Moreton Corbet

 How wonderful to finally be allowed to leave the house and to meet up with people outside. I have really missed that. So a photowalk was in order and an excursion planned.

The destination of choice was a beautiful woodland full of silver birch and pine trees. So peaceful and lovely to walk through, but with the overcast and drizzly weather, absolutely hopeless for photography. At least for someone with my limited skill set!

I tried a bit of intense fartnarkling to make something of a picture, but when it ended up looking absolutely nothing like it started, I thought better of it, so you will have to wait to see gorgeous photos of magical woodlands!

Next stop, Moreton Corbet. This was more like it!

This is somewhere that the overcast and slightly stormy weather really suited.

The Castle was built in varying stages from the 12th to the 18th centuries. Sadly it was so badly damaged during the civil war that it was deemed unrepairable and was left to decay. 

I do find it so incredible that parts of it seem almost untouched while other parts have completely disappeared. When you stand at the bottom and look up, you definitely wonder how long the rest of it will remain.

Nice to see a little reminder of spring and beauty and fresh beginnings taking root amongst the dereliction.

I have played around with the image in lightroom a bit, had to balance out the sky and also straighten the perspective a bit otherwise the buildings would look a very jaunty angle and more likely to topple than they actually are!

Taken from the English Heritage website, this is what the castle originally looked like. Pretty impressive I think.

So a fabulous day walking with a dear friend and a few half decent photos to boot! Doesn't get much better.

Lessons Learned: Sadly that which looks beautiful to the naked eye doesn't always translate to a beautiful photo. We have all seen gorgeous landscapes but when we see the photos they look flat and lifeless. So it was with my woodland photos, but they can't all be masterpieces!

Diet Diary: Here we go again. Through the latter stages of lockdown, eating cake has become almost a compulsion and it was the donning of hiking trousers after many months of avoidance that has made me realise the time has come to get my act together again. Darn!

Not my finest moment

It's confession time. Have you ever done something that you know at the time is a very unwise thing to do? It's happened to me a lot but usually I am lucky enough to emerge unscathed. However, on this occasion I didn't.

Last February when we had all that awful flooding and Storm Persephone or whatever it was called, I arranged to go out for a photowalk. The howling winds and the water cascading over the road should have been warning enough, but I was determined to go.

I had to drive through Corwen and as I approached the town there was a lot of water across the road, but I got through ok. So armed with a completely false sense of security and no other sense whatsover, I drove into the rather large puddle outside the firestation. And got halfway.

The car judders a bit and then with an overly dramatic sputter decides, nah, not going any further, and stops.

So I am sat there wondering what on earth to do, but at least I am dry. Until the first of many huge lorries whizz past, rocking the car and sending the water level higher enabling about 4 inches of it to seep into the car. B<gger! To be honest it was actually a bit scary!

So I ring Green Flag who tell me that they can't do anything until the water recedes and because at that current moment it looked like it wouldn't be happening until Mid March I started to get a little bit upset. To which the Green Flag man replied "Well what do you expect me to do about it!" So I hung up.

About an hour later a proper Knight in Shining Armour in a Range Rover offered to tow me out. But I am ashamed to confess that I sort of went to pieces and panicked a bit and the poor chap was trying to tow a car in 1st gear with the handbrake on and a driver who was too ditsy to actually steer. So we bunny hopped narrowly missing the wall at the side of the road. Quite understandably, he left me there with the car parked up out of the road. I optimistically turned the key but my poor little fiesta was having absolutely none of it.

I was then given a lift to the other side of the impromptu lake by another samaritan in a Land Rover which was where I was rescued by my OH.

Eventually Green Flag came out and the car was towed to our local garage where it was pronounced DOA. So I salvaged whatever wasn't soaked, and the only piece of good luck was that I had put my camera bag on the seat rather than the footwell as I normally do, and so it kept safe and dry.

Lessons Learned: Puddles can be deceptive!

New Brighton Catch Up

I have been lucky enough to visit New Brighton on a couple of occasions. Again, this was all down to new friends encouraging me to visit new places. Never headed towards the Wirral before apart from a brief shopping trip to Liverpool if that counts.

New Brighton is one of those fabulous places that has many sides to it. Naturally there is the fantastic beach, but as with most of my trips, I don't tend to visit when it's linger on the beach weather!

The lighthouse is of course worthy of a picture at any time and the varying tides turn it from a warning beacon rising from the sea to a landlocked thing of beauty.

To be found further along the beach is the driftwood pirate ship and I was lucky enough to be with a real pirate on my first visit.

The whole structure is made from wood washed up on the beach and unlike many "sculptures" this is made to be clambered on and enjoyed.

There is a high wall separating the beach from the promenade and this was part of the structure supporting one section of it. I just loved the patterns the shadows made and the gorgeous colour of whatever it is that is growing along the sides.

