Britain – Page 31 – Where is Phil now?

Castles, beaches, views and almost a sunset.

Monday 03 March 2014 – Swanage.

After a fairly solid sleep I was up pretty early again, but the view out the window had me back in bed for a while with a cup of coffee and yesterday’s paper. It was raining and there was no way I was heading out early with absolutely no hope of a sunrise. I waited till the dot of 8:00 am and was down in the restaurant for breakfast, this time I asked for a break between my fruit and my eggs on toast. I think I introduced a whole new level of stress to the staff with that request…

I had another big day planned, with a shorter coastal walk as well as a visit to a couple of castles. I love castles, and have done since I was a child when I visited some with my family. If you have followed my blog for a while you will have probably worked out I am a fan of all things old. Coming from New Zealand where anything over a hundred years old is considered historic it is great to be visiting places that are ten times older and more.

My first stop was nearby Corfe Castle, I had driven past it a couple of times and had been really looking forward to visiting it, it was one of the many reasons I chose Swanage as a base.

I parked on the far side of Corfe Castle village and walked through the town, the village is dominated by the castle on the hill. The whole village is built of the same locally mined sandstone as the castle, they love their rock around here!

The sun was shining when I entered the castle and thankfully the wind had dropped significantly from yesterday, so I was in for a nice walk around.

Corfe Castle was developed over a five hundred year period, starting from the early twelfth century. Sadly it was destroyed by an act of parliament during the English civil war in 1646 as one of the final outposts of royalist resistance. What I saw today was pretty much as it was at that time it was blown up.

I love how the walls are sagging over the steep side of the hill, I guess one day they will just roll down to the stream below.

I really enjoyed walking around and exploring the place, but as I started walking up to the top keep the clouds were gathering on the horizon, so I picked up the pace a bit.

And the rain started to fall just as I made the exit gate, a shame for the people arriving as I left, sometimes it pays to be up early!

I stopped for a coffee in one of the small coffee shops and the rain stopped soon after I finished my coffee, and I got to carry on with my day. The clouds over the castle looked amazing from the car park though.

My next stop was Lulworth Cove, not too much of a drive away. The roads here pass through a large military camp which has a live firing range for tanks and cannons and all sorts of things. I sneakily stopped on the side of the road just before the range as I saw some (I think) wild ponies in the light flooding among the trees, I should have grabbed a better lens, but figured outside a military base was not a place to be stopping with a camera…

I parked at Lulworth Cove at walked up the hill and over to Durdle Door. As I started out the weather was lovely compared to yesterday – I was in a t-shirt and unzipped hoodie and worked up a bit of a sweat walking up the coast path , though a shower moved over once I was over the top and the rain jacket was soon on again.

Man O’ War Bay.

Luckily it didn’t last and by the time I was down at Durdle Door the sun was shining again. The seas were looking pretty good here, nice even, though large swells – and no, I was not tempted to swim…

Durdle Door is a large hole in the limestone rock and is a major tourist and photographic attraction. Surprisingly it is part of a private estate owned by the Weld family, who also own Lulworth Castle – plus about fifty square kms of Dorset. At least visiting the site is free, though of course parking isn’t!

The steps down to the beach have been destroyed in a recent land slip, as there were a few people down on the beach I made my way down as well. The way down was incredibly slippery and very muddy and I was lucky to have my trail shoes on as I didn’t fall over – looking at the state of some other people’s trousers, I was a fortunate one. I am really glad I ventured down though.

Once back up the bank I walked down the steps on the other side and visited Man O’ War Bay.

On the way back up to the hill top walk to Lulworth Cove, I spotted the lovely Durdle Door Holiday park, a bit of a blight on the English countryside !

Lulworth Cove is lovely though, as are the numerous cottages in the village. When I visited here two years ago it was absolutely rammed with people, so it was quite pleasant to visit when it was empty – though not much was open for coffee and lunch.

After a very average sandwich, but a spectacular ice cream cone I jumped back in the car and drove over to Lulworth Castle.

