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Archive for the tag “holiday”

06 May 2014

St Helena Church Austerfield South Yorkshire

St Helena Chruch in Austerfield that sits on the border of South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire is a small church sitting back from the main road almost hidden by a copse of trees. Inside the church is calm and beautiful and with a lovely mellow feeling not at all at the high end of religion . In short it looks a lovely place to worship. Where however it becomes unique is that William Bradford was baptised there around 1590 and he went on to become one of the most important figures of the 17th century by virtue of becoming one of the founding Pilgrim Fathers. Travelling over in the Mayflower to New England where he became Governor of the Pilgrim Colony.

On Bank holiday monday May 5th 2014 the church hosted an excellent art exhibition by a British artist Ann Wildgust.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged 1590, 1657, ann wildgust, art, art exhibition, art galery, austerfield, bank, bank holiday, baptism william bradford, boston, british art, british artist, england, england art, exhibition, exhibitionism, free art exhibition, governor, governor pilgrim colony, graveyard, holiday, italian art, italy, may 5th, mayflower, nottinghamshire, notts, paintings, photos graveyard, pilgrim colony, pilgrim fathers, plymouth, plymouth colony, south yorkshire, St Helena Chruch, st helena church, uk artist, USA, venice, wildgust, william bradford, yorkshire | Leave a comment

19 Apr 2014

The Seagulls of Brixham

Sounds like a new rock band. And do not get them mixed up with Eagulls who frankly were the worst band I have ever heard at the recent Teenage Cancer Trust, with the saving grace being their performance was free. Avoid. and to give context these comments come from someone who not only liked Sex Pistols but played their records as DJ.

Anyway the point of this post is to demonstrate the great photographic potential of these perennial and greedy birds, who have real character and look at you in the eye!

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged brixham, devon, DJ, donate teenage cancer trust, donate to charity, eagulls, god save the queen, greedy birds, gulls, holiday, juvenile gull, pistols, seabirds, seagull, seagull photo, seagulls, sex, sex pistols, south west, teenage cancer trust, vacation | Leave a comment

01 Apr 2014

Motorway Service Stations

Driving as I do around 20,000 miles/year sadly I am sometimes forced by circumstances to stop at these appalling places. My childhood recollections are of stopping late at night often on the way back from football games at wonderful places such as Barrow ( and I mean that, Barrow is a wonderful proper real football ground, the simple fact that it borders on Mordor and takes weeks to get there should not detract too much from that) and finding cold service stations, long queues and smelling vividly of fried food. Sadly not much has changed except two things. In the main they are all outlets, Burger King, Costa ,Waitrose etc, they are all incredibly expensive, but the queues have gone as no-one wants to or can afford the extraordinary prices.

Today typified things. Mug of tea 2£. Served as tea bag floating in mug. Go on a hunt to find milk, spoons etc. Served by the eternally damned or at least they look that way. No hello, no smiles, no thankyou’s. The atmosphere was dire. The tables looked like they had been sourced from a car boot sale selling ancient tables from a closed down club. Dirty. Smelly. It must have taken the last 20 years to extract every last ounce of atmosphere, pleasure, call it what you will. These places are devoid of anything resembling humanity.

Then the shops. Selling a selection of things that non-one in their right mind wants or needs. Buy a paper and one gets asked if one wants to buy two packets of chocolates for £4. The petrol station. Anywhere on this island diesel costs around 133.9-135.9 pence/litre. The more greedy local garages might ask for 137.9. The service station today was asking 144.9 pence/litre. This equates to an extra £7 a tank if I were to buy there.

Service stations are doomed. Only the desperate stop there in increasingly smaller amounts and the reasons above are why. Either charge a fortune but serve excellent stuff or charge reasonable prices in a reasonable atmosphere. Doomed unless you fancy buying one of these nice coats for sale in the shop. I am being serious…….

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged AA, barrow, barrow fc, burger king, children, children food, cost of diesel, cost of petrol, costa, dreadful food, expensive diesel, expensive food, expensive petrol, expensive service stations, football, football barrow, football games, holiday, M40, M40 services, mordor, motorway service station, motorway travel, odd clothes, quick food, real football ground, service station, service stations, services, shops, starbucks, waitrose, warwick services, warwickshire | Leave a comment

18 Mar 2014

London City Airport on balance is not too shabby but food is Uber expensive

Travelling regularly I now often try to use City airport rather than Heathrow. It is a small airport on the Docklands Light Railway and when full is a little uncomfortable. However travel times through the airport seem quicker, although fog can cause more chaos than at larger airports. The one aspect I do not like though are the incredible prices for food. This is an airport not a gourmet restaurant. Meals are effectively eaten in the corridors. Despite this main courses rise to £30 for quite mediocre type dishes. Not reasonable, not fair, not worth it.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, best london airport, City airport, cost of meals, DLR, docklands light railway, expensive london city airport food, holiday, lcy, london airports, london city, london city airport, london meals, london transport, photo london city airport, small airport, the airport, vacation | Leave a comment

18 Mar 2014

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Lives Here

The Stieg Larsson trilogy are some of the best books ever written. The main female character Liz Salander manages to become endearing and likeable despite some dubious personality traits. Recently in Stockholm I asked where she lived in the fictional story. These photos were taken in the general area and give some idea of the locality. Next time for me it will be one of the tours of all the places in the book. Strange but true.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged book, elizabeth salander, girl, girl dragon, girl with dragon tattoo, holiday, liz salander, millenium trilogy, personality traits, scandinavia, stieg, stieg larsson, stockholm, stockholm tour girl dragon tattoo, stockholm tours, sweden, trilogy, vacation, Where liz salander lives | Leave a comment

17 Feb 2014

Absolute Vodka Vanilla. What to do when the bottle is empty?

