I’m just sneaking in this one, as it came rather unexpectedly. This section of my park always looks the best around the time of the day before the sun starts setting. I love the long shadows.
It is also touched with sadness, as it was not half an hour after I heard the news of Helen McCrory’s death. Like last year with Chadwick Boseman, devastating doesn’t express the feelings enough. What can one say in this situation, other than, Rest in power, Helen.
It’s no wonder people want to believe in afterlife.
I uploaded this photo to my blog months ago–I think I intended for it to be included in a post (probably this one) but then changed my mind and decided to wait for a better occasion. Now is that occasion.
The rose looks a bit withered, I think I probably had had it for a while. It does spark one’s imagination, though. Maybe the lady who received the rose died of consumption and the man who loved her wants to keep the rose, together with her journal, in memory of her.
Ain’t that bleak? Bronte sisters would be proud!
Or imagine journaling with your friend, whose name is Rose.
If you have glanced at my blog before, you will know that I’m always into seeing any unusual sign. I spotted this one on my Easter Sunday walk in Prestwich (area of Manchester), at the St Mary’s church graveyard.
Imagine being killed by a falling headstone
It’s not a joke! The graveyard is quite old and there are fallen headstones; you can see a leaning stone cross on the left there, with a background of daffodils. The more recent deceased have their resting places on the right side of that wall, on a little hill under the trees. This leads to Prestwich Clough, a little piece of land of woods, which I have enjoyed having a wander in on previous occasions.
I’ve been tidying my blog lately; by which I mean sorting out my tags, mostly, and even deleting some older posts. One of the deleted posts was titled “Animal” and I wrote it in response to the WordPress Discover Challenge. (Remember that one? Yeah. They killed that one before they killed the Weekly Photo Challenge. What was good about the Discover Challenge was that you could respond in any way you wanted, using text, photo, video, music, anything. I made four posts for this challenge before it quietly disappeared, all of which I have now deleted.) It was a good post, though, so I decided to repost what I wrote, with better pictures. If you’ve visited my blog before, and even from the title of this entry, you can guess that the animal in question was a cat.
This is from February 2016, one of the first photos taken with my Canon camera
My cat is called Pepper and, as you can see, she is black. Black cats are not popular, they struggle most with being rehomed from shelters, whether it’s due to prejudice or the fact that people think they won’t look good on Instagram–both stupid reasons. And that’s why I like them. Someone has to stick up for the unloved, forgotten creatures.
Chilling?
I’ve learned a lot from Pepper. Without her I wouldn’t have known how magnificent cats are. And most of all, I would never have discovered that I was a cat person. I would have lived my life without this knowledge. She made me know myself better.
Pepper I’m READING this book!
That’s her resting her head on the book I was reading. It’s The Hollow* by Agatha Christie (actually it’s a volume of four novels, also including Three Act Tragedy, Sad Cypress, and Evil Under The Sun), featured in my post about Yggdrasil tree.
People joke about cats wanting to take over the world, but I disagree. They already rule the world. They do what they want and we love them and feed them. Why would they bother? Also, they’re quite lazy. Ruling the world would be just too much work.
Here’s some good quotes about cats:
I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.
Neil Gaiman
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Robert A Heinlein
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.
Mark Twain
Cats are far wiser than we; their language is silence.
Ki Longfellow
What greater gift than the love of a cat.
Charles Dickens
Dickens got it right. There’s nothing better than a love of a cat.
And finally, let me throw in some Star Trek.
And creative beings too, I’d argue.
*I feel I have to mention this, The Hollow contains some bad antisemitism, so just content warning about that. The book wasn’t fresh in my mind when I did the Yggdrasil post, and only on the recent re-read I noticed how bad it really was. Although *** spoilers, I guess *** the Jewish character is not the victim or the culprit. It’s just a minor character, Midge’s boss, but she’s badly stereotyped.
They’re only just coming out; this is from the same day as my two previousposts from Heaton Park. This is the second time in the last two months I’ve used pictures from the same trip for three different blog entries–maybe that’ll be blogging in 2021 for me. Which I’m not complaining about in the least.
No idea what tree it is, as usual, so if anyone out there knows, by all means enlighten me!
Hope everyone’s having a good Easter. This holiday doesn’t inspire me to do photoshoots like Christmas, or even Valentine’s Day, does, I’ve only ever done one, in 2019. I do like the four-day weekend and the chocolate eggs, but that’s it. Like, I’m happy for Jesus for having been resurrected and all that, but it just doesn’t mean much to me. I’m sure the son of God would not begrudge me the chocolate eggs, though.
Another one from the time in Heaton Park, when I decided not to be lazy. Squirrels are nothing unusual in Heaton Park though, there’s hundreds of them and they’re used to people. I’ve previously posted one here.
And this, my friends, is the proof that it pays not to be lazy, sometimes.
I had a couple of days off work and on one of them, the weather being camera-friendly, I decided that instead of sitting at home, I would go to Heaton Park. This is normally too early for me, I don’t go there before Easter, but like I say, it was dry and sunny and as it was a weekday, I knew there wouldn’t be many people. It turned out to be a right decision because I scored an absolute scoop:
Funny thing is that I don’t think I’d seen a real robin before, ever in my life. I couldn’t believe how friendly it was, coming quite close and not scared at all. I snapped a few photos; these are the best ones.
So, there you have it. Also, the second time I went to Heaton Park outside of my usual season and returned with something beautiful!
You know what’s genius about this? That is the statue of Sir Robert Peel. Robert Peel (1788-1850) was a Conservative politician; he served as a Prime Minister and a Home Secretary under Queen Victoria, and was also–the founder of the modern police force.
