis, I honestly did think) — and so took me out to dinner at a Turkish restaurant in Manchester. The place’s waiters definitely had an overblown sense of theatrics. Salman, Sara’s son, looks somewhat apprehensively at one of them striding towards us with the kind of flamethrower that, if carried outside, would probably see him arrested for branding an offensive weapon. All this just to put a second or two of extra charring on the spicy meatballs. Food was good, though.
And so breakfast, and then home again. Had the shot not captured the eye of the woman in the kitchen, there would have been nothing to show here: though I guess his ears are shapely enough.
It’s been a hard few months. Photographically I mean (of course there have been other reasons). But lockdown, in all its arbitrary ways, has drained the land of life, at a time of year when we really benefit from the company of others and the things they bring. In that respect, at least, things are slowly looking up. Manchester now seems to have some energy back, as befits a big city. Finally.
Being 42 