Scrappy

Just to prove it's not all historic and attractive around here... Right in the centre of Shipley, next to the railway station, there's a scrapyard. In actual fact, you might not really notice it's there unless you arrived by train. The railway runs beside it but the road is at a higher level and a wall around the yard means it isn't all that obvious to passers-by. That is a good job really, as it is a bit of a jumbly mess. With the lockdown, the yard didn't seem to be open and working when I went past. The machines and lorries were idle. It's a huge site, extending at least as far again under and beyond the road bridge you can just see in the distance, on my photo below.

I think there is scope for some interesting photos if you could actually get down near the skips. If I'd had my big camera I might have been able to zoom in to pick out some detail, even from up above on the road bridge. I only had my phone though and it doesn't do a good job of zooming in. The area all looks rather messy but in fact the scrap was mostly sorted into different skips. There was one entirely full of wheels, of many different styles. I hope they get recycled. 

You turn your back for a minute...

You turn your back for a minute and everything changes! Well, I suppose by 'a minute' I really mean three months. It must be at least as long ago as that since I drove (or walked) through the part of Shipley town centre that lies beyond the shops and market square. There used to be a drive-through automatic car-wash here. I sometimes used to take my daughter through it as a treat when she was little (in the car, of course!!) as the whirling brushes and soapy white-out used to make her giggle. The car-wash ceased to be, driven out of business by several 'hand car washes' in the neighbourhood, mostly staffed by Eastern European migrants. They work hard and generally do a good job. Anyway, this little bit of land sat idle for several years but it appears now that there is a business developing it, with a new showroom under construction. I'll take bets on what it will be... a car dealer? 

The building beyond is flats with a retail unit on the ground floor that currently (and curiously to my mind) houses a branch of Laura Ashley, the clothing and homewares chain. I say curiously because it sits well away from Shipley's main shopping centre and, though it has a small car park, seems a bit of an anachronism. They closed the branch in Leeds city centre, which always seemed as though it would attract more custom. I'm also taking bets that this branch will fall victim to the post pandemic recession. I can't really see it surviving unless high-street retail bounces back quickly.  

Joyful exuberance

Beyond Saltaire, the main road down into Shipley town centre is lined with business units, most of which have had a facelift in the last year or so, with new cladding and paintwork. It all looks a good deal smarter as a result. There is a small patch of waste ground between the units, which had some scrubby trees that have been felled. It has opened up a glimpse of a view over to the old mills alongside the canal and up to Baildon on the hill beyond. Red, pink and white valerian has sprung up. It's a (garden escaped) weed but it adds some joyful exuberance to the boxy industrial feel of this stretch of road. It also does a neat job of hiding the self-storage containers that have recently been squeezed in to the space behind. 

Apocalypse now

So there I was, on Sunday at about 1pm, catching up on a bit of ironing, with the tumble dryer rumbling away in the background, when suddenly... everything stopped. At first I though the dryer had blown a fuse but, on checking, I realised it was a power cut. A couple of houses opposite experienced the same, which was somewhat reassuring (though, oddly, none of my neighbours on my side of the street were affected).

I checked the Northern Powergrid website on my 'phone (oh, the wonders of technology) and it wasn't reported so I duly reported it and, shortly after, got a text to say engineers would be on to it pronto. At first they said the repair would be achieved by 4.30pm so I settled down to wait it out. It was, unfortunately, raining hard and blowing a hoolie, so there was no question of escaping for a good walk, which I would have done. 4.30pm came and went and eventually I got a message saying it would be 9.30pm before a repair was done! (At least they kept me updated.)

What do you do? Everything I thought of needed electricity - boiling a kettle, making toast, using the microwave or oven, getting on with some housework. No vacuum cleaner, no iron, no hot water or heating. No TV, no computer, no broadband - so no iPad. I had a book from the library - hurray for reading! Thankfully I also have a gas fire and hob so I was able to keep one room warm and boil water for a cuppa. (They're talking about banning new houses from having gas supplies altogether and many flats, like where my mother lived, are all-electric. What do people do then?)

It started to get dark and my phone ran out of battery. :-(  I made something to eat, worried about opening the fridge as it was rapidly warming up. Daren't open the freezer either, though luckily it's small and was well-stocked so I gather they can last a good few hours without power. I went to church (as planned) and managed to charge up my phone there during the service. When I got home there was a mini-digger out at the back hacking up the pavement, under floodlights, and several chaps with cable tracers, and another message on my phone saying they expected the repair to be achieved by 1am!

