Cornwall 2016

By shendyNo Comments
We spent a week in Cornwall (or more specifically The Lizard), ambling around various villages and coves. Kynance Cove was as glorious as ever - I think this was the third time I've been there and there have been spectacular waves every time. A lovely place. Porthcurno and the Minack Theatre are favourites too. Mullion Cove was new to us, as was Coverack where a chance spot of a notice in a shop window led us to the Terence Coventry Sculpture Garden - chock full of really interesting modern sculpture....
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Fast Rabbit Farm

By shendyNo Comments
On Saturday I visited Fast Rabbit Farm in Devon with friends - a large garden (no rabbits that I saw), almost too large to photograph well! It's not the sort of formally planted garden I often visit - much more of a sprawling wild place. Rather nice though, and I didn't even get round all of it. There's also a plant centre, where I took most of the flower photos. The afternoon was further improved by a viola recital from my friend Rachel, which was particularly lovely in the setting. Oh yes, and it was a clothes-optional day so we were all able to enjoy the garden as nature intended....
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Mainly Mousehole

By shendyNo Comments
I've been a bit behind on things - these photos are from a few days we had down in Cornwall in the middle of June. We stayed at the rather lovely Old Coastguard in Mousehole, which is thoroughly recommended. I would advise driving into Mousehole from the Newlyn side as it's a bit hairy coming the other way - steep and narrow! The photos were mainly taken in Mousehole, with a few at the start from the Minack Theatre and a couple at the end from the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens (a bit disappointing if I'm honest - we should have gone to the Barbara Hepworth museum in St. Ives). We've got all of my usual checkpoints - a bit of black & white and some long exposures. And dolphins! They swam past the hotel when I had my camera with me - never seen any before....
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Flat Holm

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I went to Flat Holm today - an island in the Bristol Channel for those that don't know.  There are some fairly interesting Victorian gun emplacements, and it's particularly notable for a substantial colony of aggressive seagulls that will dive-bomb you with poo if you get too close to their nests and chicks. Couldn't have asked for a better day - the hottest day of the year so far, and completely calm for the crossing. The boat goes from Penarth, just by the Cardiff Bay barrage - this is the counterweight for one of the bridges. As seen previously, I'm always a sucker for lighthouses, and this one came with a nice rusty gun as well. This one was taken from down in one of the old gun emplacements A load of the flying crap factories. I didn't get pooed on fortunately, but it was close a couple of times. Next month I'm going to Steep Holm, which is nearby and apparently steeper than Flat Holm....
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Dorset

By shendyNo Comments
We spent a couple of nights in Dorset last week - the first night happened to coincide with the 20th anniversary of our moving in together, which was nice. We stayed in Burton Bradstock on the Jurassic Coast, also the home to Billy Bragg. I thoroughly recommend the B&B we stayed at - Chesil Beach Lodge. We didn't really do much for the time we were there, not venturing away from the beach during the day and no further than the village for dinner in the evening. I also took quite a lot of photos... The sandstone cliffs are really photogenic, particularly when combined with a blue sky and some light cloud. This is a fence that's been built on top of the cliff to stop people using the old bit of the coastal path - erosion and rockfalls mean that the cliff edge tends to move inland somewhat, and there's quite a drop over that edge. Due to enjoying dinner, we didn't quite...
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