Category: Photos

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.

This is a jersey I knit, in moss stitch. I knit a lot, it’s among my many anachronistic skills. I’d make a good peasant farmwife, or at least I would have before the arthritis hit.

I enjoy knitting – I can do it while doing other things, like watching TV, and it produces a feeling of accomplishment. The problem is that I’m seldom as enthusiastic about the end product as I am about the process. Knitting produces a kind of cook’s syndrome in me: by the time it’s done I’m sick of it and never want to see it again. Last year, however, I knit three baby blankets, and they were all loads of fun to do, and wonderful, because I don’t have to see them again.

For my entire adult life, my glasses have been the single most expensive item of attire or adornment I own. These latest pair cost £400 for the lenses alone, and that was at a relatively cheap optometrist.

My vision is not good, and it’s getting worse: I already find I can’t focus on things too close to me, or too far, and that my eyes get tired from reading too much.

I was cleaning them, and I noticed the droplets, so I decided to play around with the image. Can you tell I really want a macro lens?

Chappies is a brand of South African chewing gum, sold by the piece on the counter of “kaffies” and “spaza shops”, what in the US would be called corner stores. Each piece of chappies is one and a half centimeter square, half a centimeter thick, like a little terracotta tile, and traditonally they are pink, violently fruit-flavoured and wrapped in a yellow wrapper like a little present. They use to be four for a penny, and were the only kind of chewing gum we were allowed. I suspect they’re considerably more expensive now, and they come in different flavours and colours. The inside of the chappies wrapper had trivia ‘did you know’ questions on it.

This is part of a mobile I bought from a shop in Grahamstown that specialises in recycled crafts – it’s a string of five cranes made of chappies wrappers in different colours, and it hangs from a shelf in my study. Yellow is the iconic chappies wrapper colour.

I made creme brulee tonight. We accidentally ordered too much from the delivery people, and are drowning in milk and eggs, so creme brulee made sense. Well, some sense, at least. It only uses a cup of milk for two servings, and although it has four egg yolks that leaves me with the question of what to do with four egg whites.

It didn’t work that well, I’m afraid. I was doing supper as well, and lost track of time. I also didn’t have enough time to chill it properly before doing the brulee. It still tastes lovely, though.

Now, what to do with the whites?

It’s staying lighter later, and today for the first time I managed to be on my way home before it actually got dark.

This is just off of Plungie, again, and the houses are typical northern terraces, all stuck together. It’s been clear and cold, and the sky is full of jet trails – I suspect from planes heading over the pole to North America: several years ago, flying from London to Vancouver we flew over this part of the world, never suspecting we’d end up living here.

Plungington Road (known as Plungie, with a classic northern long ‘u’), is one of the main north-south strips in Preston, running from the university campus up the hill to Blackpool road, which used to be the northern limit of the town. Plungie is not a great neighbourhood, consisting mainly of charity shops, convenience stores, takeaways, discount booze and pubs. The original houses are classic northern terraces, with front doors right on the street and dense back alleys. Now, being so close to campus, there are loads of students as well as the original inhabitants.

This is the Plunginton Tavern, a truly handsome building, but unfortunately for rent. People seem to prefer the discount booze mart two blocks up, and judging from the broken glass, just do their drinking in the street.

We get a lot of jet trails here, I’m not sure why. They show up during crisp clear winter days, especially.

This was early this morning: I went out while the kettle was boiling, and there was a plump little magpie sitting in the tree. By the time I went upstairs and fetched my camera, he had flown away, but the jet trail had showed up, so I took that instead. A woman leaving the house two doors down glared at me as I went back inside with my camera, mistrusting my motives.