Honestly, I would forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on! The point of my visit to Lincoln was to capture the Cathedral, although I had no idea of the surrounding evironment. And then I didn’t upload a photo of said Cathedral. So here it is. And for the benefit of any US viewers – yes the timbered houses around the Cathedral are indeed older than your country…
No, this image is not from Runnymede where the Magna Carta was sorted, but from Lincoln. As is evident, the name of the pub is the blog title, and Lincoln Castle is just hovering in the background. As it was evening I was tempted to go and eat in the pub, and the food looked good, but it was packed out. So I went home and had a mini pork pie instead. Living life on the wild side…
This life-sized steel sculpture of a Lancaster bomber is called On Freedom Wings, and was erected in honour of the RAF crews in World War 2. I caught it in the evening light, although it is not yet fully open to the public. However, if you accidentally go up a private road because you don’t see the sign that it is private until too late because you are focused on finding the sculpture, you can get a pretty decent view. There is also a layby on the northbound A46 which provides a better view, but it was full when I went past it.
Undeterred by the temperature, we went out yesterday to the coast. Firstly because my wife has to paddle in the sea at every opportunity, and secondly because she has a new pair of binoculars, and therefore wanted to look for birds, and I have a new lens I wanted to try out. Perhaps the midday sun at 32 Centigrade is not ideal for birdwatching but we saw a few skylarks, and heard a lot more. Most surprising was that on the walk we spotted a solitary muntjac deer. Sadly they do not have wings, so it could not be ticked off in the i-Spy book of birds, but I was happy.
On an early morning walk in Yorkshire I came across this tree. Lone trees are a classic subject for photography, but what attracted me was the foliage. It seems it could not decide if it was summer or autumn (fall for those who love to destroy the English language), and was playing it safe with both. Amazing that it is not random, but split down the middle like that.
Normally I am not a fan of sunsets, but on this evening I made an exception. The sun is setting over the Gower Peninsula in Wales (I do go other places), and in the foreground is Worms Head which marks the most westerly point on the peninsula. Worms Head has nothing to do with worms, it comes from the Viking word “Wurm” which means dragon, and you can possibly see that the shape resembles a sleeping dragon. Ah… maybe that is why the sky was so fiery?
On the way back from dolphin watching we called in at Devil’s Bridge and the Rheidol Gorge. The gorge has a circular route down to a waterfall view and back up the other side, a steep descent and even steeper ascent. I decided that was several steps too far and only got as far as the waterfall view. Definitely worth it. This image probably shows a third of the total drop.
Well the answer is yes. In the last 15 minutes of the last boat trip on the last day, we managed it. I was resigned to never seeing a breach – after all David Attenborough’s crew can sit for three months and see nothing – but finally they played. What is more remarkable for me is that this dolphin was nearly a mile away and I could easily have missed it even being there. I may have mentioned before, but I love this camera.
Not a lot of landscape photography this week, as we went to Cardigan Bay looking for dolphins. Cardigan Bay has the largest concentration of dolphins in the UK, however, they can be a nightmare to photograph, and to track as they move through the sea. But, as the saying goes, the more photos you take the luckier you get. Now the question you have to ask is whether I managed to get one of the classic shots of a dolphin leaping and arching from the water. We will see…
The image I posted yesterday, of Wollaton Park in the early morning, neglected to include the Hall itself. So, as that morning produced a few decent images, I thought I would add another view across the lake from a different angle. Sometimes you can be lucky enough to see a few of the deer cooling off in the lake, which would make an excellent photo. I have not been so lucky… yet.