The castle was built as a hunting lodge in 1610 and was purchased by the Weld family in 1642 (it is still in the family !) It was the residence of the family up until it was sadly destroyed by fire in 1929. The exterior has been fully renovated, but the interior is just a large shell, but interesting nonetheless. The whole time I was at he castle I could here gunfire in the background, I guess it must be what a fire-fight over the next hill sounds like. Something I have no desire to hear.

Next door is the Chapel of St Mary, built in 1786 once the persecution of Catholics ended in Britain. It is a lovely building and I would have liked to have seen in-side, but it was all closed up.

It was getting to be late in the afternoon and the sky was still looking good so I decided to go o Kimmeridge Bay and see if I could catch the sunset I missed on Saturday. I stopped just outside the town of Wareham and took some photos of the flooding there.

I made it to Kimmeridge reasonably early and took a walk around the beach as the tide was out, it was a good time to play with the camera as the sun slowly set. I took a load of photos.

The storms have created a massive pile of sea weed on the shore.

As the sun was slowly setting I watched the big thick clouds move their way slowly across the sky towards me, and with a sinking feeling I knew that there was going to be no sunset again !! I guess, to be fair, the sun was still going to set, just not in a spectacular display.

I made my way around to the point anyway and met another photographer there who pointed me to “the” spot for sunset photos, he had been there a million times before so was out today photographing the surfers. Surfing in that cold water – madness!

I lurked there for a while and then moved down to the waters edge for a bit, but then the threatened rain started to arrive so started making my way back towards the car.

I got back to the good spot and the rain stopped so I lurked there for a bit and took a bunch of photos of the clouds that were going to block the sunset, and left again as another shower hit. The clouds were damn good though !

Once I made it back up to the car the rain stopped again, so I hung around and watched a very light sunset struggle through the gloom, though the sky did get very colourful and a little liquid at times.

Once dark settled in I packed up and went back to the hotel for dinner and a glass of wine before collapsing into bed nice and early with my book.

It had been a long but very enjoyable day. Great to see so many lovely places and with much relief I really enjoyed taking photos again.

A walk along the coast

Sunday 02 March 2014 – Swanage.

The hotel definitely seems to cater for the slightly more ‘delicate’ market, my room is about a hundred degrees and I spent most of the night on top of the covers as it was too hot to sleep underneath. I had the window open to let some cool fresh air in as soon as I woke – my inner Englishness meant I could not open the window all night and waste the power from the central heating ! I had no means to turn it down either.

I had chosen to stay in Swanage for a number of reasons, price being one – but one of the others was it was facing east; with good weather forecast when I booked my trip I was hoping for a good sunrise or three.

I was up early and after swallowing an instant coffee I was out the door to see if the sunrise would appear from under the large blanket of low cloud. I was to be pretty much disappointed! I went down to the waterfront anyway and had a play with some ND and ND grad filters to see if I could at least get some good cloud and sea action.

I took some rather unspectacular photos for a while before deciding to walk along to the pier and Peveril Point for a look around before heading back to the hotel for breakfast. I was just taking this picture when a local photographer appeared behind me and we wandered off together to the cliff tops at Peveril Point to see what would happen as the sun finally attempted to rise.

We were rewarded with a small glow on the far horizon, peering out from under the clouds that took a slight hint of the suns glow.

We hung around and chatted for a while before gave up trying to take photos on a tripod in the wind, so I thanked him and headed back to my hotel to get breakfast as soon as the kitchen opened at 8:00 as I had a big day planned.

Luckily breakfast was served at the same breakneck speed as last night so I was out the door soon after 8:30, camera bag loaded with camera, rain coat, gloves, hats and everything needed to cater for the weather turning wet and cold later in the day. I planned on walking along the coast path to Worth Matravers, a section of the coast I had travelled with Malcolm in 2012 and one worth returning to with a camera. I knew I had about three hours before the rain was due to arrive, though it was incredibly windy, at times I was almost blown off my feet – luckily the wind was blowing in off the sea.

