The Brontës...

Emily Brontë was born exactly 200 years ago, which puts Wuthering Heights under the literary microscope once again. Never having read anything by the Brontë sisters (or Jane Austin, or Charles Dickens), I have no opinion to offer about her only novel. But I did identify closely with Branwell Brontë; like me he had clever sisters and liked a drink.

The author Harriet Martineau did have an opinion to offer, describing Charlotte Brontë as “The smallest creature I had ever seen (except at a fair)”: a rather unsisterly put-down… though very funny.

Toft Gate lime kiln, on Greenhow Hill...

Beyond words...

Krishnamurti, from The Book of Life...

"Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it there is beauty and great understanding. We listen with the various depths of our being, but our listening is always with a preconception or from a particular point of view. We do not listen simply; there is always the intervening screen of our own thoughts, conclusions, and prejudices. ... To listen there must be an inward quietness, a freedom from the strain of acquiring, a relaxed attention. This alert yet passive state is able to hear what is beyond the verbal conclusion. Words confuse; they are only the outward means of communication; but to commune beyond the noise of words, there must be in listening an alert passivity. Those who love may listen; but it is extremely rare to find a listener. Most of us are after results, achieving goals; we are forever overcoming and conquering, and so there is no listening. It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words"...

Ulverston...

The usual...

It’s not often that I’m in one place long enough to hear someone say “the usual?” But I’ve been in Otley for about a week now, working on the book in the library from the moment they open to the moment they throw me out: a week well-spent, I reckon. "The usual” is a pot of tea and a bacon sandwich in the Costa coffee shop on Kirkgate.

The Rochdale Canal in Hebden Bridge...

Black Horse...

Still in Otley, still tapping away on the laptop. I had a beer in the Black Horse pub yesterday evening. Despite being right in the middle of town, it’s always empty; I can find a comfortable armchair and read my book, but it’s depressing to see a pub so bereft of customers. It’s so quiet that the lady who served me my pint immediately went back to sit at a table, where her laptop was open. Maybe she was playing a game, or looking for another job or investigating the possibility of torching the place and claiming the insurance money.

I had a look at the menu, which, in offering ‘Winter warming meals’, on one of the hottest days of the summer, obviously hasn’t changed for months. Hearty stews don’t really whet the appetite in the last week of July. When pubs are closing down every week, they’ve got to do more to get customers through the door. At the Black Horse - a fine old coaching inn - it looks like they’ve given up.

Licensed this shot today of Farringdon, in Oxfordshire (best price of the month as well)...

Love locks...

I had another day in Otley library, working on my book: so engrossed that when the librarian came round and said they were closing, she made me jump. I emerged into warm summer sunshine (the library is air-conditioned), wandered down to the river, and sat on a bench, to watch the couples and dog-walkers strolling by. A fat pigeon propositioned a skinny pigeon and was rebuffed. Just as I was getting up, a kingfisher flew by, hugging the opposite bank of the river: a flash of metallic blue, green and orange.

As I recrossed the river bridge I read some of the names on the love locks attached to the metal barriers: some written in felt-tip on tiny padlocks, some professionally engraved on heart-shaped locks. There were a few combination locks too (which slightly miss the point of the exercise… which is for a couple to lock the padlock and then throw the key into the water, so it can never be opened again). There must have been about 500 locks altogether. I wonder what has since happened to these 500 protestations of undying love.

Another banal picture sale this morning: a Sainsbury's supermarket...

Village cricket...

Always happy to license a pic of village cricket. This is the very picturesque little ground at Crakehall in Lower Wensleydale...

Avon calling...

I’ve only had one day photographing in Stratford-upon-Avon. Despite being one of the most photographed places in England, my stock shots keep selling…

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, overlooking the river...

Woodnook...

I had a day at my favourite Yorkshire Dales campsite, editing a backlog of pix. Woodnook Campsite, near Threshfield, is a family concern, and one of the senior family members called out, when I pulled up: “Mr Morrison’s here”… like that was cause for celebration and the signal to strike up the marching band. A nomad appreciates a warm welcome…

Lots of banal pix being licensed this month...

Spike...

