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a lovely chap walked round the pond at tintinhull gardens so the girls could draw him (and i could take some photos!). Every photographer should carry an umbrella like this with him (or take someone along to hold it on their behalf)
and here they are admiring the garden
on tuesday night i got to the hotel late and i ate my room service dinner at midnight whilst reading the 'how to stay healthy whilst staying in hotels' guide. strangely enough eating burger and chips, followed by brownie and ice-cream wasn't one of their recommendations.
neither was drinking beer and eating peanuts (whilst looking out over athens) from the hotel roof bar last night.
.
A usual trick of car parks is to charge you for more than you need - ie they offer you three charging options: 2 hour or 4 hours or all day. They've gone the opposite way in Dorset where "10p buys you 8 minutes (approx)
i was a bit worried about the size of my hand baggage when arrived at heathrow for my flight to athens. i therefore decided to take evasive action and wrapped my normally very smart (ish) backpack up tightly in gaffer tape so it would definately fit the required dimensions. And it did.
Unfortunately i also wore my DM boots and spent an age in security undoing them and redoing them for their security scan !
on the first day of our holiday, which was in dorset, a few hours drive from our home, we bumped in to work colleague Mark and his family.
and the next day we were in a traffic queue on a thin road and looked at the car next to us, only to discover my cousing chris and his family were in it. they too were on holiday so we met up with them a few days later.
and then the next day, at slime regis beach, we made our pitch (blanket down, buckets out etc) and esther spotted sue and steve and their children sitting next to us !
so that was three totally unrelated friends/family on three consecutive days, all a long way from home !
Reader Hels sent me this great dog sign photo.
she says "It was in a park in Copenhagen, Denmark. No idea what the English translation is, though! Also, the question mark wasn't part of the picture, it had been added by someone with a black marker "
i used to know Jarvis Cocker in a vague saying hello to each other if we passed in the street kind of way. he even complemented a swirly brown polyester shirt i used to wear with (missplaced) pride.
anyway, here's an endorsement on a restaurant window in Brick Lane.
Vin sent me this photo as a teaser to see if you could guess what it was from (he also sent me a picture of the actual thing which i'll post when someone guesses it!)
and the answer is ...
a patio heater thing (well done matt!)
andy sent me this sign from a dinosaur park in Norfolk. He was particularly impressed by the scary eyes. and so am i !
i had a picture published in the Reading Festival programme which has won me some festival goodies apparently (the mind boggles what they may be!). here is a corner of the page - mine is the action man
well, this year i didn't win the trophy for the best photo in show, but i did get a few first, two seconds, a third and two 'highly commendeds', with only my portraits failing to get anything. still, after 3 years it's good someone else wins isn't it ;-)
we spotted this strange vegetable (and its friend) at a National Trust place on holiday. Any idea what it is ?
answer here (though i was none the wiser): View image
here's a new photo category - charity collection vessels. some of these are classics (and very old).
this is a starter - it's a dog and two cats, all looking very sad. the dog is grey and there's one white can and one black cat which is interesting. perhaps he's their dad ?
yesterday we had a very successful walk along the Thames Path from kelmscott to tadpole bridge. it was probable around 7 or 8 miles i think and kezia managed to walk nearly all of it (and esther did it all). progress indeed.
Parts of the Radcot Bridge date back to the 12th century bridge making it the oldest bridge on the thames
Rushey Weir is a 'rare example of an old Thames paddle-and-rymer weir
basically you ram these paddles down in to the weir to stop the water (and vice-versa)
tadpole bridge
our destination for the walk was an idilic looking pub at tadpole bridge, but it was shut when we got there. which left a bad taste in our mouths. or at least a dry taste.
instructions for a lock
did you spot the bit about being aware of bollards ?
(on the same day as this was reported)
this is a weird plane we saw flying over our heads by the thames path. any idea what it is ?
update: thanks to phil, it turns out this was a U2 spy plane ! i love you guys. whether it's insects or military aircraft you sort me out each time !
the first time i went to bethnal green was 8th june 2005. here's a photo of the tube station
i often forget london has a really nice canal running through it. occasionally i stumble upon it when out on manoeuvres, such as this occasion when i'd just been to an art gallery preview
a pub for the traditional family - 2.4 children, married parents etc.
we've been on holiday for a fortnight so we're back to manual updates now (rather than the random selection you've been having for the last ages). i've got tons of holiday photos, but for now, here are some from yesterday when jane and i went to Reading festival for the day.
by the end of our holiday i had quite bushy sideburns and hair, so jane cut me a comedy old person's festival haircut involving a long strip of hair down the centre of my head and my sideburns.
franz ferdinand
kaiser chiefs
yeah yeah yeahs
belle and sebastian
The Mystery Jets
Peaches
Gogol Bordello
Guillemots
these photos are more to prove that i was there than offer any insight in to what the various bands actually looked like. this year i decided not to take too many photos. so i only took my small camera.
we've had hedgehogs, and mice and dried out frogs, but what's this latest specimen we found last night inside ?
i put a one pence piece down on the ground before i let it out so you could see how big it was. deliberately (or otherwise) it walked over and sat on top of it to hide it !
click for big
i realised i never explained why we went to norfolk last month year. it was because it was my parents-in-law 40th wedding anniversary.
here is their cake:
and here they are reading some newspapers:
and here's some other family members:
(how behind am i - this was a year and a quarter ago, and i've only just found the unpublished photos festering in my draft folder)
having taken photos of most of the numbered signs in paddington station it turns out all the signs in the entrance hall of tottenham court road tube station are numbered too !
here is number 11, 12 and 13
an absolute classic.
coffees chatting on a bench
on the entrances to Windsor Great Park are various little huts where the park wardens sit. this one was empty so i took a photo of the contents.
it consisted on a first aid kit, a harrods china mug and an old copy of the sunday sport.
from another time
when we were in minehead back in easter i went for a walk up a hill which looks back over the town. the image above is taken with my widest angle using my Sigma 18-200mm lens . the one below was at the biggy zoomy zoom end.
i love that lens. and you should too !
