On Shimelle’s latest class, we were challenged to walk 10 mins from home, then take some photos. Well, 10 mins south of here is the beach, which is also one of my ‘comfort zones’ for photography, especially on a nice sunny day like yesterday! This is also the first time I have experimented with a mosaic, from http://bighugelabs.com. Gonna have fun with this!!! Another time waster!!
Mum and I have had a glorious day out at Wisley, one of our most favourite places!
These delphiniums are in the mixed border, our favourite place!
Then we went into the little rose garden, a new huge rose garden is being built, it will be fantastic!
We just loved this combination of pink rudbekia and silver eryngium in the Piet Oldurf prairie borders:
which leads to this stunning view of the new greenhouse with this gorgeous colour combination of planting:
Love this view of the greenhouse from the top of the rockery….
…which takes us to the alpine house:
Back up through the fruit garden to my dream greenhouse:
along to the model gardens where I saw this idea for my patio:
and back down the other side of the mixed border to marvel at the colour, texture and shapes in the planting:
and then of course into the shop to buy the huge long list of plants on our wish lists!
Got the walking bug now! Last weekend Nicholas wanted to do a walk with us, so we got the ordnance survey map out… and decided to drive to Storrington and park at Kithurst Hill. WE thought that a walk to Amberley and back would be about 6 miles.
It started out as a fluffy cloud blue sky sort of day:
as we walked along the ridge with the sea to our left:
The descent into Amberley was quite steep! EEK! WE got to walk back up that!
Ahhh! Well deserved refreshment in the Bridge at Amberley!
Nicholas was going to borrow my Nikon DSLR, but we both thought the other was bringing it and consequently left it at home LOL! These pics takne with my little Nikon point and shoot.
We were due to leave for home (Thursday), and because of the fog, we hadn’t really seen North Beach area of Scarborough. So we got up at 6.30am, and went straight out with our cameras. What a lovely morning! We walked along the north Beach, and then inland a little bit to a lovely park and boating pond. There were just a few dog walkers about, no tourists!
Here’s the castle again, this time with the early morning sun behind it – not in the mist!
I just loved these popsicle coloured beach huts!
It was the perfect time of day for the pictures of the boating lake, the reflections were perfect!
We had decided to drive to Scarborough and spend Wednesday night there, as it is a place we had not visited before. Unfortunately, it was foggy! We had a gorgeous little B&B right on the North Beach, and our room overlooking the sea. We ate our packed lunch courtesy of the other hotel, and then took a walk over the castle and towards the harbour and South Beach.
This statue is on the harbour right next to the lighthouse
The south beach is a little more brash with amusement arcades, and gift shops:
It was low tide and despite the fog, there were plenty of people on the sands:
Here’s Freddy – one of the donkeys available to ride. We asked if we could photograph the donkeys, and when one little girl came up for a ride, she was told that Freddy was busy having a photo-shoot!
We were due to walk up one of the 3 peaks of the Pennines, Pen-y-ghent. The coach dropped us off high above Horton in Ribblesdale, and we walked towards our path. Unfortunately this high up, the clouds were at ground level, and it was very misty! So we took a decision to do a shorter walk, down into Horton. As it happens, I was immensely relieved! The ascent of Pen-y-ghent was some 1400 feet from where we were dropped off, and very steep, including scrabbling up rocks for the last little bit! I am not a rock climber so was relieved that we didn’t have to do it. In fact, as we descended into Ribblesdale, the cloud began to lift, and we took some terrific photographs under Derek’s expert tuition. It was a much better photographic experience than the climb up Pen-y-ghent would have been.
Catching the sunlight as it passes over the quarry on the other side of the valley:
I think this is my favourite shot of the week, I just love this windy path – doesn’t it invite you in to the picture?
Once down into the village of Horton-in Ribblesdale, we went into the church, where Derek gave us much welcome instruction into taking photographs inside churches:
We sat in the churchyard and ate our sandwiches. Afterwards we walked up towards Pen-y-ghent, here: The right hand side is what we would have walked up if the weather had been better. Of course, by the afternoon it was perfect!
