I don’t like this picture, but it is interesting, and sad – which is probably why I don’t like it.
It’s a stuffed toy, a dog, I think, about eight inches long, left on the ground by a bus stop, and covered in mud and cigarette butts.
It’s been there a while, I think, although I’ve never noticed it before. I really hope that the kid who lost it isn’t still missing it.
Martin’s studying biochemistry with the Open University. On Wednesday he sent me an excited message: guess what I got? A molecular model kit! It’s very cool, the OU sent it to him as part of his study materials, and he’s been playing with it all day, looking up molecules on wikipedia, making a model, and them coming to show me, pointing out the methyl groups and carbon rings.
This is vanillin, the aromatic in vanilla.
It’s green week on campus, and one of the activities/exhibits is an ice sculpture of a polar bear, with the slogan “think before we sink” on its pedestal. I saw them carving it yesterday, and took a picture, but I decided to come back today and photograph it when it had melted a bit. It’s almost 10 degrees today, so it should have melted. Unfortunately, someone apparently came and kicked it apart during the day, because when I got there this afternoon it was strewn in pieces across the lawn.
I wondered whether someone might have destroyed it to make a point, but it appears it was just wanton vandalism.
This is part of the sculpture, and its base, but you wouldn’t know it.
This is the main entrance to the one of the original university buildings, now just a generic university building, with offices and classrooms. I thought this was the original building of Institute for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the wonderful original name of what is now the University of Central Lancashire, but n doing a bit of research, and thinking about it, I realised that this building dates from 1897 (as you can see from the date on the top right window), almost seventy years after the original institute was founded.
The building was commissioned by what had become by then the Harris Institute in part to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1867, and it was officially known as the Victoria Jubilee Technical School. Now it’s just the plain old Harris building, and although it has a lovely doorway and an impressive staircase, and there are some stained glass transoms on the first-floor windows, it’s just a generic university building, with its main annoyance being that it’s a long hike from here to the nearest coffee shop.
I like necklaces. I don’t think of myself as a particularly typical jewellery-loving girly-girl, but I love necklaces and have a large collection. I have basically three kinds of jewellery: crafty handmade stuff bought from people in markets and such, some of it quite serious and expensive; the odd bit of department-store tat, although I haven’t bought any of that kind of thing since we left Dubai, and a few pieces of old jewellery bought in antique shops and fairs.
That’s where I got these pearls – at an antiques fair in Lytham St Anne’s. They weren’t nearly as expensive as I expected (or as a similar set at a neighbouring stand), and I’m pretty sure they’re genuine (albeit cultivated). What sold me on them was the clasp, whih is lovely, as you can see. I’m sometimes tempted to wear them the wrong way round, with the clasp showing, but haven’t yet.
You can tell we live in a northern climate because we have a row of coats at the front door. We didn’t originally, but I am slowly training Martin in the ways of the snow and rainbound world, and the importance of a rack of coats at the door is a key part of this. When we first moved in, Martin would carefully go upstairs and hang his coat up in bedroom, like a good South African. There are two problems with doing this – one is that the coat is very likely wet, and putting it in a closet is a bad idea, and the second is that you will spend your life tramping up and down stairs in your coat, a hot, bulky, and unnecessary activity. He has finally come round to convenience of having a coat right there at the front door, especially since our coat hooks are right above a radiator, which means they’re often toasty warm as well when you get into them.
Now if I could get him to adopt the imminently sensible arrangement of changing your shoes when you come inside, I’d be very happy, but I think that may be asking too much. In this he is very English – never unshod except in the bath.
I think I’ve already mentioned that we cook. Well, this is a very small corner of the spice cupboard, featuring two kinds of cardamom, cinnamon and coriander. Behind that is paprika, smoked and plain, raw sesame seeds, ground cinnamon, mustard seeds, asafoetida and what seems to be fenugreek (I don’t want to go downstairs again and check). You can also see food colouring on the right and several citrus oils up top.
The spice section is about a quarter of the food cupboard (and considering that another quarter is cat food, this should give you an idea). It’s a shelf about a foot deep and four feet across, and it’s a bt of a jumble, as you can see.
The jars are also important – an assortment of ball jars collected in thrift shops and junk sales over the years. They go well with the collection of pestles and mortars on top of the food cupboard. We like spices. We like having jars of whole spices and strange ingredients just waiting to be turned into amazing things. I feel rich when I have spices to wallow in, like a mediaeval lady.
Belisha beacons are one of those symbols of England you read about, and don’t really understand until you get here, at least I didn’t really understand what they were. What they are are flashing yellow lamps on stripey poles, set up in pairs on either side of a road, and they signal a pedestrian crossing. Pedestrians have absolute right of way at a Belisha beacon – if you’re even standing near one, all traffic grinds to a halt. This is probably a problem for this one, which is on Adelphi road, one of the main roads through campus, and north-south through Preston. It’s in the middle of campus, and positioned in such a way that if you are walking across campus with someone, but heading to different ultimate destinations, this beacon is exactly the place where you would logically stop and finish the conversation before going your separate ways. It’s not just me, everyone does this, and the bit of pavement on either side of the actual pedestrian crossing is usually crowded with people having awkward conversations. This means that the road, which is very narrow at this point as well, has a constant backlog of annoyed, confused and worried drivers not knowing whether they should stop or not. The one major advantage is that if you are approaching the crossing and see your bus looming on the horizon you have a pretty good chance of catching it, since it will very likely be stalled by just such a gathering.
First of all, let me say that this is an original Bush radio, not one of the replicas you see around these days. It’s also working, a rarity, and Martin’s pride and joy.
He bought it somewhere in South Africa, and it’s come a long way with us, although we seldom play it. Like a lot of original Bush radios, it doesn’t have longwave (FM), so it’s not that useful. It is lovely, though, an object with great presence and history, and I love seeing it on the dresser every day.
Another late night, another day of nothing to photograph but darkness.
This is me playing with a tripod and a long exposure, or as long as I could manage to persuade the camera to do without consulting the manual (which I didn’t have with me). It’s the local intersection, looking down Blackpool road. That’s the Lane Ends Inn on the corner, an utterly generic English chain pub, serving generic beer and food. I think I like the streetlights best: they remind of what lights look like when I take my glasses off.
