San G

San Gimignano. Lovely! I have the good fortune to have to go to Italy for a couple of days soon. It's Milan, not San G (where I was 4 years ago this week), but it is Italy. Such are the hardships of my job...



P.S. Talking of Italy, if you have a Senseo machine and like Italian Roast coffee - we have Segafredo pods (Intermezzo and Emozioni) available at Coffeo.co.uk

Originality is hard

A lesson on how hard it is to be original!

Whilst walking back from town at lunchtime with a colleague, it started to rain. Neither of us had umbrellas, but we on the way back we devised a concept for a double umbrella [which on checking, I see has already been done, of course]. We thought up some names - like Dubrella, Dumbrella... We came up with a rectangular version which we figured could be delightfully naughtily called the Rect-umbrella...!!

A quick look on google and... yup, unbelievably - 'Rect-umbrella' done! For sale in the US - of course.

Pretty Boy

Well - who's a pretty boy then...? (Pssst! Don't argue!)

Smoke Test

First attempts at smoke pictures,

Eclipse May 2003

31 May 2003 5am - Solar eclipse, seen from Southwold beach. Note the sunspots on the right hand side.

A bit yellow

Early may is a great time to get the flowering rape plants at their brightest yellow before the stalks grow too high and the green starts to interfere. This was taken a couple of miles away near the village of Wilburton - looking north up the slopes to get the fully reflected yellowness.

ITM: California

In This Month: May 2007 - California - too many pictures - but here's some interesting ones:

A rocky beach? - Nope hundreds of elephant seals...

     

California coast and Golden Gate Bridge...

     

Cala lilies in Golden Gate Park...

     


Textures...





(They were a palm leaf in Golden Gate Park, light reflecting in a film of soap at the exploratorium, an insect eating plant in Golden Gate Park again, and the trunk of a Giant Sequoia Redwood at Muir Woods)


Flowers near San Diego

     

Finally - after a hard day, it looks like our table is ready...at the Cliff House, Point Lobos, San Francisco.

ITM: Tuscany

In This Month: May 2004 - A week on Elba was preceeded by a few days in Tuscany. Is this not the epitomy of wonderful Tuscan hilltop town and rolling countryside! This view is of the ancient town of San Miniato from the Colle della Rocca (Castle Hill).

ITM: Early bird

In This Month: 2003 - Annular solar eclipse at 5 o' clock in the morning, and views of Southwold pier, both from the beach at Southwold.

          

ITM: Tornado - oh oh

In this month: May 2005 - A tornado touches down near our village of Little Thetford.



At the time, I got this picture published on BBC news website and across the Cambridge Evening News front page.

Don't get too close...

Bet you can't guess what this is:



Beads of dew hanging from the underside of a tree fungus...!

On the path to nowhere

Somehow this path just seems to vanish ahead, like some magical mystery path that keeps getting longer the more you walk along it. Actually Monks Wood is a pretty magical place - a National Nature Reserve that feels like you could be in medieval times, with a knight riding out of the trees on his horse...

Humungous Fungus

Walking in Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire at the weekend, we were too late for bluebells (mental note to go at beginning of May next year) but found this humungous fungus - maybe 40cm or more across:

A fresh start

Years ago (2002/2003 maybe) I ran a personal blog - it wasn't up to much - it was early (really early!) days of popular blogging. I tried to include pictures of stuff but it was in days when we had no broadband (and neither did the readers), I had a pretty naff camera too.

Since then I've become more seriously interested in photography. I ran a photo gallery on this domain for a while, and which had several hundred thousand views - until I discovered the web application I was using was seriously compromising security so in a moment of panic I wiped the lot and for a long time never got round to doing anything else instead.

So only now, have I got round to finally doing something about it. Nothing flash, nothing fancy, just basic photo blog stuff, updated with mostly personal photography and a few words along the way - oh and probably some widespread publicising of my own e-commerce businesses...sorry!