Tyntesfield

By shendyNo Comments
In lieu of a "proper" summer holiday this year, I had a couple of weeks off and we pottered about a bit. We had a week in Wales (pics to follow), but started off with a visit to Tyntesfield The National Trust have done a massive amount of restoration since they acquired the property in 2002, and the whole building is currently covered in a mass of scaffolding. Interestingly, they've built a viewing platform, so you can actually go up and see what's going on. It's fascinating to be able to look out over the roof! The garden had an excellent array of flowers in bloom, so out came the Panasonic compact camera in macro mode. I'm told they're dahlias. To me, the natural world consists of lilies, roses, tulips and "flowers"....
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King Alfred’s Tower

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I've been to Stourhead a couple of times before, but have never got round to going to the nearby King Alfred's Tower. It's 205 steps up to the top, so Mother decided against it and sat in the car and snoozed. When I got up there (wheezing slightly, legs like jelly), it was cloudy and with rain clearly falling nearby. Within about 20 minutes, it all cleared up, so I was able to take photos of dark skies and blue sky & fluffy clouds within a very short time!...
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Bletchley Park

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We spent Monday at Bletchley Park, home of the wartime code breakers. The following day, it was announced that they were receiving £500,000 of Lottery money - and quite right too. Thoroughly deserving, as an important part of our national history, that is in disgracefully poor condition in parts. Without the geniuses that worked there, we wouldn't be where we are today. Whether that's a good thing just at the moment is a matter for debate... First up, this just made me smile - somehow I always imagined that Bomber Command would be far more impressive... This is a real, actual, proper German Enigma machine. It's in a glass case so that no nutter can nick it again. Anyway, why did they give it back to Jeremy Paxman? Stephen Fry must have been gutted. This is part of a superb slate statue of Alan Turing, father of modern computing. Without him, it is quite possible I would be doing something completely different for...
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Oxford

By shendyNo Comments
We spent last Friday wandering round Oxford, having deposited my mother at John Radcliffe hospital for a minor eye operation (all fine, thanks for asking). I think I've only been once before, and that was about 30 years ago when we had a French exchange boy over (well, when I say "exchange", he came over [as did his brother a couple of years later] but we never went to stay with them). There may even be photos of this somewhere in my dad's collection, but it'll take a while to get there as it must have been 1978 or '79 and and I'm only up to 1958...Anyway, the best shot of the day came from the top of the University Church of St Mary The Virgin, showing the Radcliffe Camera, with All Souls College on the right and Brasenose College on the left. No, that's not a bird above the dome, it's a speck of sodding dust on the sodding...
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