Friday 29th December 2017, 12 noon (day 2,318)
On the return home, a healthy dosage of the white stuff. This being a maritime British winter, not one of these more robust continental versions, by tonight it had all gone.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: weather
The Detectorists
Thursday 28th December 2017, 12.55pm (day 2,317)
‘Detectorists’ = ‘people who head out and comb fields, beaches, toxic waste dumps etc. with metal detectors’. There was an agreeable TV series featuring these lovable rogues, I believe. Well, not these two perhaps.
Excellent day for photography today by the shores of Morecambe Bay. For the first time in ages I feel minded to add something to the Best of the Rest page as well as this shot. It’s certainly an attractive corner of this island, I’ll give it that.
The December non-league experience
Saturday 23rd December 2017, 4.35pm (day 2,312)
Latest stop on my 2017-18 tour of the football competitions of the UK, to the Northern Premier League Division 1 North, at Seel Park, Mossley: a game with two distinctions by the end. Number one, it was the foggiest game I have ever seen, in danger of being abandoned throughout most of the second half as it was becoming difficult to see from one side of the pitch to the other.
But I’m glad it wasn’t abandoned, as were the 217 other fans in the ground with me, because the second distinction was that this game had more goals in it than any other I have seen in my life, nine to be precise: result was Mossley 5, Kendal Town 4. An absolute cracker of a game from start to finish. I really am starting to wonder why it’s necessary to pay the Premier League premium to be entertained (which I was not, particularly, last Saturday). Thank you to everyone involved with this game in fact, for giving me a quite excellent pre-Christmas day out.
December scene, Hebden Bridge
Monday 18th December 2017, 10.50am (day 2,307)
Winter, as such, I don’t mind. I can take the cold and it tends to look nice (as here). It’s the darkness that pisses me off, and we haven’t even reached the Solstice yet. On winter days when I’m around home I can just about get it in me to go out when the sun finally struggles up, but otherwise, if it can’t be bothered, usually neither can I.
Bungalow town, in winter
Sunday 10th December 2017, 12.30pm (day 2,299)
Clare and Joe walking back from a visit to Clare’s gran — who certainly lives in the kind of place toward which grans seem to gravitate. This is the epitome of seaside suburbia in early December. Whatever you think of this photo, I like it because it’s just the pic I wanted to take when I pressed the shutter. We can ask for little more.
The Scarborough lifeboats set sail
Sunday 12th November 2017, 11.25am (day 2,271)
If one will decide to spend the weekend on England’s North Sea coast in November, one should expect some heavy weather; but today really took the biscuit. Storms washed over Scarborough in waves, every half an hour or so. Just as the foulness seemed to be gone, along came another bank of cloud and we were all drenched once more, with a foul wind to back it up. While on the castle headland this morning — one of the windiest places I’ve ever been, ranking up there with the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland — these lifeboats deployed; let us hope that whatever the reason, nobody had to be out there in the storms any longer than was necessary to get them back home.
Exchange Square tram stop
Friday 20th October 2017, 8.55am (day 2,248)
The smudges on the lens, the unnaturally reflective ground, the kind of stoically pained look of the lady with the blue bag, yes, it was another fine autumn morning in Manchester. I’m glad this week’s over, it has been very tiring. But Worktober ain’t finished yet, unfortunately.
Oxford Road (under ominous skies)
Monday 16th October 2017, 10.00am (day 2,244)
I know I did this one yesterday, to some extent, but hey, it’s a different spot with added gold. Ominous skies all morning but although it’s got very windy this evening, major stormy weather doesn’t seem to be brewing up. Which is a good thing, seeing as thirty years ago today (16th October 1987) the village I lived in at the time, Rotherfield in Sussex, had its 500-year old church spire blown down by the massive storm that hit the south of England that night.
Bower Fold, Stalybridge
Tuesday 12th September 2017, 8.50pm (day 2,210)
Yes, it’s raining again — it’s rained seemingly constantly since I got back from America, it feels like. And yes, it’s football again, though several levels below what I saw on Saturday — tonight, I was on assignment at Stalybridge Celtic v Buxton in the Northern Premier League. On a night like this, it was not a glamour posting. I doubt the linesman would think it was, either.
Storm on Portland Street
Monday 11th September 2017, 9.30am (day 2,209)
My walk to work this morning took twice as long as usual due to having to take shelter twice from vicious bouts of rain. I’m inside here (in Caffe Nero as it happens, and yes, I had bought a cup of tea), hence the reflections in the coat of the woman on the left. Inside was the place to be at this time, I can assure you, and I’m sure these two would agree with me.
Being 42 