I headed back up over Peveril Point, there was a lot of damage caused by the recent storms – a story across both days of walking, large chunks of the cliff had fallen into the sea and signs new and old where everywhere.

I walked up to Durlston nature reserve via the old Isle of Wight Road, a wee bit muddy and I was glad I had my trail running shoes on – a bit of tread was very useful! I remembered Durlston Castle from the run, and the fact there was no signage for the coast path here and Malcolm and I spent a bit of time faffing trying to work out which way to go.

Durlston Castle was a rich man’s folly built in the 1800’s, not particularly old compared to some of the places I plan on visiting tomorrow, but it is kind of cute and I did notice a coffee shack out the back which I planned on visiting when I returned.

As I walked along the path from the castle I took one of many pictures throughout the day looking up and down the coast.

This region has had a long history of limestone quarrying and there are a number of old quarry sites along the coast. The first one I came across was at the far end of the Durlston Reserve just below Anvil Point Lighthouse.

Past the lighthouse the wind really picked up and gusts were blowing me sideways at times. It was almost hard to walk, thankfully I was not planning on a run today, though I did jog on the odd occasion – trying to be gentle with the bag load of camera gear I had on back.

The limestone has been used for the dozens of stone walls used by the local farmers.

I walked for a while to my first scheduled photo stop at Dancing Ledge – so called because at certain tides as the water washes over, the rock appears to be dancing. I was utterly amazed to see a group of climbers there, playing on the small ledges. Not that people would climb there per se, just that anybody apart from me was out on this miserable windy day. I would not want to be climbing about on ledges, no matter how small on a day like this !

It is a really spectacular spot and I would love to visit with big clouds – but no wind !

As I left the area and started walking further along the coast the rain started to come down so it was camera away and jacket on, some of the rain gusts were so cold I ended up having to put gloves on and had my hat down as far as it would go on my head.

It wasn’t far to my final destination and I thought I would stick it out and hope the rain stopped as it wasn’t forecasted to arrive for another couple of hours. Though it was not raining that hard it never did stop, and the wind made it quite unpleasant. I jogged a bit more.

I was disappointed when I got to where I thought the old village of Worth Matravers was, I remembered there being some old ruins of quarrymen houses on the coast, which was what I wanted to see but I could not find them, all I found were some old, fenced off, mine holes. I saw a sign to the village, pointing up a really muddy cow track and it was a mile away and the weather miserable I decided to return to Swanage. I had had a good day out so far and there was no point in just hanging around and maybe getting sick.

I had met some people on the way that had come down a hilltop track so decided to walk up there and avoid some of the spray that was coming off the sea on the cliff top Coast Path. The bad weather has had a real impact on paths along here with numerous slips and this was typical of them.

At the top of the hill I was really unsure of which way to go as there were a few paths, I ended up following narrow cow paths for a while before I found what appeared to be the proper path. An hour of walking later I finally caught sight of Anvil Point Lighthouse and made my way gingerly down the hillside towards it and then back to Durlston Castle.

Sadly the coffee shack outside was closed so wet, a little cold and a bit muddy I went into the castle cafe and joined some shiny and clean people for what was a welcome and damn good coffee !

On the way back to Swanage and my hotel I saw this rather out of place bollard in the castle grounds.

It took me a further hour to get back to the hotel, I was glad I had layered up properly as I was pretty damp when I got back, but not overly cold considering the wind and rain. I was out for six hours and had missed lunch in the hotel, so I took a bath for a while before heading to the pub for a beer…

I had sort of known, but it had never been top of mind when I planned the trip – a late winter Sunday night in a small rural town is never going to be a great place to find a meal ! Virtually everywhere was closed. I had my heart set on a nice pasta meal but ended up with a burger and chips in another pub. Good burger and chips though and the beer was good to.

Another good day !

Road trip !

Saturday 01 March 2014 – Swanage.

Just before I went back to New Zealand at the beginning of February I heard from Tom, who I first met almost two years ago when he ran the 1014km South West Coast Path with my NZ friend Malcolm. I was support driver for Malcolm on the run and Tom returned the favour and supported my when I did a 50km run along the coast path for my 50th birthday later in the year. Tom and his family are returning to New Zealand mid-March and had a farewell function in Umborne Hall in Devon today.

