Last on the Card – November 2024

The start of a new month and time to join in with Brian’s Last on the Card Challenge 😎👍

There is a story weaving through this post – A tale of feeling betrayed and needing to move on. By the end of October I was reaching the end of my Twitter / X involvement. The ‘friends’ algorithm had been broken for some time. There were more and more ads – many of which were not ads at all but attempts at political brainwashing. The final straw was the changes to how blocking worked. I decided to move to Bluesky. This photo taken during a snowstorm on 19th November was one I didn’t use as it has camera shake (it was chilly out there!)…

…But the shot before that I took out on the lane was a dual posting so that my friends still on X could see as well as those who had already made the move. It also appeared in my last Spotting post.

Moving forwards to the 22nd of the month and I took this shot on the Moto g50…

…Taken at Barking, it was the second shot that I posted using the Bluesky App with the comment “I must be Barking – It’s bitter out here.” – Which it was! This marked a real step down the road of change. I never used the Twitter / X app but here I was using the Bluesky one!

I had decided that I would close down my X account on the 30th of November and I posted my intentions along with my Bluesky account details on several occasions so that my followers would be aware of the move, especially those associated with the football club.

On the 23rd of November, Wingate & Finchley played Horsham. It was a tight game but one that Horsham would deservedly win 1-0 as they shaded the second half performance. This was the last shot of that match…

…Nothing to see as a last gasp attempt to get an equalizer fizzled out. You can see the brollies – it was a wet evening.

We were due to play Charlton Athletic U21’s on Tuesday 26th and I would normally have been there to photo that match. However, fate played a hand in the rest of the month. A combination of the bitter cold on the 22nd and the heavy rain on the 23rd saw me crashing out with a very heavy cold on the Monday night. I was not fit to photo the football and I wasn’t fit to go out photographing trains for the rest of the month either. With no football photos to post, I had no more reason to be on X, I closed my account on Thursday 28th. In many ways it was a relief…

Of course, not being able to go out meant I had to do some Trucking. California has been rebuilt in stages over the past year and the latest update, released last Thursday, included the southern section – basically everywhere south of Fresno. My last screenshot for this month was captured at 15:13 on the 30th after I completed a delivery from San Diego to Bakersfield. The update has made things so much more realistic and the garage is now hidden away in an industrial estate…

…Bakersfield was my first ever garage in American Truck Simulator back in 2016 so a lot of memories are associated – I don’t recognise the place now! I’m pleased to see they’ve planted some Palms outside 😎👍The truck is my Volvo VNL300, named Alice because the blue reminds me of Alice’s dress in the Wonderland stories.