Some Pictures Must Be Taken. Some Quotes Must Be Quoted.
And it’s the last day of the year and as usual here is my Best Nine on Instagram.
Thank you to everyone who liked my 2018 Recap post. I didn’t think anyone would care ‘cos it was so personal. You guys are amazing!
Happy new year!
I’ve not done this ever but I had such a productive year of photography, I decided to post some pics from this year that didn’t make it to Some Photoblog. I will also look back to some of my memorable posts from this year.
A snail, snapped not far from my neighbourhood.
City Tower in Manchester city centre. Taken by my smartphone, from the Piccadilly Bus Station. I like this angle.
Radcliffe area, near Bury, north of Manchester. Not quite the moors of Yorkshire, but still offers a great scope for imagination, as Anne of Green Gables would say.
This is in the above mentioned Bury, away form the town centre. Proper farm area, I heard cockerels and everything!
Save the best for last, this is Formby. Visiting Formby was definitely one of the highlights of the year for me. Here I am holding a pinecone, which I have actually kept and even used it in my autumnal and Christmas still life posts!
To say 2018 has been a turbulent year is not an exaggeration. The Beast of the East freezing conditions in February and March were followed by scorching hot summer (there was like four months, of no rain in Manchester and that happens, like, never). Climate change is here–so what are we gonna do about it?
Elsewhere, politically, I best not to even talk about it–but a huge shout out to Ireland, who knows how to do referendums right! (They voted in favour of making abortions legal, which is an issue I will never not feel strongly about, even when I’m dead in the grave.) I also went to two anti-Brexit marches, the second of which was attended by 700,000 people; an event I will never forget for the rest of my life.
Creatively for me it’s been the best year ever. I took over 1000 photographs between May and July, ran a dystopian series, blogged about Kindle eBooks, ducks and trees that look like Yggdrasil. Although I wish WordPress didn’t kill their Weekly Photo Challenge. That was not cool, guys.
So there it is, my 2018 end-of-year recap.
Raise your glasses for 2019 and let’s hope for the best.
Because I did a Not-Christmas post, I’m doing a yes-Christmas post, so that you don’t think I’m some kind of a downer.
Here are two pics I put exactly zero effort into:
But those visibly hand-made pieces of art? I made them myself!
Merry Christmas!
And if it’s not a merry time for you, have a peaceful Christmas.
Yeah, I had to go there.
But at least I’m doing this on the 23rd, not on any of the Christmas days. Reality is… well, reality, even at this time of year.
So first of all, I had to make a Brexmas card, because of course.
Open it!
UK seems like it’s very sick and needs some good care. Just check this out.
It also looks like an England flag, which was not my intention–just a coincidence. Moving on to:
You know how the word snowflake has gained a completely different meaning to what it actually is. Used by people who can’t get over the fact that the world is changing to describe mostly liberals and/or socially conscious (aka woke) people. Snowflake? I give you snowflake.
Bonus – a not Christmas throwback
I found this anti-Christmas card I forgot I had among my Christmas drawings and cards (I have this thing I call the Christmas Book, where I’ve been drawing Christmas scenery and stuff since I was very young and in the last few years been saving cards in it, but that’s not what I want to talk about now). I should say I’m not the artist of this brilliant piece–it was done by a coworker. It’s from 2014 and I think it’s hilarious:
The point is, some people just hate Christmas, or can’t handle it. And that’s okay. It’s not an easy time for everyone, whether it’s for mental health issues, having lost a loved one or working in retail, you are all valid. One can also enjoy some aspects of Christmas and not the others. So maybe you like the food but are not thrilled about having to spend time with annoying relatives. I get that.
I have received shit from someone earlier this year when I said Santa Claus wasn’t real. I said it by mistake. (I think I meant to say something else but my communication skills are so poor I’m glad I can express myself on most days, also remember please that I’m not speaking my native language.) But as a result, I ended up hating that figure. Pass me those anti-Santa rockets, by all means.
Let’s just be good to each other, not just at Christmas, but all year round.
Unless you’re a bigot or a horrible person. Then you don’t deserve to be treated nice.
Merry Christmas.
Or not.
Some Halloween-themed events took place in Manchester City Centre, for which they displayed these props. So I took some pics of the said props.
And, because I occasionally have ideas, I added some lines to them.
“I went to the market and it cost me an arm and a leg.”
Ethel was excited to show her friend Richard her new discovery: “Hey, Richard, come and have a look at what I found. Richard? RICHARD???”
“This is what happens when you sign up for Strictly Come Dancing with only one foot.”
“And then he said there was going to be a new 50p coin to commemorate Brexit.”
“BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
The End
Happy Halloween!
I was there.
I have posted in the past about anti-Brexit marches I attended, in Manchester and in Leeds. So now I’m posting about the one I went to on Saturday 20 October–the largest one by far and the largest march in UK since Stop The War in 2003.
It was a People’s Vote March–campaigners demanding a vote for the final Brexit deal, but come on, everyone was there with EU flags and Bollocks-to-Brexit stickers.