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Absolute Vodka, bottle vodka, candles, condensation, decanter, empty bottle, flooding, floods, holiday, mould on wall, surrey, vanilla, vanilla absolute vodka, vodka | Leave a comment

31 Jan 2014

Flooding in Wales, Ross on Wye and Chepstow

Recently I was in Chepstow for a few days and got the opportunity to briefly see some of the ravages that the weather had brought to the area. It was raining needless to say. Rivers were high and fast, it was not clear where exactly the boundary of the river had originally been and in some cases new ” rivers” had arrived. In short it was wet. These few photos attempt to capture the wetness. The area itself is rural beauty and no doubt in summer provides beautiful walks. Tintern Abbey sits grey and mysterious. The disused Tintern railway station has been put to good use by turning it into a small kind of feature park for children with trains and an old signal box. Some of the scenes could have come right out of Tom’s Midnight Garden.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged banks river, book, chepstow, floods chepstow, holiday, phillipa Pearce, photography, signal box, swollen river, tintern, tintern abbey, tintern signal box, tom's midnight garden, vacation, wales, wetlands | Leave a comment

15 Jan 2014

A quick walk through the Graveyard to the Bar sir? Wales is a most curious place.

Reflections on my first 24 hours in Wales are what a curious place this is. It rains all the time, the signs on the roads seem to deflect you to the wrong place, and generally things are not quite what they seem. My hotel for example. To get to the hotel reception and bar/restaurant there is no option other than walk through a graveyard. A fully functioning graveyard. I can only think that when God designed Wales he had Alice in Wonderland as his template. Bit of an overdose of mad hatters though for sure. A small electric car was parked at The Angel Hotel in Abergavenny. Raining. Windows down. In fact are there any windows? The car was charging in fact. The hotel as well was curious in that each room I attempted to go into to find my meeting was being knocked down or redecorated. My Graveyard hotel, might as well be named, St Pierre at Chepstow, is full also of curious folks. Couple of business types talking in that business way in the corner, loudly, muttering words like ” cash” and ” business forecasts”. In fact they are having a few pints of something nice. A daughter maybe calls one of them to be told ” I am in a meeting”, with the word ” meeting” embolden as though it were a place next to heaven.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged abergavenny, alice in wonderland, angel hotel, angel hotel abergavenny, AWMSG, becks, becks bier, business forecasts, business types, cash, chepstow, comedy, cross street abergavenny, curious place, dead people, electric car, floods chepstow, floods wales, fully functioning graveyard, god, god wales, golf course, graveyard, graveyard hotel, holida, holiday, marriott, neil gaiman, raining, st pierre hotel, vacation wales, wales, wet | Leave a comment

02 Jan 2014

Peterborough- Is this Narnia?

I have nothing against Peterborough and indeed the people I met today at the football ground were pleasant and normal. However it was a little like arriving in a parallel universe. This is more easily explained using photographic evidence to support my case.

In a short under the road tunnel connecting the car park to the football ground there was quite interesting graffiti but also what seemed like a perfectly good duvet, a suitcase and other bags. Almost like someone had left these items for collection. The presumption is a tramp but the quality of the items are better than some of my possessions at home
The advert for Vista homes makes an interesting point but is sited very close to the underground tunnel and suggests that the tunnel is the place to live. In fact it states ” A brand new way of living that sets the benchmark for future housing”. In tunnels maybe?
In the small catering outlet in the football ground two gentlemen serving food and drinks were pouring their hot water from a tap. Clearly they could be absent minded as there was a piece of paper attached stating ” Hot water not sauce”……..
Wooden seats to sit on that reminded me of outside toilets at my grandparents house around 50 years ago.
Bob the builder standing on the mud pile where the old terracing was sited complete with builders hat. His role to collect the stray footballs that were ventured over.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged balls, bob, bob the builder, bovril, builders hat, cafe, catering outlet, coffee, collect balls, football, football catering, football food, football ground, football terraces, footballs, holiday, holiday peterborough, league 1, london road, marmite, miley cyrus, models, narnia, outside toilet, peterborough, peterborough and narnia, peterborough fc, peterborough football, shop, standing on terracing, tea, terracing, tramp, twerking, vacation, wooden seats football ground | Leave a comment

23 Dec 2013

1 Comment

Best Photographs of 2014

Around this time each year I sit down and try and sort out my best 13 photographs of the year to make up my annual calendar. Not easy. This year is easier than some. These are the said photos. Each has a reason for being there and each has a story. Please feel free to share this post and this blog with your friends and colleagues.