So I sat in the dark with a few candles burning and the street light outside shining in and tried to read by the light of a torch, which was hard work after a while. I began to wish I could knit or crochet... But it was strangely peaceful and I was happy enough. Friends and family had kindly offered aid, but it was hardly a life and death situation. When I went to bed, I realised I couldn't remember which light switches I'd tried... and, sure enough, at 12.23 am I was woken in a sudden blaze of light! Then - oh no! - it all went dark again. I got up for a drink and the lights came back on and stayed on. Phew! Eleven and a half hours without power. (If it had been twelve, I would have been able to claim compensation, ha!)

It was not, by a long way, the worst experience of my life but I was surprised by how much of an impact it had. We take so much for granted and yet 'civilisation' is such a fragile thing, resting so much on infrastructure working and people broadly agreeing to move together in the same general direction for the common good. As I've got older, I think I have taken fewer things 'for granted' and I'm grateful every week when the bin-men turn up for the rubbish, the train arrives more or less on time, the light goes on when I press the switch and things mostly behave how I expect them to. Not to mention my brain and body slipping into gear every morning when I wake up (even if the process isn't quite as smooth as it once was!)

But it is increasingly clear that not everyone is working towards the same future (yes, including whoever thought it a good idea to drop takeaway cartons into the newly-dug trench!) It is a little worrying, don't you think, that we now rely so much on electricity, plastic, computer-guided programmes and so on, and have largely lost the ability to get back to basics even if we wanted to? At the very simplest, the toasting fork my grandma used to use in front of the open fire, on occasion (and only for fun even then), would be no use here! It makes me quite fearful for my granddaughters' future, as I suspect change (for the worse) may come rather more suddenly than the gradual advance of 'progress' that I've seen during my lifetime.

A power cut is hardly the apocalypse, but it certainly left me pondering...

Procrastination

I was meant to be cleaning the bathroom so I sprayed the cleaner I use (nice grapefruit smell!) onto the taps. Then I noticed it had made a rather pretty rainbow pattern like oil on water does. The photographer in me could not resist... Talk about procrastination....
I boosted the colour saturation in the photo. It reminds me of peacock feathers.

Heigh ho!

My local Asda are selling these cheery garden gnomes and have them lined up on the windowsill - I think they're hilarious! (Someone must be buying them, as the line is getting shorter week on week). On Friday night there was a small boy, aged about six, sitting on the windowsill at the end of the row. He was sitting very still and had one hand raised, palm out, just like the gnomes. So cute, made me smile - made my night, in fact. (Though I didn't dare take a picture of him.)

Today's resident ear-worm (annoying song in my head!) is alternating between 'Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go..' (despite the fact that it is Sunday and I'm not working) and 'Will you still need me... when I'm 64?' It's my birthday. Hmmm...

Affordable housing?

I keep getting flyers through my letterbox from estate agents asking if I want to sell my house. It seems there is a lack of affordable housing in the local area. Even so, I think trying to sell a post box may be going a bit far....

Relics of the industrial past

Men and machines, noise, pollution, traffic... an alien world as far as I am concerned. I've mentioned before that the area around my temporary office is pretty grim and it's taking some getting used to, compared with the relatively attractive area around Saltaire where I live and where I worked until recently.  I am, however, determined to continue with my lunchtime walks, feeling that I need the exercise to combat being desk-bound the rest of the day. I was mildly cheered by a report on TV tonight that said that, despite the traffic pollution, city walking is still beneficial to most people's health overall. I must say I was beginning to wonder, as I choked on more diesel fumes. I nearly got mown down by a speeding van, whose driver was struggling to control it as he held a mobile phone to his ear! Scary; the pavements are so narrow.

Anyway, to get to the point of the photo... I have ventured a little further as the weather has improved. I have actually found a park nearby, though just walking to the park entrance and back takes up most of my allotted lunchtime, never mind venturing inside. It's an uphill walk to get there, meaning nice views over the city coming back. I also passed this curious relic of times past. It is an old railway crossing barrier, though the railway itself has long gone.