An estimated 700,000 took part, I think that is the official figure. Trust me, it was HUGE. I was there. I have never seen that many people together in one place ever, in my life. The march went from Park Lane to Parliament Square (where there was a stage set up for the speakers) but a lot of us couldn’t even get to Parliament Square, because it was so packed with people, so we had to turn around and go back.
Coaches came from all over the country, many of them paid by celebrities or other VIPs. There were four coaches from Manchester and I was on one.
The coach departed at 6:30am. I’m very much a not-morning person, but for this I got out of bed without throwing any abuse at my alarm clock. I was as excited as a kid going to Disneyland!
One thing’s interesting–I suffer from really bad travel sickness, especially on coaches but on this occasion my stomach didn’t flutter once, and I sat right at the back where it’s usually the worst. The Universe was looking out for me on that day.
Some North West representation on the above two pics. (The flags on the bottom one are Cheshire flag and Lancashire flag.)
People really got creative with their banners and placards, though I had no chance of snapping many of them, due to the sheer size of the march. I think my favourite one was “I’m so cross I’m missing football for this”. If that’s not a sign that it’s serious, then nothing is.
At the Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner there was a gathering of dogs with their owners, who campaigned for Pet Passports (this concerns all of us pet owners). They set up a pee station for them.
What I love about these marches is the atmosphere, everyone is so positive and people are dead nice to each other.
Whether there will be a People’s Vote or not remains to be seen. It’s probably something I won’t be able to participate as I’m not allowed to vote in UK in anything other than local elections (and will lose even that right after April 2019). Once again I will be just watching other people entering polling stations like I had to do on the day of the EU Referendum.
To be fair, the campaigners are demanding a Final Say For All, which would include us and those British citizens living in the EU countries that couldn’t vote in the Referendum because they’ve been out of the country for too long. If David Cameron wasn’t so stupid he would have given us the right and we would have swung the result the other way and he would still be a Prime Minister, but it’s pointless to talk about that now.
I hope this march will still be talked about for years to come. And I can look all my current and future nephews in the eye and tell them, that on that beautiful sunny autumn day in London, I was there.
Link to Guardian that has some good shots from the march.
Today marks three years since I started the blog.
I have had phases when I posted very little, but overall it turned out quite well.
The only reason why I hadn’t started blogging earlier was that I worried about running out of ideas–or indeed having ideas in the first place. It was when I came across the word “photoblog” somewhere that I was finally confident to set up one. Because I could just post pictures and nothing more and I had lots of pictures. I have since bought a new camera and got my own domain. And did a dystopian series.
Here’s today’s picture, taken yesterday:
I still worry about running out of ideas, I admit. I want to know, how do other bloggers feel? What made you start your blog and what about the blogging process do you find is the hardest?
Reblogging my own post because it’s the 2nd Brexit referendum anniversary and I don’t know what else to post. Last year, I made this big song and dance about forgiveness, but to be truthful, I don’t think I have done it. I thought I could try, at least, a bit, but it’s still too raw. I need more time to heal and if it has to take five years, then so be it.
I’m exhausted.
A march is taking place in London today, which I will not be attending–at least not physically but will be there in spirit. I’ve been to two marches (which I posted about on blog) and it was absolutely fantastic, I hope I’ll get a chance to attend more marches, or similar events.
All the people will be brothers, are Ode To Joy lyrics.
We can hope.
Today is the anniversary of the Brexit referendum.
The past 12 months have been a rollercoaster of negative emotions, from anger to disappointment, to sadness and helplessness and rage so intense, it made me want to break things. That sick feeling when I woke up on the morning of 24th June 2016 to the referendum results? I never, ever want to experience that again, ever.
It’s exhausting and I’m tired of it.
So–what now? This now.
It was the song.
You know when you listen to a certain song and it, like, does something to you? I’m sure most of you have experienced it. So, I was listening to The Beatles–which is unusual for me as I normally favour 90s to present music, but I bought a ticket to see their museum in Liverpool, so I thought I should play me some of their tunes. Now, I’d known this…
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I didn’t expect this to happen. Even though I’ve not been posting in the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge as often lately as before (most of my participation was in 2016), it still came as a shock and I am not liking this. As if we needed more good things to come to an end… Yes, I am being negative.
With that, I have decided for the final entry to share the three photos that received most likes.
3.
2.
1.
Interesting that the most popular one is food.
Thank you.
I think I’ve seen some bloggers coming up with alternative challenges, I will check these out. What I liked about WPC was that you could interpret the title anyhow you wanted. Also, anyone here remembers the Discover Challenge? I really liked that one but they dropped it without a word. Though I only managed to post four times before it was stopped, those posts still remain my favourite ones.
Farewell WPC.
Blog management: As Weekly Photo Challenge is a Category on this blog, I think I will get rid of it and only keep the tag. I will also revisit the individual posts and if needed, do some editing.
I spotted the first one a few weeks ago in Market Street; the other two are from the Manchester Arena attack memorial on St Ann’s Square.