It was just the excuse I needed to organise myself to head back to the south coast for a few days, do some walking, maybe a run and take some photos – maybe even getting my photography mojo back, who knows! I started to look at the trip when I got back from NZ, and at the time the weather forecast was looking pretty good so after some research I decided to stay for three nights in Swanage and do day trips from there, I had a loose plan in mind.

Now that time to go has actually arrived the weather has decided to not play ball, and I may well end up with a couple of rainy days. At least today is fine, though I do have a lot of driving to do.

I picked up a car from the rental place in Walthamstow that El and I used last year, not a bad deal and close enough to walk to, so an obvious choice. I left just after 9:30 and allowed myself four hours to get to Lyme Regis, my first stop for the day. The drive down was pretty good, not a lot of traffic and I got to play music loudly in the car and sing along as well, definitely something I miss about not owning a car.

Lyme was a lot busier than I expected – a whole lot busier. I sort of planned on rocking up, parking the car and going for a walk, but had to hunt around to find somewhere to park the car. Bizarrely, I ended up parking in the same car park I was fed and watered in on my run – and it was just as busy back at the end of summer.

The Undercliff is a well known part of the South West Coast Path and a section I covered on my run. It has been closed for over a year now due to subsidence, and sadly this has gotten a lot worse over the big storms early this year. Not sure if or when it will be re-opened.

I had a walk around for an hour and took a bunch of pictures, some of which I was happy with.

I walked up the Cobb, just as I arrived these two guys on trials bikes turned up, so I watched them for a bit before walking around to get some views back over the town.

I walked along the foreshore to the end of the town, I love the beach huts, though these are quite new, there is something so English about them. I particularly liked that the bunting was still hanging behind the windows in this one.

It is a real British sea side town, buckets and spades and beach balls for sale all along the front – though not so many customers in early spring.

I picked up some fish and chips for lunch, they were lovely, but I didn’t really need them as there was food at the party – but I could not resist, they looked so good. There was no way I could even get close to finishing them, the fish was huge.

And hopefully really fresh.

After over-indulging in my fish and chips I was surprised yet happy to be able to program Umborne into my car’s GPS and headed off to Tom and Tash’s farewell lunch. It was only a few miles from Lyme Regis but once off the ‘highway’ I was slowly negotiating my way down some lovely Devon back roads.

Through the small village of Shute and the entrance to Shute Barton – one of many massive historical houses I saw over the three days I was away.

I spent a couple of hours at the farewell, it was especially nice to see Tom’s parents as I spent a lot of time with Tom’s mum during the Coast Path Run as she was co-support driving with me. I wish Tom and Tash and the kids a great time in New Zealand!

I left with the intent of getting close to the coast near Kimmeridge for sunset, but badly miscalculated how long it would take to get there, and missed what appeared in my rear vision mirror, to be a pretty decent event. Given the new forecast, the only sunset I am likely to see on my trip. Bugger !

I arrived at my hotel in Swanage in the early evening and once settled in had a drink in the bar and then dinner in the restaurant. It was a weird meal. The food was fine, but the service was too good – I was all done in what seemed like a matter of minutes, and I was the only one under 75 and not wearing a tie… I retired early to my room and just managed to stay awake for Match of the Day at 10:30.

It was a good day!

Millennium Bridge

28 January 2014 – London

I have not logged into here for ages and have just noticed the date of my last post – wow, it has been such a long time. I do have a post in the wings, a general, sort of quick wrap-up of those missing months, but it has been in the wings for rather a long time. I must finish it in the next day or so as I am heading back to New Zealand for a holiday tomorrow and I do not want to have old blog baggage hanging over my head…

Rather than finish that post off I am going to procrastinate on it further by doing this post instead.