I have researched a bit online and found an interesting description. It was indeed a railway line and this was the Hall Lane level crossing. It appears to have been mainly used by goods trains, at least latterly, and closed in 1985. The report says the tracks survive here but I didn't notice them. There is a photo with the report, taken in 2010, that shows them but they have now apparently disappeared. More exciting, it seems this area was once a Victorian 'model' village, similar to Saltaire, called Ripley Ville. It was built between 1866 and 1881 (a little after Saltaire) for Henry William Ripley, a local politician and partner in Bowling Dyeworks. Apparently everything, apart from some almshouses, had been demolished by 1970.  (There was mass demolition of lots of Bradford's Victorian buildings in the 1970s. It's a wonder Saltaire survived!)

Sleight of palm

The area where I am currently working is seriously weird!  There was an old, empty industrial unit with half its windows smashed and very neglected. It seems someone has bought it and is 'doing it up' as a Banqueting Suite (of all things!). They have put in new window glass, with rather ornate gold swirly patterns on it. For some reason they seem also to have decided that a few huge plastic palm trees will create the ambience they are seeking. Mmm.... But 'each to his own', as they say!

A post from a post (box)

'Monday Murals' regularly showcases the varied and wonderful graffiti and artwork to be found in cities all over the world. I don't think this is quite in the same league but I found something oddly pleasing in its swirls and spots. It has a slight feel of Japanese lettering or something similar.  It is just a scrawl on the side of a mailbox. Yet another thing that caught my eye on one of my lunchtime rambles near my workplace.... It is quite surprising how many things I've found to snap, in what at first appears to be a deeply unpromising area photographically.

The joy of commuting!

Since Christmas until very recently, I have been working from home, as my workplace was badly flooded on Boxing Day and has yet to reopen. Working from home has many positives. I am used to it anyway as for many years I worked freelance. I already have a comfortable, well equipped office in my home so I have not been trying to work from the kitchen table like some of my workmates. It's quiet and I can really crack on without any interruptions but on the downside, sometimes it's nice to be interrupted and I have missed seeing my colleagues and enjoying the usual banter of an office environment.  A once-a-week meeting hardly compensates for the lack of stimulation and the absence of people to toss ideas around with. However, it has worked fine for me. We are now being temporarily rehoused in an office near the city centre, giving me a hour's bus commute morning and night.  I usually have a short, pleasant walk to my usual office - and walking upstairs to work has been even nicer, especially when the sun shines!

It's a gas (ring)

Another for my online photo group. The challenge was 'light trails'. I know I should really have gone out and spent hours composing amazingly lyrical photos of speeding car lights. To be honest, I didn't fancy trekking out (on my own) in the wind, rain and darkness to set up my tripod on a bridge over the ring road. So I experimented a bit closer to home. This was a gas burner on my cooker, snapped with the humble iPhone and the incredible 'Slow Shutter' app. Well, I like it!

Empty

Last month's theme for my online photography group - 'Empty'. It had to be a photograph in monochrome. I was a bit short on ideas but decided a shoe box would suffice. It may have paper left in it but as every woman knows, this box is nevertheless decidedly empty.

When I had new wardrobes fitted recently, I had to do some clearing out, which was not in the end as bad as I'd feared. Turns out I wasn't hoarding too much rubbish... though I do have a lot of empty shoe boxes. I always feel they might come in handy one day. Well, this one did.

A Yorkshire brew

Another OU assignment - to take three photos showing a visual narrative. This tea-making ritual is one I indulge in several times a day. I don't know how I'd cope without my mugs of tea - always refreshing, always comforting. It's always Yorkshire Tea in this household too, blended especially for our lovely, soft water.

Yellow peril

I suppose these yellow speed camera boxes are a necessary evil in built-up areas, though some people maintain they are merely a means to boost revenue (from fines) for local councils. I'm a fairly careful driver and never intentionally break the speed limit, but I find when you're concentrating on so many things on a busy road that it can be hard sometimes to maintain a steady 30 mph (and even 20 mph in Saltaire and some other residential areas). You tend to learn where the yellow boxes are and take extra care but those mobile video patrols they have are often well-hidden! This was a Saturday afternoon and the drivers heading out from the city centre through Shipley were in little danger of breaking any speed limit. Traffic is almost always queued up along this stretch, due to the many traffic light controlled junctions.

