France 2012

By shendyNo Comments
Here are a few photos from this year's summer holiday in France. A fairly standard trip - a couple of days to drive down (staying at the lovely Auberge de la Hulotte in St Jacques d'Ambur, within sight of the Puy de Dome deep in the Auvergne), two weeks in a gite (booked via Halcyon Leisure) and then 4 nights on the way back (1 at the Hotel Le Pont Bernet in Le Pian Medoc, 2 at Hotel des Pins in l'Amelie near Soulac, and 1 at Hostellerie du Bois Guibert in Bonneval near Chartres). All of the establishments are recommended for both food and accommodation - as is the Logis de France chain. Anyway, on to the photos. A few from around the gite. Some landscapes and bits and pieces. I'm particularly pleased with the hay bales - I've been looking for a particularly photogenic set of these for ages and happened to come across these while looking for some caves (which happened...
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Stars, Butterflies and Black & White

By shendyNo Comments
As the weather was nice, I took a half day on Friday and headed down to Dorset to camp for the night - the annual Perseid meteor shower was due to peak on Saturday night but I'd seen that the forecast wasn't great for then so tried to make the most of Friday. And it was well worth it - the skies were fantastically clear and I had a great view of the stars - and managed to see probably 20 Perseids over the course of a couple of hours until the moon rose just after 1am. This is the International Space Station And so is this - would have been a far better picture if I'd taken a bit more time to think about it and compose it properly. This is the only shot I got that includes a Perseid. I must have taken about 50 photos of the sky but this is the only one that caught something. Not as easy as...
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Devon, June 2012

By shendyNo Comments
Just back from a weekend down in Devon - an area I've not really done before. First up was a visit to Bicton Park, conveniently located only a short distance from our B&B (Lower Pinn Farm - clean, comfortable room, a huge bed and an excellent breakfast). Bicton was quite good - lots of different bits of garden to keep you interested. The rest of the weekend was spent mainly in Budleigh Salterton, initially to meet up with friends at the BN Beach Day on Saturday, but we gave up on that by 1:30 as it clouded over and the wind got chilly. Better weather on Sunday as it brightened up at lunchtime....
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Bodnant

By shendyNo Comments
Having said that the weather on the Friday was awful, it was in parts. Fortunately we had decided to head to the north coast, and ended up at Bodnant Gardens - the weather had cleared up as we passed (we were originally headed for Penryn Castle because some of it was indoors) so we decided to go in. And what a good decision that was - one of the best gardens I've been to. Thoroughly recommended. It's made up of several levels. At the top, there's a fairly traditional formal flower garden With more butterflies! Below that, there's a rose garden, then there's this lily pond And below that, there's *another* lily pond And then below all that, there's a path through the woods, with a stream. And a particularly photogenic waterfall....
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