What small part of the world can be seen from our house, all looked like this today. With no reason to leave the house, I did not; picture opportunities were limited to using the long zoom to see what might be going on over the other side of the valley. They had their fires burning, anyway. This is also one of those shots that looks like I’ve taken it monochrome, but really have not; if anything I have beefed up the saturation a little.
This afternoon I paid a first-ever visit to the town of Pontefract, which has a significant amount of history, as is first of all indicated by its name of almost pure Latin — pontus fractus means ‘broken bridge’. Its castle was once the second-largest in the country and in its dungeon, King Richard II was starved to death in 1400.
But while I did take pictures of some of this history, in the end I am going with the surreal sight of these mannequin’s legs at the local footie ground. The absurdity of life and its trivia, and all that.
This is definitely a coven of like-minded females, and they’re plotting something. But I’m confident that they’re of the white persuasion, somehow. It’s the hair that gives away their shared allegiance.
To Trek fans Vulcan is a desert planet inhabited by a race of sophisticated, logic-driven and mildly telepathic humanoids. As I discovered today, it’s also a planned village, built in Victorian times to house the workers of the Vulcan foundry, which apparently forged rails for most of northern England. It’s now slowly being swallowed up by the town of Newton-le-Willows. But if you want to pay your respects to Spock, Sarek et al, you’ll be pleased to know that there remains a Vulcan Inn and Vulcan FC as well as the white-painted rows of the houses themselves. A pleasant spot — but it did take some patience to get a shot in which there weren’t cars running up and down the street.
I don’t pose or stage photos for this blog. But sometimes I do choose them in advance. A year ago today I was walking in the Lake District. When I got home, all had changed. So, today, to mark one year since Bojo the Clown couldn’t decide what else to do and stuck us all under house arrest, here’s a tribute to a certain early 1980s rock album with which some of you may be familiar. The walls must come down, there is no alternative. How this happens is largely up to us: even if Authority will insist it’s up to them.
One of those shots where if I’d had any longer to think about it, it probably wouldn’t have turned out as interesting. But this hat — attached to a person of course, but they’re not the subject of the photo — was spotted passing below my house today, and I just got the shot before they walked on into the shadows.
Second photo in a row taken through glass: this lady was sat outside the pub as we enjoyed the usual Friday afternoon thing. A quiet weekend coming up, poor weather forecast although there was some sunshine coming in for this shot. A bit of oddness caused by the reflections but I still like the image.
Evidence of new tactics in the ongoing pigeon-duck conflict. “Hah. I knew this camouflage would eventually come in useful. Now I can spy on the ducks without fear of detection.”
“Er… Bob? The feet?”
“Oh bugger.”
Being 42 