Another small gallery of pictures I’ve taken in the last year. Basically, places with trees. I am always attracted to trees, I don’t know why, I like to take pictures of them. What I’ve noticed too selecting this pictures is that they are very dark. I guess it comes with the mood of this last year. Comes to my mind too, that some day I’d like to visit Iceland. I see pictures of waterfalls and northern lights there and the news about volcanoes ready to erupt, and it all seems fascinating to me. Music from Bjork or Sigur Ros is quite often in my headphones while working or relaxing at home. TV shows like Trapped give me the shivers (literally) with those cold landscapes and its crime mysteries. But there are not many trees there, I heard. Perhaps it is an interesting place to escape from all this BREXIT nonsense. Have you been in Iceland?
Here goes another set of pictures I took some time ago, also in the summer of 2015. The weather was nice enough to do some visits to coastal places in Norfolk, a region here in England I like lots. This time was in Cley Next the Sea. I went there with a friend, and we walked a lot. I even felt I burnt my skin, a thing that rarely happens here in UK. We visited the marshes, the town, an old abandoned church. I’m not a believer myself, but I do enjoy taking pictures inside churches and similar places. The atmosphere, light, sense of peace and tranquility… I don’t need to believe in anything to actually feel… something. I don’t need either to invent strange reasons or imaginary friends to explain these feelings. Of course, we ended in a pub, having a nice meal and some beers. Simple pleasures are the best ones… 🙂
A small set of pictures from Oxburg Hall, these ones taken last June, 2015. Is not very far from Cambridge, up north. I went here with my daughter and we enjoyed a lot this place. All these National Trust places have something to see. The pictures show a cloudy day, but that summer was one of the best ones I remember here. And not because the weather…
As promised, a gallery with some pictures of Kew Gardens, taken a during my Christmas holidays. A cold, but sunny day, great for a long walk… 🙂
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A convex (or concave?) mirror in a national trust place I visited recently. You know what they say, it all depends on trough what lens (or mirror) you look at things. I should start applying this more often to how I see things recently. I will post more pictures of that house soon. It is in Cornwall… 🙂
It feels like yesterday, but I have checked and… It was almost last year when I visited Lake District with my daughter. We stayed in a small cosy cottage in a village called Cark. What I did not know when I rented it was that the place was a bit out of the actual park. We had to drive a bit more than needed, maybe. But we ended visiting lots of places, mostly in the southern and central area. It is, and feels, quite different to Peak District, which I also visited some time before. I feel like I need another visit at some point. Or two… I have fond memories of this trip. We both, my daughter and me, enjoyed it a lot. Here is a first gallery of pictures from that trip. Another blog post will come soon… 😉
I liked a lot the surroundings of where I lived a few months ago. Close to me I had Granchester, a very nice place for walks, or just have a tea (I prefer coffee) in the Orchard, a very famous place visited in the past by famous people. They say Granchester has the biggest density of Nobel price winners living there. And they do empty barrel races (not the Nobel winners, as far as I know) in Boxing day. Sometime ago, I went with my bike in the evening and discovered a small Natural reserve less than a mile from my place, Byron’s pool, is called. Basically, because Lord Byron took a swim there once. Here are some pictures taken in various days and times around there. Some of them a bit dark, some of them too colorful… 🙂
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I recently discovered this service from theprintspace called thehub that lets you setup a gallery of pictures and an easy shopping cart system. The prints are made and delivered by them. The quality is impressive. So, I created one with my “Low Tide” pictures here. Maybe you’d like to order some of them. 🙂
P.S. Of course, let me know if you are interested in prints of any other pictures of mine. You can browse this blog (the tag cloud can be a starting point for search), or my flickr account.
A small gallery of pictures I took in Dunwich Heath, in Suffolk coast, a while ago. As usually happens, the weather wasn’t very nice. I yet have to visit one of this coast places with good weather. Maybe in Summer? One thing that caught me by surprise was the Sizewell nuclear power station. I had no idea it was there. There is something about nuclear plants that doesn’t make me feel good. I know, they are efficient, cleaner in the long-term than other means of energy production, etc. But nuclear waste is still an issue and when one of this things goes nuts, the damage is immense, in size and time. Just take a look at recent examples like Chernobyl and Fukushima. I joked with a colleague at work about my fear of swimming in that place, not because of the cold, but the power station proximity. The guy told me he did fish there! His point was that the water around the plant is of the most pure quality you can find.
Ok, gardening. In the long list of things that I have no idea about, gardening is one of them. And here in the UK is a very appreciated thing. Houses have a garden, and even if you live in a flat, in a big city like London, you may know someone with access to an allotment. It’s also the case that I’m not very fan of plants, at least taking care of them. I remember once someone at my office told me to take care of a tomato plant during her holidays. The tomato survived, but I can say now that it wasn’t because of my efforts. I just completely forgot about it! That tomato plant was a really strong one I think. So maybe its a combination of both things, the attention given to gardening here, and my total lack of interest on it, what makes me, still today, find all this gardening stuff a bit funny. I enjoy visiting them though, as some pictures in this blog can show. I took the ones in this post quite a while ago, in the garden of my previous place. And I don’t miss that garden… At all.
There must be millions of pictures of this place already. But I wanted to visit it since I was a child. You know, when I was a child I was a firmly believer in UFOs, paranormal activities, conspiracy theories. You name it. Stonehenge was the subject of a lot of books and documentaries I read and watched as I child. I really was into it. Most of the reasoning behind the mystery was, we don’t know how they could raise those blocks of stone, so it was made by aliens. As usual, covering our ignorance with a magical answer is the easiest way of dealing with this things. At some point, possibly during my teenager years, after having some really good physics and philosophy teachers at school, possibly after some vital experiences, my interest on these things vanished. But when I came to the UK almost five years ago, I though.. I need to visit that place.
To be honest, it’s been a bit of a disappointment. The place to me, doesn’t have that aura of magic some people want to believe in. It’s full of tourists (myself included). You cannot walk into the circle of stones, I imagine there is a real danger of people deteriorating the monument. Yesterday they were preparing celebrations for the winter solstice and I’m sure today it will be full of people dressed as druids (which have nothing to do with Stonehenge origins and its possible uses when it was built). One thing I liked thought, was the weather. It was cloudy, perfect for some contrasty black and white processing. Also, the exhibitions in the new visitors centre were interesting and fascinating enough, without the need of aliens. At least, I managed to fulfill one of my childhood dreams, a very simple one. Here, some news about the celebrations today. I told you, didn’t I?
Some pictures from the small village of Lavenham. A really picturesque place, just an hour ride from Cambridge. It is full of old crooked and timbered houses. The pub where we had lunch had also what looked like a really old carpet.
