Today’s photo is of a stretch of the bypass about a couple of miles from where I live. Although I tend to refer to it as the bypass, it also has a colloquial name of “The Mad Mile”, probably because the stretch featured here is around a mile in length between to two roundabouts at either end and also, I expect, because some drivers feel the need to use it like it’s a racetrack. It used to have two lanes running in each direction without a central reservation, but was altered a few years ago to remove the extra lanes (except where it widens near the roundabouts) and add the chevron area in the middle. I believe, if my knowledge is correct, that the area should only be entered if necessary and it is safe to do so, but I often see drivers using it to overtake a whole section of cars.
The photo was made from the same bridge as the picturein yesterday’s post.
Traffic frustration Leads drivers to foolish acts A law to themselves
These metallic cones are embedded in a footbridge across the bypass. I presume their intent is to prevent the foolhardy from climbing atop the bridge sides where from they might fall onto the road. I thought they made for a potentially interesting photo, whatever the case.
I’ve spent several hours today fitting a pull-up bar on the wall of the house for one of my sons. What I had expected would take an hour or so ended up taking the lion’s share of the day. I was stood on a ladder for so long I might as well have been standing on the spikes in the photo, such is the ache in my feet!
Fit a pull up bar Not as simple as first thought When inept like me
The first day of my long weekend and I feel I’ve achieved little. Well little of what I wanted to do anyway. Instead I’ve been caught up in things I had to do, which are usually not the same.
I had to take our cat to the vets for his annual booster vaccination but there was a delay and I ended up waiting 25 minutes past the appointment time. Due to Covid you have to phone the surgery upon arrival and then wait in your car until it’s time for the vet to see you, whereupon they come out, take your animal from you, and whisk it into the surgery for treatment. I had plenty of time for a good conversation with our cat, who was quite vocal in the car. I suspect he was just moaning about the delay though.
Once I got home, I had to then drive out to pick up some groceries with my wife. Once a month or so we go to a discount supermarket open to employees of certain organaisations such as the police, NHS, some supermarkets and others. Normally this is a relatively quick run up the motorway but today I had to make a detour into town to pick up some anchor bolts from the nearest branch of Screwfix that had them in stock. This added some time onto the journey, and then further time was needed to get some lunch – a drive-thru Burger King saw to this. Arriving at the supermarket we were greeted by a very long queue. There’s normally a bit of a queue to get in, but this time it was much bigger than usual. Again more time was sliced from my day.
When we got home I had to start looking at the pull-up bar that my son has bought as part of his exercise regime. Well, we’ve bought it for him is more accurate. There’s nowhere suitable to fit it indoors, so it’ll need to go on an outside wall instead, which is why I needsed the anchor bolts. I’d hoped to get it fitted today but by the time I’d put the piece of equipment together it was time to eat and I didn’t fancy having to start drilling the wall after that, so the chore has now rolled over to tomorrow.
Sigh…
I really hate chores They get in the way of things That make me happy
A super-speedy post today. I had other things I had to do, and not much time to pull a blog post together. So here’s another birch tree (a mini theme with these of late!).
In a rush today I hope this silver birch tree Might please my readers
I received my first Covid-19 vaccination today – less than an hour from when I began typing this in fact. I have to say that, despite my earlier reservations at how fast the vaccination programme would roll out here in the UK, it is currently barreling along – I wasn’t expecting my first jab until April at the earliest, so was pleasantly surprised when I received the SMS message from my local health-centre last week. I was originally scheduled to have the injection yesterday lunchtime but, being my usual organised self, I forgot to add it into my Outlook calendar at work and then booked a business meeting in the same slot. Luckily there were still available slots this afternoon.
The process went smoothly, despite there being a queue of people when I arrived. Each person was asked their name and the time of their appointment by two people outside the door to the building, who would then give each person a piece of paper with their details (including the vaccine they would receive – the Astrazeneca jab in my case). There was some minor chaos caused by the wind blowing the little slips of paper that they gave to each person around on the table, but none managed to escape. More minor confusion arose when one of the staff tried to give my slip of paper to the person in the queue in front of me. They looked puzzled as to what had happened – perhaps the fact that we were both bald men wearing face masks didn’t help – but after calling out that the piece of paper was mine a couple of times, all was resolved.
Random birch tree photo. Nothing to do with vaccinations. 🙂
The queue then continued into the medical centre building (not my usual one, but another in the area. Its within walking distance but I drove there, having done one of my C25K runs at lunchtime already, and not fancying further exercise). The queue followed the corridor into the building, myself and my fellow jab’ees staying the alloted 2-metres apart, then winding around a 90-degree corner and to a T-junction where a member of staff stood, directing people into the vaccination rooms as they became free. To the left was a seated waiting area for anyone who had driven to the centre to sit and be observed for 15-minutes after receiving their jab. The man in front of me told the member of staff that he didn’t have time to wait around, and was advised to let the doctor administering his vaccine know.