The same stuff, some sort of algae I guess, that is growing on the wall itself.

However, it is easy to forget that New Brighton is on the edge of a very industrial area and that huge old structures are now easily dwarfed by their modern counterparts.

But there is still a really charming side to New Brighton, almost hidden away amongst the trees. If you should care to wander along the front and head slightly off the beaten track you will come across an enchanting fairy woodland. With mystical creatures...

And terrifying monsters...

Truly a very special place.

Heswall - Boat graveyard

January 2019 

Since taking up photography I have been lucky enough to meet some very interesting people and visit some fabulous places.

As part of a tour of the Wirral area I was taken to Heswall and what an incredible place this is.

The day was bitterly cold as befits a January, blowing an absolute gale, and the ground was sodden and swampy, but so worth the visit.

This is situated on the banks of the Dee Estuary on the Wirral and is the final resting place of many once magnificent boats that had the misfortune to find themselves marooned on the mud banks.

There are literally dozens of boats in many stages of decay and it was an absolute joy to wander amongst them and find so much texture and interest.

You can't help but wonder about the story of these boats. Surely something could have been done to salvage them or is it just an inescapable fact of life, that once we are past our best then we are found somewhere out of sight and out of mind to quietly crumble and fall apart!

Possibly, but I for one am not there yet. Bit of life left in the old girl yet!

After all, there are still so many wonderful places to explore and we have a lot of lost time to make up for!

Winnats Pass

 As part of my fabulous trip to the Peak District before Lockdown struck, I visited Winnats Pass.

I am not at all familiar with this area of the Country so it was fabulous to explore somewhere new. Like many of us, I do have my favourite places and sometimes it is tempting and comforting to stick with those, just in case the new places aren't as good. But of course, if you keep going to the favourites, the photos get repetitive and there are only so many different angles you can shoot Criccieth Castle!

So there I was, spending the most extraordinary couple of days in uncharted territory!

And wow, what an adventure! Standing high up on a hill looking down of the most amazing natural phenomenon, a cloud inversion that I was able later to follow to Mam Tor.

I hadn't seen anything like it before and haven't since (but then I have hardly left the house since, so that's probably no real surprise!)

And not only that, but to cap it off, a bit of derelict scenery.

All in all, the most fabulous couple of days ever!

Mam Tor, Peak District

Early last year, when Covid was something that was happening to someone else a long way away, I managed to get away for the most fabulous couple of days into the Peak District.

Usually if I get the chance to go away, I head into Wales but I was reliably informed that there were treasures to be experienced in this Country.

In the course of the 2 days I covered a fair bit of ground which I will show you in other posts, but the highlight had to be Mam Tor.

It was a bright January day which was very promising. You can park quite close to Mam Tor which was a bit of a relief as it's quite a long way up!

There were a few people about and when I got to the top I could see why.

There was the most spectacular cloud inversion. I was literally looking down on clouds and you couldn't see very much else. I have never experienced anything like it.

At the top the wind dropped, the sun came out and it was just glorious. I took my coat off and sat on it, enjoying the most amazing view and being enveloped in the warmest hug of contentment.

As it eventually lifted you could see the roads appearing through the mist, like silver rivers promising to take me to all sorts of wondrous places. I was completely transfixed.

But then you always get someone who spoils things by wanting to do something sporty!

I know I am starting to get a bit more adventurous but throwing myself off a hill top attached to a kite still isn't on my to do list!

But look at that sky people! This was January! Such a perfect day.

Tilstock

 How many of you at the start of lockdown were full of such good intentions of what you were going to do? I know I was. Among the achievements were going to be learning Italian for a forthcoming holiday, get to grips with photoshop, lose a lot of weight and basically come out of it magnificent!

Of course most of that didn't happen, when I look back I have absolutely no idea how I spent the last 12 months, so I am going to skim over that and share some of the places I visited before my activities were curtailed!

Tilstock is a disused RAF airfield and I have been meaning to go for ages due to the promise of abandoned buildings and an atmospheric location. Sadly, most of it has now been taken over and turned into some sort of commercial unit but there still remains some treasures. These photos were taken over a couple of visits.

Many of the basic shells of the hangars are sort of still there, but of course adorned with the usual grafitti and litter that these places attract.

Sad to see what used to be someone's pride and joy in this stage, but it makes for an interesting photo op!

The going is a bit treacherous underfoot with it being overgrown and much rubble about, but the wary explorer can get round with not too much injury!

And it's amazing what treasures you can come upon unexpectedly too! Yes, I am still obsessed with all things rusty!

Due to a background in the printing industry (City & Guilds 518 in printing), I am pretty good at spotting a spelling mistake. How the signwriter missed this one is beyond me. Oh and if there are spelling mistakes in the blog it's because I can't type rather than I can't spell!

The RAF base is situated on the edge of much woodland and one of my visits presented me with this magical scene:

Lessons Learned: Beauty can be found everywhere, not only in a glorious sunlit forest but also in that abandoned rusty old car, if you look hard enough.

