lighthouse – Simon Hendy Photography

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....

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...