I took a brief walk along the south bank this afternoon, I went to have a look at the Landscape Photographer of the Year photos on display at the National Theatre. I was suitably impressed, and also depressed at my lack of out-put this year, plus the fact I really am going to have to get the Canon or the wide angle lens looked at as the images are really ‘soft’ and I am not sure why.

The secondary purpose of the walk was a vain hope of getting a sunset – though the forecast was for showers, it had been reasonably fine all day. I have been following a couple on Instragram who have been coming up with some great London images lately and I had been looking to them for some motivation, and sunsets always make for some great images.

There was no sunset… But I did like watching the clouds come in from the south and skip over the Thames so I took a few photos of that instead. The light was quite flat and the sky grey so I have converted and them all into monochrome.

Trees by the IBM building.

Rain starting to fall as the clouds cross over Waterloo Bridge.

I was going to walk over to St Pauls as the light was looking quite good and there was the possibility of some dramatic shots, however as I walked up the Millennium Bridge the rain started to fall – and the Big Issue seller scurried away soon after.

I took a few shots of St Pauls over the arch of the bridge, before calling it quits and walking home.

This is my favourite shot from the walk, the clouds were sweeping in, slowly filling the clear patches of sky.

It was good to get some practice in before my New Zealand trip, and I have now decided I will take the Canon rather than the smaller and lighter Panasonic. A decision I had been pondering on for a few days. Whew!

Sunrises and Sunsets

I have had the luck to see a few really good sunrises and sunsets in the past week or two as the seasons really change from summer into autumn. Usually when I see a good sunset I do not have my camera on me, but I had a lucky 36 hour period when I saw two good sunsets and a decent sunrise as well.

Sunset over Walthamstow.

Sunrise over Canary Wharf (Yes I know, I actually caught a sunrise !)

Sunset over the Thames and Cannon Street rail bridge.

Africa in Focus reunion.

Sunday 06 October 2013 – Cambridge.

I cannot believe it has been four weeks since I was in Edinburgh, and almost five months since I arrived back in London. Time has just flown by and I have just realised this is the longest I have been in one place for almost two years. I may as well mention that I am still looking for a job, and starting to get a wee bit disheartened by the whole process now.

On a more positive note one year ago I was just starting off on my travels on the good truck Malakai in Africa. My trip was comprised of three separate tours back to back to form one long ten or so week journey that was one of the real highlights of the past two years. The first leg of the trip was from Cape Town in South Africa to Livingston in Zambia, via Namibia and Botswana and for many reasons it was the best part of the trip. One of those reasons was the people on the truck, the crew were awesome and the other guests fantastic, we just all seemed to gel. A real surprise that after three weeks of heat and dust and living in tents and the back of a truck we were all still friends.

This weekend we had a small reunion in Cambridge. Canadians Dave and Nancy were travelling again and were passing through the UK and with Sanjeev and Vaishali recently moving to Cambridge from Boston it seemed like a good opportunity to get together. El and I went up for the weekend.

We met Dave and Nancy at Kings Cross Station and we all caught the fast train up to Cambridge, where we parted ways with El and I taking a room in the Lensfield Hotel and Dave and Nancy heading of to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s. It was such a ‘typical’ English hotel – kind of old fashioned, slightly creaky floors, narrow hall ways and a bathroom that sort of worked OK, if you don’t mind the shower spraying all over the floor. It was perfectly fine though!

It was the weekend when a lot of the students were returning to university, so as well as there being a lot of people around a lot of the colleges were closed to the public which was a real shame. We were passing Pembroke College just as a small visitors window was open so we nipped in for a look around. Pembroke is one of the smaller, lesser known colleges – and while it is not as lavish as some, it was still very nice in the grounds.

We crossed the River Cam and walked along the backs of the colleges before crossing back over and watching the punts for a bit, not as crazy as Oxford !

We wandered around Cambridge for a while before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

We took a taxi to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s house and had a very enjoyable evening with them and Nancy and David. We were also lucky to have a quick Skype call with another fellow traveler, William who lives in Brisbane, where it was very early in the morning.

