Great Urswick Church (The Church of St. Mary and St. Michael), A Mixture of Time.

The sundial in the graveyard:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective23/3261091395/

Somehow a little magical and mystical I think.

Other pictures:

Swimming Abandoned in Grange-Over-Sands

I don't know why, on one of the coldest days I've ever experienced, swimming pools became the subject of the day while I was out in Grange on Saturday with Mark. I can only think it was the repeated theme of hauntigly derelict looking places, still showing obvious signs of once being something quite special.

We'd picked a ridiculous day for walking through a seafront town. I've no idea how despite living in Barrow-in-Furness, we still managed to so underestimate the bitterness of the chill.

Having seen pictures of the old open-air swimming pool on the seafront, I could vaguley remember the place from childhood. I remembered an outdoor pool with a smaller side pool and a pool for toy boats nearby. (I actually only learned the word 'lido' after some of these pictures caught my eye)! 28dayslater and photoaddiction have some of the best pics.

The one above the abandoned lido as we approached it from the Esplanade. The sea wall curves out around it and apparently the waves used to lap up against the back of it while bathers happily splashed in the pool! No such chance of a dip these days however.

Having been closed since 1993 the remains of the lido are in a bit of a mess, but still require very little imagination to visualize what once was. Originally built in 1932, it has a definite feel of the era. I'm only a little surprised the demand for outdoor bathing kept it going until the nineties!

You can see the water is frozen somewhat in the foreground, leaving the debris is lying on, as opposed to floating in, the pool. New development plans indicate conversion of the arched structure above into an RSPB viewing platform.

We were on the lookout for the spooky depth sign I'd seen in one of Dempsey's pictures on 28DL:

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=14678

Found it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective23/3193012710/

Still there, it was peering spookily up through the ice-glazed depths.

The rest of the pics are in the flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective23/sets/72157612453651545/

It seems the 'new' indoor pool didn't fare well either, lasting just three years open before closing in 2006, despite it's critical acclaim and award-winning design. It now looks even sadder and ghastlier than the lido. (Or maybe that's just because it reminds me of a building from my favourite horror film, 1978 thriller 'Coma' -but that's another story / blog post!)

I know, I really should take Mark on some better days out!

Snow and Ice

Hey honey,

Haven't spoken to you for far too long.
Had the winter blues and a horrible throat, but felt well enough to be excited at the beautiful frozen landscape this morning. I thought of you when I was driving to work. I was taking it easy because of the ice and as I thought about how I'd narrowed my cornering, it reminded me of the night you and Clare followed me in the car to Urswick. You commented on my wide-line rally-style cornering and I was thinking how it's funny the things we've yet to learn about each other. Even the little things. As long as we've both been driving and known each other, I don't think either of us has driven each other anywhere yet.

As for married life, today I learnt that while romance may trace 'I love you' on the windscreen of your car, marriage sometimes leaves you a thoughtfully placed can of de-icer by the door. xX

Dear Tina; thoughts and questions!

There's been so much that's happened to us in the years since we started to travel our separate paths, beginning that fateful third year at Salford. That was almost a decade ago now, which means that we've been apart for much longer then we knew each other in the first place. Whilst we could reminisce-a-plenty about our days at Castle Irwell and Bramall Court (warts and all), the beautiful thing about our friendship is how it survived those years in the wilderness. But what happened to you? How did you change so much and yet manage to still be my Tina? Where did this love of abandoned buildings and Urbex come from? When did you learn about the Magical Glowing Rocks?

I hope that by sharing our current lives, we can learn something about those years, while remaining in the present and enjoying it for what it is (something I know to be very important to you). So, I'm going to get my act together over the next couple of days, because I have something I want to tell you about already!

love,

Jan