London Plane trees
Autumn colours starting on the hundred year-old London Plane trees on Brook Green, West London, just a short walk from the bustle of Hammersmith Broadway.
Twittens in Brighton
Sussex Twittens are back routes between streets. Locals use them as shortcuts and for access to back of houses but the rest of us are never quite sure where you will come out. Maybe a pathway to another world.
GBMCC London pub meet
GBMCC’s monthly London pub meet: great to meet friends and great we are now allowed back indoors.
Sun’s out: bikes out. Ullswater, Lowther, Hartside, Keswick
Map reading under an English Oak tree
Mell Fell
Sunny Sunday morning in Cumbria.
Fill up with high octane petrol, what shortage?
Ride on to Ullswater, passing a farm training quad bikers.
Then a boathouse launching kayakers.
Check map under a sprawling oak.
Ride on to Lowther Castle, that William Wordsworth called a majestic Pile.
Passing Penrith, ride up racy Hartside, more bikers than cars.
The summit cafe is shut. Where now, we chat?
We find them: Keswick Filling Station is busy.
More photos: Sun’s out: bikes out. Ullswater, Lowther, Hartside, Keswick
At the back o’ beyond: Skiddaw House (470 m.)
Sights and shapes on the paths to Skiddaw House hostel (470 m.), round the back of Skiddaw (931 m.) and Lonscale Fell (715 m.), it’s accessible on the Cumbria Way from Mosedale, Glenderaterra or Candleseaves Bog.
Skiddaw House was built circa 1829 as the gamekeeper’s lodge for Skiddaw Forest (hunting reserve), then it was run by the YHA as “Britain’s highest hostel”, currently it is open to private groups only. Skiddaw House is out of sight of towns and villages so it seems a long way from anywhere, plus the facilities are basic. Even now it is well out of the range of the mobile phone networks, which - rather charmingly - peter out just beyond the gate to the fells. You do indeed feel you are “At the back o’ beyond” as the slogan on the YHA’s Skiddaw House postcard used to say.
River power
Rainwater flowing fast away from the fells in the River Greta at Keswick. The power of flowing water is impressive, just as much in smooth laminar flow as roaring rapids. The Greta has flooded many times causing much distress and damage. Many precautions and flood defences have been put in place, these were coping successfully at the time of my photos: the river was flowing freely at nearly two metres depth at Greta Bridge, pretty much as the river level forecast had indicated.
The Alps from above
Views from the window of BA0369 from Marseille to London, showing principally Mont Blanc (4,808 m.) but also Monte Rosa (4,634 m.) and the Bernese Oberland Alps (Finstaarhorn, 4274 m. etc).
Moments earlier in the flight, views of Barre des Écrins (4102 m.) and Mont Ventoux (1909 m.) immediately after take-off from Marseille Provence airport runway 31R.