After a food English breakfast on Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went walking again, the intention was to visit Kings Chapel but it was closed for the day so I had to contend with another photo from the outside 🙂

We walked around again looking some coffee that wasn’t in a chain restaurant but didn’t seem to find many options (A business opportunity ?) so ended up getting a take away from a chain and sitting in All Saints Garden for a while. A nice spot to relax and watch the world go by.

We had lunch arranged at a pub just over the river from Midsummer Common so we took a slow walk along the tow path under some pretty glorious sunshine.

The six of us from last night were joined at lunch by Carol and Jackie who had driven in for the meal. El and I had a train to catch back to London so we were unable to stay for long at lunch, but it was lovely to see them again and much reminiscing was had. We drank a toasts to those who could not make it and a special one to Bill who had a stroke a couple of months after returning to New York – we all wish you the best Bill.

It was a great weekend, so nice to be able to see and keep in contact with such a great bunch of people. I look forward to another one.

Black Market Clash

Saturday 21 September 2013

I have almost caught up with photo reviewing and blog writing, though it seems as if I am doing things faster than I get the time to document them. Given that I seem to have all day most days to do this you would think I should be bang up to date!

There has been yet another Clash greatest hits album released recently and in conjunction with that there was a small Clash exhibition in a shop in Soho. There were a couple of floors of memorabilia from the members themselves and it was really cool.

Some of the original hand decorated clothing from the early photo shoots including the White Riot overalls of Mick Jones.

There were also a few guitars

And most importantly THE bass – from one of the best live show photos ever taken. I was so surprised to see it was never repaired.

It was a really cool exhibition – and chock full of middle aged men and women oohing and aahing over the exhibits. I am so glad we went and oohed and aahed ourselves.

Thames Night Shoot

Friday 20 September 2013 – London.

I am finally catching up with editing a few photos that I have taken over the past few weeks. Seeing as I am still not working I cannot believe I just do not seem to have time to do these things. Though I must say I am glad I do keep myself busy – and before anyone asks, no! I not become addicted to day time soaps. In fact I barely watch any TV at all, accept the weekend now that it is football season.

A few weeks ago I signed up to a bunch of photography based MeetUp groups in an effort to get back out taking photos again and maybe getting a bit further afield than I am. Like a lot of things recently circumstances seem to conspire against me and the only shoots I am interested in are on weekends I am already doing something else, for instance this weekend is the international Kelby photo walk and I am meeting friends in Cambridge – something I am very much looking forward to!

I did, however, meet a bunch of other photographers one evening outside the Houses of Parliament and we did a photo walk up the Thames. It was a lot of fun – I had forgotten a lot of tricks with night photography so it was a relearning experience as well.

I took this one on the way.

We started on Westminster Bridge and took photos both East and West.

And then moved a bit further down the bridge. I wasa going for quite long exposures to capture some of the movement in and on the river.

We walked along the Southbank, stopping here and there to grap a few shots, as it was early evening there were a lot of people about. I tried to get some good ghost motion shots of people but none of them really turned out how I wanted.

Then it was up to Waterloo Bridge to shoot the brightly lit National Theatre – a horrendously ugly concrete block edifice turned colourful and bright by night. I was looking for buses…

We then caught one of the buses to the Tate Modern end of Bankside and walked down on to the side of the Thames, the tide was out so we could get down quite low which was very cool.

And yes, I know the horizon is not straight…. I am always happy to break rules for effect.

It was a great four hours out and about, I had a lot of fun shooting and chatting but the main thing I learned is that is perfectly safe to be doing solo night shoots on the Thames, something that had prevented me from going and doing it myself.

Edinburgh

Monday 09 September 2013 – Edinburgh.

One of my key regrets from when I lived in London in the mid 1980s was not seeing much of the greater UK, and this is something I really want to address now I am living here again. Scotland has always been on my must visit list and this weekend El and I took an introductory trip over the border and visited Edinburgh. I have to caveat this by mentioning that El has been here many times before, it is only me that has been slack.

