Ducks And Geese And Swans - Oh My!

It's summer. Which means, at least in England, unpredictable weather - so when you get a nice day, it's generally best to take advantage of it. So last Sunday - given it was a nice day - we popped up to the WWT centre at Slimbridge.

As I mentioned in my intro post, photographing wildlife is something I find tricky - but that doesn't mean I don't from time to time try. And, just sometimes, I manage to come up with the goods.

Photographs taken on 28/06/09 at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust centre

Railway Flowers

One of the things I love about preserved railway lines is that the stations have been meticulously planted and cultivated back to their original (and probably better than original!) standards. So following on from last week's pictures of the locos, this week's images are of the flowers of Blue Anchor.



Photos taken 13/06/2009 at Blue Anchor station on the West Somerset Railway

And Now For Something Completely Different

The West Somerset Railway were having a mixed traffic weekend. As a long time loco fan (I was always the girl who wanted the Hornby railway set rather than the doll's house), I decided to mosey on down to Blue Anchor and take a look.

MOSTLY, the locos they were running were various brands of diesel...

Western Courier

The Devonian on her approach into Blue Anchor station
A pair of shunters (possibly nicknamed Teddy Bears - but don't hold me to that!) get passenger duty

...but the star of the show (and the reason I wanted to go) was Tornado, the newly built A1 Pacific, who'd been visiting the West Somerset for a couple of weeks prior to.

On her approach

And preparing to steam away on to Minehead

And my; wasn't she gorgeous *grin*

Photos taken 13/06/2009 at Blue Anchor station on the West Somerset Railway

Rhododendrons II

Because I did end up with a lot of photos from Bowood, here are a selection of other photos...

Photos taken 24/05/09 at the Bowood House Rhododendron Walks

Rhododendrons

Life took a turn for the chaotic at the beginning of May (hence the lack of posts). To celebrate things settling down again (at the end of May), we went to visit Bowood House's Rhododendron walks for a day out, to get out of the house for some time...and to see some really beautiful flowers.



Photos taken 24/05/09 at the Bowood House Rhododendron Walks

Bluebells In The City...

More bluebells this week - and another church, too!
A rural scene? Actually no! This is my local church which stands on the corner of a busy crossroads, but if you photograph it carefully, you can avoid the steady streams of cars going by... The most interesting thing about this church (which you can just about tell from the photograph) is that it's an absolutely huge church - which makes sense from the point of view of its modern parish, except that the church was built at some point during the 19th century when there were no more than a tiny handful of cottages in the general environs...

The bluebells were just about at their best - if I'd waited until the weekend, they'd probably already be on their way out.

Photos taken 23/04/09 in Horfield, Bristol

Bluebells In The Woods...

Easter weekend was a good one, weatherwise, and so, armed with my camera I went out and about on Easter Monday to see what I could find...

...and I think I got lucky. The bluebells were out in force...

...the river was running high in spate...

...while the sun was shining on the church...

...and in the church yard!

All photos taken in rural Gloucestershire on 13/4/09. The church is St James' in Tytherington