A week off work, but I’m at home. When this happens I tend to cook. I like doing it and I like the results, which also tend to go down well with others. I don’t have to do Christmas dinner this year, so let’s get the time in now.
That I was sat on my bed watching Taxi Driver at 1.30pm is sign enough. That I decided this picture best encapsulated the day says more still. Well, I’m on vacation. I had a huge supermarket run later and made a bloody good dinner, if it makes you feel any better.
Is Scorsese’s 5 minutes in this movie the best director’s cameo of all time, or what? “You see that woman at the window? That’s my wife. But that’s not my apartment…. You know who lives there….?”
Two nice things today. Sold a photo (framed) to someone who wanted it as a photo, and not as a Christmas card or calendar. And when I showed yesterday’s photo of her hands to the spinning lady, she bought a copy of it too. Which was very satisfying.
Another craft fair. I did OK. It’s a two-day event – back there tomorrow. As will be this lady, carding and spinning wool from the local hillsides. Looked like a lot of hard work. Taking photos is much easier – at least physically. Selling them? That takes work.
Today was my last day at work for 11 days – I’m on my Christmas break. So is Joe, it was his last day at school for two weeks. However, the most distinctive thing I saw today was this lens case, next to me while I was having my annual eye test. Of all the bits of my body, my eyes have probably been the most properly looked after for the longest time. Wouldn’t want to be without them…
I don’t feel I’ve been here much lately. However, I’ve now got four weeks at home – more-or-less – so get used to photos of this place (and occasionally Manchester). On mornings like this, it’s no hardship – though the rest of the day was rather worse.
Couldn’t take lots of photos at this happy event because I had an official role to play: it would not have done to have been snapping away from up on the stage while reading out the names of the many graduates celebrating their achievements this evening. (Reading the names out is a harder job than it looks, I can assure you.) This was the best shot to encapsulate the most important thing about the day however – it makes people happy.
I would say, somebody please tell our government that higher education remains a public good, but we have done so, and they don’t care. Very soon Fei, and I, will sod off to work and study in a country which still values the notion of higher education as something which benefits everyone, not just the student. And we will take all the expertise and economic gains that it represents with us. Their loss. I hope it never happens, but we teeter on the edge here in the UK system, right now.
Solidarity, brother 🙂
Back to Manchester. Xmas market still full of stuff this morning. Isn’t it a little late to be expecting to get rid of a few dozen Christmas trees and ten reindeer seemingly made out of compost? Maybe, but what do I know.
Well, this is certainly the earliest time yet for a daily pic, by a margin of some 110 minutes. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Sheremetyevo airport. (This wry comment of course means nothing to anyone unfamiliar with the pleasures of Russian airspace.)
Being 42 