We took the train from Kings Cross station on Saturday morning, the journey takes four and a bit hours and passes through a number of places I want to visit in England – York, Durham and Newcastle, before crossing the border at Berwick. It was a pretty cool journey, and so cool to be heading into the unknown and a new adventure.

We had a room in the Travel Lodge near the station and were very fortunate to be on the top floor, which was pretty much the only floor with a view…. And the view was over towards the castle and the Royal Mile – fabulous.

Fortunately the room was available though we were a couple of hours early for check in and we were able to drop our bags off before heading out for a first explore of the city – after a monstrous lunch in a small touristy noodle bar. My first impressions of a rainy downtown Edinburgh were WOW! The ‘old’ part of the city has been so well preserved, it is quite busy, with a lot of tourists and and I imagine a fair number of Edinburgh locals shopping in the posh shops in the area as well. I am a sucker for a town with steep cobbled streets, steps, small alley ways and hidden views that pop out at you if you keep your eyes open as you walk past. Sadly the weather didn’t really play ball and we had a few showers as we walked down past Cow Gate and along the Royal Mile to the centre of Scottish Government at Holyrood.

When the showers took a wee respite we decided to take a quick trip up the old volcanic mound of Arthur’s Seat, which was our planned objective for the afternoon. The views over Edinburgh were spectacular and when the sun was out it was quite warm up there.

Calton Hill

The Edinburgh Tattoo had just finished at the castle so sadly the view was partially blocked by all the temporary seating.

It was looking like rain so we took a hurried trip back down and slipped the rough path and twisted a knee which ended up in a very sore back on the final day, thankfully not serious but it did mean for a slow day on the Monday.

It started raining quite heavily as we walked back up the Royal Mile so we ended up taking a break from the rain in a little pub and talking whisky with a couple of Danish men, one who comes to Scotland every year to sample and buy whisky. Surprisingly we only had one whisky each the entire weekend – actually that should probably read ‘shockingly we had only one whisky all weekend!’

Once the rain had stopped we walked back to the hotel and I shot a few photos out of the window before we went out that most traditional of Scottish meals – a curry…

Arthur’s Seat.

More of the back of the Royal Mile.

Sunday was bright and sunny and we were out the door fairly promptly and on the hunt of coffee and food. We passed the Scot Monument before the climb to the top was open.

We walked back up towards the Royal Mile again anticipating that the heavily touristed areas would be the best location to find breakfast and we soon found a nice cafe (which we returned to on Monday) for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked up the Royal Mile towards Edinburgh Castle and I found the first of many “Rebus” locations. Fleshmarket Close. I am huge fan of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels, most of which are set in Edinburgh and it was interesting to see so many places from the novels.

There were lots of other alleys to explore off the side of the Royal Mile as well.

The Edinburgh Festival is centred in this lovely old church, whose name I did not write down !

Out first stop for the day was the Camera Obscura up near the castle (in the top of the white tower) the camera was installed in the building in the 1850’s . The view from the top was fantastic and the camera obscura was really cool.

We were going to visit the castle, thinking that mid-morning would still be too early for the bulk of the other tourists, but the queue for tickets was massive – and there was not one single person waiting for the pre-booked tickets so we decided to flag the castle today and book tickets for tomorrow. I think a wise decision.

We wandered down the side of the castle down towards the Grassmarket where I found the best record shop in the world. They had coffee and records and posters and places to sit and enjoy music. Fantastic, a pity the staff had no interest in us as customers – and we were the only ones. Coffee was good though !

Grassmarket is a very cool area of shops and cafes, sort of hip on the fringes, but open and tidy and nice old buildings. I liked it.

We wandered up a side street looking for Greyfriars Bobby. The story has it that Bobby spent 14 years guarding his late owner, the night watchman, John Gray’s grave in Greyfriars Church yard after he died in 1858. True or not it is a cool story and has made the church very popular with tourists…

Even though it was a last resting place for plague victims.

The highlight of a very packed and pleasure filled Saturday was lunch at The Witchery, one of Edinburgh’s top eateries and being very smart El had booked us a table when we first decided to visit the town. The lunch was hugely enjoyable, food was good, wine was great and the company perfect.

