I forgot my blog’s anniversary…

I’ve not been on my blog for a few days and so it passed me by that it was its birthday on 2nd September.

Reposted image – four years, four candles

I get “dry” phases when I don’t post on my blog (because I don’t have anything to post, or I don’t know what to post or I’m too tired to post). This time around it’s not exactly the case as there is something I want to post about, only it’s more text-heavy so, as is ever the case with me and writing, it’s going to take me time to come up with the words.

Well that’s it, I don’t have anything else. Here’s my cat in a box:

Put Us On The Map

Now you can’t say I haven’t done it.

The piece of blue tack is larger than the country on the map.

On another note, about this question I get:

Where are you from?

Yes, I know I have an accent. Believe me, nobody hates that accent more than me. It is not possible for you to be the one who hates that accent more than I do myself. If I could somehow not have that accent, I would not have it. If I could have three wishes from a genie in a bottle, one of them would be to speak like a native English speaker.

Just… please.

Try to have at least one full conversation with a person who has that accent. At least try to find out their name. It’s bad enough feeling insecure about one’s English without you pointing it out. I can’t be the only one thinking that redirecting the topic to one’s country of origin is kinda rude. It’s like interrupting someone–which of course certain demographics are Olympic champions at, don’t we know that.

And btw nobody cares that you once had a friend from somewhere-near-where-the-person-with-an-accent-is-from. Well, I don’t. By all means keep talking about the weather or whatever, it’s more interesting.

Still in Black

So I know it sounds frightfully poetic but I couldn’t think of a better title for the photograph. Although I must say, coming up with titles for my photos and blog entries is half the fun of running a blog.

I saw a picture of red roses and red candles on Instagram, which is where I got the inspiration for this. I happened to have some white flowers and I always have white tea lights and I thought black background would be the best. And so here’s the result.

I don’t know how one of the candles got snuffed out and hence the smoke that can be seen on the below picture.

Kinda reminds me of gothic romances.

Roman Lakes, Marple

The problem with taking so many pictures when going on a trip is that it’s so hard to decide which ones to post on the blog.

me

When I went to Marple, I didn’t have any particular plan. I asked the guy behind the information counter at the station what there was to see and he said there was a river on one side (Goyt), canal on the other and that there was a place called Roman Lakes.

I went down to the village and walked a bit, when I spotted a trail and I thought, okay, since I had such a good experience with it last time in Hebden Bridge, I would try it again. A good decision! Not only did I get a healthy hike and some great shots out of it, I eventually reached the lakes place the information guy told me about–from the other side.

I can see why it is popular.

My old friends ducks and geese hang out here a lot.

That’s where I sat when eating my bacon sandwich. Yes, they do serve food and drink here and there is also a toilet–see the building on the left on the top photo.

I should add, the lakes have nothing to do with Romans, they’re just named that way. I haven’t managed to find out why, so I’m going with Bill of Kill Bill‘s saying “They thought it sounded cool”.

Marple Station

Marple is a small town near Manchester. Its name may remind you of a certain old lady sleuth.

The town’s station embraces it 100%.

There is also this, on the other platform.

The poster lists all the ties Agatha Christie to the North. I’ve already covered Abney Hall on the blog.

This was the first time ever I visited Marple. I always thought it was a coincidence, but it turns out that Miss Marple’s name was indeed inspired by the town. I actually found out about the posters at the station from the Twitter account Agatha Christie in the North. And I found out about the Twitter account because they followed me after I tweeted something (I think it must have been that Abney Hall post–all my posts are automatically tweeted as soon as they’re published.) So really, it was me being a fan that helped me discover things related to the thing that I’m a fan of!

Although to be fair, I most likely would have gone to Marple at some point anyway.

Read my post on Agatha here.

Of course, I saw more than the train station when I went to Marple–but that’s material for a different post.

Hidden Beauties

I say they’re hidden because you wouldn’t probably notice them.

They’re also probably weeds but because I don’t have a green thumb I don’t care about that. I just want to photograph.

Growing from the bricks. Reminds me a bit of 2Pac’s poem The Rose That Grew From Concrete. In his case, he’s talking about someone coming from unfavourable circumstances (like very poor neighbourhood) and making it big.

Similar to my other post, Forget-me-nots.

And thus the prophecy comes true…

Content warming – extreme grossness, though it’s probably too late if you’ve already seen the pic in the image preview.

I can’t for sure declare this was a prophecy, but I think it was, because what else could it have been?

I first saw this piece of street art on the very day of the Brexit referendum, 23 June 2016, at the Shudehill Metrolink stop. I remember the day quite clearly, I wasn’t at work because it was my week off (this was really lucky, though I didn’t book that week because of the referendum). I was going to Didsbury to take some pictures and saw the poster from the tram. Two days later I went to Shudehill to photograph it, though by then it was, obviously, too late. People didn’t heed the warning on the poster.

It seemed totally wild then. Boris Johnson was only an MP that campaigned for Brexit and Donald Trump only a candidate, who many people still believe would lose to Hillary Clinton.

I don’t know if I myself believed it, though I had a feeling things would turn out badly. But that’s not important now.

There was another one underneath.

He doesn’t even need that wrecking ball, he is one himself.