Nisa

Another glimpse of the 'ordinary'....
Nisa could be an acronym for 'Not in Saltaire Actually' - though it is very close! Just across Saltaire Road from 'Bargain Booze' this is a mini-supermarket, selling a wide variety of groceries, drinks, newspapers and seasonal lines - bedding plants in summer, Christmas decorations, fireworks. You can buy a lottery ticket here, get some cash from the ATM (at a price); even, I discovered recently, get parcels delivered here to collect. That's wonderful, as it saves having to wait at home for the delivery or trek into Bradford to collect it from the depot. It's open from 6.30am to 10pm every day - and that includes Christmas Day too! It really lives up to its name as a 'convenience store' and I'm lucky because it is quite close to my home. It has saved the day several times - like when I was baking and opened a tin of golden syrup, only to find it had solidified rather nastily. Does Nisa sell golden syrup - yes they do! Hooray!

The good, the bad and .. the ugly

I tend to try to show Saltaire's 'best face' on my blog - and that isn't difficult because it really is a gem of a place. It is also, however, a living, working community and that inevitably means we have some rather ordinary bits and a smattering of neglected corners. This shop on the main Saltaire Road is just outside the World Heritage Site, in what is called 'the buffer zone'. Had it been in the village itself, I doubt it would have been given planning permission for this garish frontage. It's an off-licence and newsagent and sells a few basic supplies like milk and bread. The shop has been there for a long time but a few years ago it was taken over as a Bargain Booze franchise. So ugly...

Shampoo madame?

How do you get your car washed? There was a time when everyone seemed to wash them by hand, legions of people out at the weekend with buckets and sponges (or power-washers now, I suppose). Then came those automatic washes with swirly plastic brushes and conveyor belts to pull you through the system, quite terrifying! They seem to have all-but gone out of fashion round here, and now everyone goes to a 'hand-wash' centre like this, where an army of young men rush round with hoses and chamois cloths, spraying, shampooing and mopping. I suspect they are all on minimum-wage zero hours contracts and sometimes I feel I am exploiting them, but I suppose they might be glad of a job of any sort. Qasim's is the one nearest to me, situated in what used to be a petrol station. They do a pretty good job. It's worth it to me at £5 a wash. I don't own a power-washer and life's too short for a bucket, sponge and numerous trips through the house to the kitchen tap and back. Anyway I park my car on a narrow street, so doing anything at the edge of the road is pretty hazardous.

Monsoon

Sometimes, methinks, God works in mysterious ways... I woke up before the crack of dawn yesterday morning, unfathomably early and wide awake. Nothing for it but to get up. I could tell I wasn't going to fall back asleep and I didn't want to start fretting over some imagined impending disaster or flagellating myself over some undone chore that I wouldn't even give brain-space to during the day (that box of videotapes cluttering up the study and I haven't a VHS player to play them on now so should I just throw them away or should I keep them or should I spend ages and a small fortune to get them transferred to DVD so I can fret over the same problem again when I no longer have a DVD player...)  I'm sure you know the kind of thing that assails in the wee small hours..

So I got up - and then there wasn't much else to do but go to work. Luckily I work for the Civilised Service, who have a flexitime system. So I arrived at work a good hour earlier than I usually do, to the surprise of those of my colleagues who are habitual larks.  That meant though (oh joy, on a Friday too) that I could also theoretically go home a good hour earlier than I usually do. In the end I stayed to finish something, but still set off to walk home maybe 30 minutes before I would have done.  And boy, was the sky black... It started thundering and lightning. Then the raindrops started to fall, fat and very, very wet but widely spaced in that strange way that summer storms often have. I put my key in the door just as it started to hammer down - and I mean hammer. Pelting down like stair-rods, as they say round here. Watching the street turn to river, from the safety of an upstairs window, I gloried in the power of the storm - and was eternally grateful for my early morning wake-up that saved me from a soaking.

Laundry rules

Somehow, even lines of washing take on a certain charm hanging in medieval streets of pretty, weathered houses. In Titus Salt's day in my home village of Saltaire, no-one was allowed to hang out washing at all. If you did you could be evicted from your house. I think there is a similar ruling in Croatia that forbids anyone to hang out lines of multi-coloured washing. I never saw any! They were all most tastefully colour-coded.

Talking of laundry, I can't hang any out at the moment either.... no washing line, as the house is surrounded by scaffolding. The good news is that my 114 year old house has a cosy new roof. It still has the old slates but now sports a waterproof, breathable membrane. Hopefully leaks will become a thing of the past. Hooray!