After lunch we wobbled – with full bellies, not drunken legs ! Back down the valley for a wee afternoon rest in the hotel. We passed by this trio outside the art gallery and for a change I actually did not hate the sound of the pipes, maybe my ears were a little drunk… anyway, these guys actually sounded pretty good.

I took a few more photos out of the window, though the massive blue skies we had in the morning had given way again to clouds.

In the evening we took a walk up Calton Hill and it’s famous Grecian style national monument.

We had a walk around all the weird and wonderful collection of monuments and were about to settle in to look at the view when the rain came down and we huddled under a tree while we waited for the shower to pass. El had of course wisely brought a rain coat while I had looked at the clouds, though they looked like rain and did nothing about it. Luckily she shared. Yes, there is a weird colour cast in these shots – and no I cannot be bothered editing them out – sorry!

After the rain we wandered down from the hill, past the old parliament building.

We were going to visit the Robert Burns memorial but it was closed so we turned round and headed back into town.

We found this cake, left by the rubbish bins behind a hotel – I guess it may have a sad story behind it (it says ‘well done Grant and Steff’).

We popped into a supermarket and bought some cheese and fruit to munch on for a light tea and went back to our room to watch bad telly. It was a good day !

On Monday morning El woke with a really sore back and by the time we packed and checked out was in a bit of pain. We decided to visit the castle anyway as we had purchased tickets, though we did go via the same cafe as yesterday and I lingered over a good sized breakfast 🙂

We walked up to the castle again and again there was a massive queue for tickets but no-one at the pre-purchased ticket machine, so we were inside pretty quickly. I did not really enjoy the castle, El was in pain and there were a lot of people about, it was very pretty and the views were great, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We saw most places but did not linger too long and after a hellish queue to see the Scottish crown jewels we wandered off again.

El had really seized up by now so we decided to see if we could find an early train back to London. We were booked on the overnight sleeper with El going straight to the office the next day, but that was not going to be a good option and thankfully we were able to get seats on an earlier train.
One of the main reasons we were going to Edinburgh was to meet my friend Alex and his partner who were here from NZ as part of a larger trip. We had arranged to meet them for dinner that night, but really sadly I had to cancel it and head home.

I (we) really enjoyed Edinburgh, it is a cool little city and one I am already looking forward to re-visiting!

A day trip to Brighton

Thursday 29 August 2013 – Brighton.

Wow, another month has almost gone and I am still unemployed in London. I have had one interview since last writing though in the end this did turn into a job – oh well, such is life and all that. Just to let you know, I am actually doing OK with this. I have my moments of doubt that I will ever get a job, but I did know it was going to be tough and take some time. I am pretty happy though, so no need to worry.

Not working does mean I get to get out and about when I am asked and today was my first trip out of London for a couple of weeks. Photographer buddy Steve had a few days off work so we decided to head down to Brighton and have a wander around, sample a couple of ales and take some photos.

I liked Brighton, this time I saw a bit more of it than when I was down there last September. The main downtown area is very orientated to tourism, with some cool markets with some interesting shops.

There is quite a few big murals around the market area and I have put most of these on a separate street art post on my Photos by Phil blog. But I had to include one or two, and these cassettes are just everywhere.

Just behind the shops I found this small scooter chained to the side of a house – weird…

The light was savage so I did not end up taking too many photos, plus I had visited the pier last time I was down so though it was of the key sights in Brighton we decided not to visit it.

We did take a walk along the beach.

And walked around the outside of the totally bizarre Pavilion. It was built in the early 1800’s and has to be one of the more unusual buildings in the UK.

Back into town again we walked down some of the narrow alley ways that run through the old part of town, before stopping for a cooling ale or two before catching the train back up to London.

Though we did not visit this pub with its cool mural up near the station.

It was another good day out, but sadly I was not feeling particularly photographically inspired so ended up taking less than I should have. It is only an hour by train.

This weekend El and I are off to Edinburgh, I hoping I get some photo mojo back then as I have been really looking forward to this trip !