One of our favourite places in the UK is the English Lake District.  The landscape is breathtaking in its beauty and ruggedness, the walking  is excellent, if a little challenging in places and the opportunities for some decent landscape photography are plenty, especially if the weather is a little moody. And so it was that we…

You may remember the display of poppies around the Moat of the Tower of London in 2014 to commemorate the beginning of the First World War.  After Remembrance Sunday of that year some poppies were sold in aid of the Royal British Legion but others were retained to be used for regional displays over the…

A garden of any size or shape can be a burden, an unmanageable wilderness or a thing of beauty, calm and nature, and giving immense pleasure.  Me?  I prefer the latter description and to find further inspiration for our own garden we have been out and about recently, visiting two contrasting gardens in Essex. The…

………..well, an afternoon out really. A couple of weeks ago  I signed up for an afternoon/evening Workshop with Chris Herring of  UK Landscape Photography (Google Chris Herring and you will find him)  to photograph Bluebells amongst other things.  Chris is a widely respected Landscape Photographer and I have been on a number of his workshops in…

After three weeks of recovery and getting back to some sort of routine, it is time to put this blog back to its normal use, which is to share some of my pictures.  Lyn does most of  the Facebook stuff so this is my platform for sharing my pictures. On Sunday we walked with the…

Simon and Garfunkel once sang about “sitting in a railway station, got a ticket for my destination.”  Some fifty years on, we are sitting at an airport hotel contemplating our journey home which starts on Thursday and reflecting on a wonderful 10 weeks away. Our dive up from Warrnambool was very easy.  The satnav took…

The Great Ocean Road.  The romance of the name  alone  conjures up images of sweeping twisty roads cut into steep cliff faces on one side with long sheer drops on the other if you miss a bend. This is our last road trip before returning home and a fitting way to end. The Great Ocean…

One thing Australian cities are not short of are parks and open green spaces. Melbourne is no exception, having no fewer than 11 parks or gardens within a mile of Flinders Street Railway Station.  They were part of the city planning all those years ago and most public administration buildings have a park or garden…

  One of the reasons we came to Melbourne was to see the city and enjoy what it has to offer.       We also have friends and family here so this extended visit was a great chance to catch up with them and spend time sharing their lives in Oz.  Lyn’s cousin Joanne…

We knew the drive to Melbourne would be a long one, but when we turned onto the Hume Highway or M31, the Satnav told us to “maintain on this road for the next 551km”  we thought, this is going to be a long day.   We left spot on 8am and regular breaks and swapping…