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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Joe and his fellow 14-year-olds returned to school. I returned to Manchester. It threw it down. There went the summer…. This picture is dull, I know. But it’s meant to be.
There must be bus stops something like this one in Hell. It’s the blanket that gets me, too. What was I doing here at 5.45 on a Monday? Well, there could be many reasons.
Last day of our Lake District holiday, and therefore the last chance for a landscape shot — well, for a couple of weeks anyway. This does epitomise how the weather’s been this week; though can’t really represent not how cold and windy it was up here when the shot was taken. At least it wasn’t raining. Time to go home though, after fifty-five miles done on foot this week, I need a rest…
The lake in the distance is Buttermere, by the way. The distinctively-shaped fell behind it is Fleetwith Pike. This picture was taken from just below the summit of Blake Fell, here at about 1700′ above sea level.
As the day wore on, what had started out as ‘close’ weather became downright ‘muggy’ until negotiating the outside world became like wading through treacle. Finally, the storm broke and we got some much-needed rain. It was one of those days at work where I just didn’t really have time to take a decent photo, and anyway, evenings have largely disappeared from this blog at the moment so let’s use this one (in fact this is the latest picture in a day since 9th March). We can call it ‘Storm Study (blue and yellow)’, if you like.
Being 42 