St George's Square, in Hebden Bridge, is the ideal venue for impromptu perfomance: a poem or two, or a bit of a rant. This is Spike...

Bedale...

Back in Yorkshire, parked up on the cobbles in Bedale. The temperatures have dipped a little, but the sun is still shining. Gouty foot almost back to normal, so the world looks a more cheerful place.

They're introducing new parking regulations in Hebden Bridge, though not all the council workmen have their mind on the job...

Our daily bread...

Stock pic licensed today...

Alnwick...

With foot still painful - but able to depress the clutch - I said goodbye to Berwick-on-Tweed. For anyone feeling too cheerful, I can recommend an attack of gout; a sense of humour disappears even quicker than England flags, following our World Cup exit. In Alnwick today, having spent the last 24 hours editing pix.

I was going to visit Scotland, but the border was closed...

Immobile...

I’m glad I don’t have any immediate appointments to keep, as I’m stuck in Berwick-on-Tweed with the gout. Very painful, though thankfully I have a supply of pills to take. They don’t work right away; it might be 36 hours before I see any improvement. In the meantime I’m wincing and hobbling. But I’m parked up in a free car-park overlooking the river, next to a café, so I won’t starve, and I can get on with reading and writing until I’m mobile again…

England 1, Croatia 2...

Football came home, but only for a shit, a shave and a shower; then it went out again. I watched the game in a splendid little pub in Berwick-on-Tweed. Good beer (Exmoor Gold), good company and a pretty good game too. When England went ahead, just six minutes into the game, I really thought we were going to win. But Croatia came back strongly in the second half, scored two goals... and that was that.

Licensed this shot - a regular seller - of a lorry on the A82 through Glencoe...

Butterfly Hospice...

A charity shop, in Boston, raises money for the Butterfly Hospice Trust. Nobody wants butterflies to suffer needlessly during their last few minutes (or mayflies during their last few seconds), so I was happy to support the work of the trust by buying a DVD, Brief Lives...

Windermere...

Back to Windermere - briefly - to see the doc about my gout (though the pain in my foot stopped, as if by magic, the moment I walked into the surgery). I quickly found we had something in common: a love of birds... and photography. Drove over Kirkstone Pass, stopping to take pix - and have a pint - at the Kirkstone Pass Inn. I'm now parked up in Penrith.

Thornton-le-Dale...

Coming home...

After England beat Sweden yesterday, Ulverston filled up with excited fans singing “Football’s coming come”: quite a sight on a hot summer night.

Rural policing...

Effortless observation...

Krishnamurti on seeing... "So we are asking, as at the beginning, can the mind come to that extraordinary seeing, not from the periphery, from the outside, from the boundary, but come upon it without any seeking? And to come upon it without seeking is the only way to find it. Because in coming upon it unknowingly, there is no effort, no seeking, no experience; and there is the total denial of all the normal practices to come into that center, to that flowering. So the mind is highly sharpened, highly awake, and is no longer dependent upon any experience to keep itself awake.

When one asks oneself, one may ask verbally; for most people, naturally, it must be verbal. And one has to realize that the word is not the thing—like the word “tree,” is not the tree, is not the actual fact. The actual fact is when one touches it, not through the word but when one actually comes into contact with it. Then it is an actuality—which means the word has lost its power to mesmerize people. For example, the word God is so loaded and it has mesmerized people so much that they will accept or deny, and function like a squirrel in a cage! So the word and the symbol must be set aside".

One of the first images I ever uploaded to Alamy - the cobbled street in Haworth - licensed this morning...

Dales campsite...

Had a day in my favourite campsite, trying to edit and upload as many recent pix as possible: 111 in total. My eyes are glazing over. The Dales landscape is parched, with grass turning into hay even before it's cut. Off now for my summer haircut: just one of the many excitements of the nomadic life.

The Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Gargrave...

World Cup...

Watched the England v Columbia match last night in the Albion pub (where else?) in Skipton. A so-so game, but a good result: the first time we’ve ever won a World Cup game on penalties. I like the way the competition is engaging people who wouldn’t normally watch a football match. I overheard two elderly ladies in a charity shop debating the merits of 4-4-2 over a flat back four.

An ice cream van getting a parking ticket in Hebden Bridge...