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319/365: Black-headed gull
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The weather today was what I'd call "vaguely acceptable" for the time of year. I got a reasonable amount of walking in, just sneaking over 10,000 steps by the end of the day. Not particularly amazing for me, but acceptable. Here's a rather bored-looking black-headed gull sitting on the parapet of Bewdley Bridge. I suppose part of the problem for these birds is that in December not many people are sitting outside with chips to drop on the ground! These birds don't actually have a fully black head for most of the year; it's usually roughly early March to late July. And yes, if you're a Watership Down fan (as you should be!) Kehaar is one of this species.

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318/365: Arley Ferry remains, Bewdley
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This is all that remains of the ferry that once took passengers across the River Severn a few miles upstream at the village of Arley. At its peak the ferry was carrying a couple of thousand people each weekend, but it became heavily loss-making and was replaced with an (ugly) footbridge in 1972. The remains were taken to Bewdley in the 1980s and were used as a landing stage for small hire motor boats, but they were wrecked in a flood in 1996. Since 2000, the few remaining pieces of the ferry have been on display in this front garden in Bewdley, not far from the river.

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There are all kinds of debates and discussions to be had about AI, absolutely including its major concerns (water usage is probably number one for me) and it's bad enough when people talk as though image generators and large language models (eg chatbots) were basically all AI was. There's a great deal more to it.

But even within that, simply repeating the same phrase ("AI slop") that many thousands of people have done before you is not helping. It's tedious, overused and above all unoriginal and is therefore a truly terrible way to promote human individuality in the creative arts. If you use your words to make an argument, I'm a lot more likely to spend time on it than if you just copy what is now for all practical purposes a meme.

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315/365: Beales Corner, Bewdley
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Oh, it was so nice to have decent weather today! Admittedly it rained in the earlier part of the morning, but after that things improved very markedly. I didn't have the time to do anything particularly interesting, but even walking through Bewdley town centre was pleasant enough. Today's photo is of Beales Corner – the first word is pronounced "Bales" – which is very close to the river; the Severn is behind me on the near side of the road. All these houses are lived in; most date from the 17th century, although the row of brick cottages is a from the C18 or C19.

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313/365: Harvey Norman, Merry Hill
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Today I was at Merry Hill for a bit, not doing a great deal of actual shopping but at least browsing somewhat and having the odd cup of coffee or wrap. (No, Tim Hortons, I do not want your overpriced blobs of dough.) It wasn't as impossibly busy as it will become in the last week or so before Christmas, thankfully. The old Debenhams department store has been converted into a Harvey Norman (Australian company, with a range reminiscent of John Lewis) which is rather expensive for the most part. It's nice to see the colourful exterior wall has been retained, though. Happily it shows up in my photo rather better than I thought it might!

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311/365: Mural, Cripplegate Park, Worcester
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I spent a good deal of time on buses today, which was always my intention. What wasn't my intention was spending quite so long on them! The bus from Redditch to Kidderminster was a bit of a nightmare, ending up over 45 minutes late thanks to a combination of roadworks and the apparent need for some teenagers to be given a lift half a mile home after school... Before that I had at least had fun, finally managing to do the 149 bus (Worcester-Redditch via Inkberrow) which I'd wanted to try for a while. It's a country route but one which uses double-deckers, and I managed to get a seat at the very front of the top deck, which is always fun. We did smack into quite a few smaller branches along the way, but that's part of the deal with these routes

My final bus back to Bewdley was electric. Amid the ongoing Ashes embarrassment, I couldn't help being secretly mildly amused that the bus was made by Custom Denning, an Australian company, and really didn't put in a brilliant performance. The highlight – or maybe lowlight – was it coming to a complete halt on the edge of a small road on the edge of town, and everything going dark (it was about 5pm by then). The previous bus had been a conventional diesel one built by Alexander Dennis, but they're Scottish so I can't claim them in cricketing terms!

The photo shows a mural in Cripplegate Park, Worcester. Unfortunately I don't know its title or artist.

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309/365: Kemp Hospice shop china section, Bewdley
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The unicorn being me, of course. :P I had a pretty dull Sunday, but sometimes just sitting and watching the telly or reading an easy book is all you want. The weather wasn't really good enough to entice me outside any more than I had to, although I did have to go to Sainsbury's to pick up a loaf as I was running short. I also popped into the Kemp Hospice shop and nosed about for a little while. Here's a photo of their fairly extensive china shelving, where I occasionally find a mug I like. Not today, though.

And yes, I am avoiding talking about the cricket. :S

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307/365: Bewdley bypass
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Because I'd been occupied with necessary but boring work, I didn't get out of the house today until well into the afternoon. When I did manage it, I walked out to the south of the town, towards Ribbesford but then veering off along Heightington Lane until I got to the bridge over the Bewdley bypass. This is a pretty boring walk in drizzly conditions, but it did at least let me take a pretty boring photo to go with it! :D