Shortly afterwards it was my turn to go in and I was directed to the nearest room to where I was waiting. A masked lady in a flower-patterned boiler-suit asked me to sit down, and then realised she had no doses of vaccine left, so went out to fetch more (and to re-fill her bottle of juice). Shortly afterwards she returned with a box filled with vials of vaccine and some syringes. She looked somewhat frazzled, and I can only imagine how tiring it must be to vaccinate what appeared to be a never-ending line of recipients. She mentioned that they had had a couple of “fainters” earlier in the day, which had scaused some delays. After asking me a set of questions about allergic reactions and so forth, presumably with the hope that I wouldn’t join the “fainters” (or worse), I was asked which arm I would prefer to receive the needle. Having no preference one way or the other, she asked me to uncover my left arm and swiftly administered the dose of vaccine. A momentary sharp pressure in the muscle of my arm and it was done. She wrote a time on a sticker and told me to go to the waiting area where I should stay until the 15-minutes had elapsed.
The waiting area had a couple of nurses who gave each person a card containing details of the vaccination they had received, including the batch number, and said to keep it safe as we would require it when we received the second dose of the vaccine. Those people who were not driving were allowed to leave straight away, but otherwise we had to take a seat and wait. The nurses would regularly circle the room checking if people were ok and looking at the times on their labels to compare with the clock on the wall before setting them free into the world once more. Fifteen minutes later I was released without any side-effects (or becoming a “fainter”.
More birch trees. Still no relevance to anything I’ve written…
So that’s my first jab complete. In a few weeks time I should have significant resistance to the worst effects of Covid-19 should I catch it, and in around 12-weeks I will receive the follow up injection.
While there are still concerns that some variants of the virus may be more resistant to the existing vaccinations, I am hopeful that this will lead us out of the worst of the restrictions we’ve had here in the UK and that there will be a return to a greater semblance of normality before too long. Fingers crossed!
A jab in my arm Just one out of millions To protect our lives
Oh look, more silver birch trees. Look, if I had a photo of a syringe, I’d have used that. 🙂
One of those impromptu, spur-of-the-moment shots today showing some string holding together one of the stick-structures that I’ve featured on my blog before (such as here – in fact, if you look closely, you can see the same piece of string in one of the shots there).
It’s slightly out of focus as it was taken at close distance with a wide apereture and I might have been swaying slightly while I made the image. Nontheless, it appeals.
String ties branches tight These mysterious structures Built by unknown hands
These gates sit at the north-western end of this field where the path leads beneath the arches of the railway viaduct. It allows passage for the herd of cows who roam the fields on either side of the railway line. It also allows passage for walkers.
On this morning the gate was lit by the low, rising sun that was burning through the ground mist. It makes for a semi-rural scene, but the area is surrounded on all sides by human activity, whether the houses and businesses on the hillside to the east, the river and remains of the old marshalling yars to the west, and the flyover to the south, just about visible through the gap in the gates. I don’t mind any of this, plus great light makes the opportunity for good photography regardless of location.
I’ve shot several rolls of film through my Olympus OM-2n now and, overall, I’ve been very happy with the results. I have noticed though, on a number of frames, what appears to be a light leak. It normally appears as a slightly brighter column of light at the right side of the frame, although it only appears on an occasional basis. I’ve also only noticed it when shooting black and white film. It’s possible, I suppose, that the leak is minor and it’s the greater sensitivity of the 400asa film that is allowing it to manifest – it hasn’t, as far as I can see, appeared at all on the rolls of 100asa and 200asa colour film that I’ve shot with the camera.
I’ve looked at the camera and it has seals fitted in the slots where the back closes into the body, but there was a mssing seal where the hinge is, so I’ve replaced that (and also added a little extra bit of seal into the slots in a place where it looked a little thin). I’ve yet to shoot another roll since doing this but hopefully it will resolve the problem.
Today’s photo is possibly affected by the same issue, albeit to a much larger degree than the others. There’s noticeable flaring at the top of the frame, perhaps enhanced by the leak – although much of it is probably down to the bright sunshine that was burning through the morning mist – I had to shoot towards the light to get the illumination on the cobweb. Whatever the fact, in this case I think it makes for a better photograph.
Two more photographs of the flyover that spans the Rother Valley not far from where I live. I posted a couple of medium format shots of the same location about a week ago here.
The first shows a very similar viewpoint as the previously shot image in the linked post, albeit made on a different day and with misty conditions.
The second is taken from the western end of the field where it reaches the river and looking back to the east. I think this one works much better compositionally as the eye is led along the shaft of sunlight from bottom left, up the bridge support, along the curve of the road deck, and then – thanks to a lucky shadow – down into the field and to the electricity pylon. I’m really happy with this one.
As I type this the country is awaiting a briefing from the Prime Minister where he is expected (based on a leak earlier in the day) to announce a new national lockdown to combat the escalating rates of Covid-19 infections. It’s expected to last a month at least.
While I don’t know the details yet, it’s possible that any photography may one again be limited to photos I can make while out taking exercise. Not ideal for the point of view of my passtime, but fully acceptable if it helps slow the spread of the disease (although I’d prefer we hadn’t gotten back into this state in the first place).
The location of today’s photo is within excercise distance, so maybe I’ll make more photos of this individual subject if wider travel is prohibited.
Steel City Snapper photography 