Junk mail...

Come hell or high water, the junk mail must get through. Selby, today, while I was waiting for the Romahome's MOT...

Lacock...

England and Australia are squaring up today for the last international match of cricket’s shortest - and probably strangest - summer. The result really doesn’t matter, to me at least; I just hope it’s a good game. In the last couple of months we’ve had tests, one-day and T20 matches, against Australia, Pakistan, the West Indies and Ireland. The games seem to have been played in a good spirit, which seems entirely appropriate in these difficult times. They’ve also been played in empty cricket grounds. What seemed strange and surreal back in July now seems (almost) normal. I’ve watched an hour or two of live cricket (a couple of games were on the BBC), but mostly I’ve tuned into Test Match Special. Just knowing that cricket is being played has cheered me up no end.

Licensed today: Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire...

Chop Suey Bar...

The AAA Chop Suey Bar in Snaith (the name presumably being a rather desperate attempt to get first place in the Yellow Pages)...

Ferrybridge...

Haulier "fuelling UK industry" and passing the cooling towers of Ferrybridge power station... 

St Mary's Chapel...

Not my finest hour: shouting profanities at a grazing sheep to make it look up. It's years since I last visited this tiny church, 'marooned' for centuries in a field near Saxton. In 1596 it was reported to be in "utter ruine and decay", yet it's still standing...

Second spike...

A couple of months ago we were speculating about the possibility of another coronavirus spike in the autumn… and now it’s here. The number of people infected is rising again, and it won’t be long before hospital admissions rise too. We’ve been here before, of course, though there’s no way we will be subjected to another national lockdown.   

If it’s hard to be optimistic about what October will bring, it’s harder still to watch Donald Trump’s increasingly desperate, pre-election ploys. Since he is trailing Biden in the polls, I wouldn’t bet against the premature launch of a dangerously untested vaccine… or maybe a military incursion into a small country without the wish or the wherewithal to retaliate.

This is the gatehouse of Bishopthorpe Palace, the residence of the new Archbishop of York (who couldn't find the time or the enthusiasm to answer my query about the scaling down of hell, from an eternity of fiery torment to nothing more than "separation from God"... and on whose authority this change was made. Church of England clerics really are "making it up as they go along")...  

Leeds-Liverpool Canal...

Licensed last week: a narrowboat on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal near Skipton...