Diet Diary: Too early to report any improvement, but I have Beth's wedding in September and I need to look spectacular as the Mother of the Bride!

Knowsley Safari Park, part 2

 After my Big Cats encounter (see previous post) I was able to enjoy the rest of my day at the safari park at my leisure. There is a walk around part and a drive through. 

Although it was December, the weather was actually quite reasonable so I made the most of it.

And they have meerkats! Forget Sergei and chums, these are the real deal and are the cutest things ever! (sorry, sounded like an American teenager there)

During lockdown I decided that I was going to experiment more with photoshop. Didn't get too far but this is one image I played around with a bit...

Nothing too radical just yet!

Then on to the wolves enclosure. Pretty scary stuff as the wall and ditch between us didn't look nearly big enough!

So on to the drive through portion of this journey.

Downside of driving through there are no name signs so I can't wow you with my knowledge of what these gorgeous creatures are. But this photo was split second timing. They were all walking along and suddenly just stopped and looked over! I have definitely found that with my photography, it's often a lot more luck than judgement!

Talking of a lack of judgement. Driving along and stop alongside the rhinos to take a couple of shots.

After taking this one, the rhino looked in my direction and apparently didn't like what he saw. He started walking very slowly towards me, but I was a good 50m away so wasn't too worried, until it got to about 10m away, never taking his eyes off me! He then started to trot and I will admit to being a little worried at this point!

During my big cat safari Janet had said that if a large animal approaches, drive away very slowly so I do that and the rhino trots a little faster. I now have a Vauxhall Astra (drove the Fiesta into a pond but that's a whole other story) and it is covered in dents and scratches (one not so careful previous lady owner) but I figured a rhino shaped indentation would be a bit too much of a challenge for the body shop!

So I speed up slightly and so does he and he follows me within about 2ft of the car for around 50m and I am shaking and muttering "omg, omg" under my breath as a cross between a prayer and a mantra.

Luckily he then decides that I am not worth the exercise and slowly turns back to his feeding station. I drive on a fair way and pull over to take a few deep breaths, thank whoever or whatever is watching over me and calm myself down.

Luckily the camels didn't find me as interesting!

So all in all, an absolutely fabulous day, mostly.

Lessons learned: Don't forget, that just because you are in your car in a park in England, the wildlife can be pretty wild still!

Also that I need a better telephoto lens, which I now have, but need to work on my upper body strength so that I can actually pick the thing up!

Diet Diary Still a work in progress

Knowsley Safari Park Big Cats Dec 2020

I have decided that it's about time that the blog got reawakened! Since losing all my photos a couple of years ago, I kind of lost interest, but a new fan has encouraged me to relook at it and maybe start it up again. I have been working on uploading as many photos as I still possess and I have actually been enjoying it, looking at the pictures and rereading my adventures. Sometimes, whilst sitting at home being safe in my jogging bottoms and cardi, I find it hard to believe that I am the same person that climbed Snowdon in the snow with Pink Hair!

So here goes, Dramatic and Dangerous Places to photograph for the Terminally Unfit and Navigationally Challenged Mark 2!

Well, it's been a funny old year hasn't it! Not too many dramatic and dangerous places visited since the beginning of 2020 but there have been a few, when restrictions permitted. I will over the next couple of posts chronicle some of my favourites. To misquote Eric, all the right places, but not necessarily in the right order!

First Stop, Knowsley Safari Park. For my birthday last year the girls bought me a Photography experience with the Big Cats at Knowsley. Had to postpone it a few times due to restrictions but finally I managed to get there December 2020.

On arrival I was given instructions on how to behave around the lions and also talked through some photography advise which was very useful. Then Janet, my guide, and I drove in her 4x4 to the lion enclosure. As I was part of the tour I was allowed to open my windows but she kept control of them in case I was so distracted by the photography that I missed one sneakily approaching for a look at the buffet! She spent most of the time counting lions to make sure they were all accounted for!

It was exhilarating and quite unnerving to be so close to the lions. I asked Janet what would happen if I got out of the car. She said that they would be curious at first and come have a look and then probably play with me a little! However, if 2 of them liked the look of me, I might end up being divided between them! So I stayed in the car.

This is Ted and is a fine example of why you don't upset the ladies! Looking a bit battle scarred!

He doesn't have a mane because he had to be neutered and apparently without the testosterone, the mane doesn't grow.

The tour was brilliant, we spent over half an hour in the lion enclosure with Janet continually moving the car to get the best views of the lions whilst telling me about their history. It was truly fascinating and a completely magical experience.

Part of the tour should have included the tigers too. They have 2 females at Knowsley but on the day I was there, a male was being brought in for a bit of romance so the ladies had more important things on their mind than posing for this amateur photographer! So, I get to go back, once everything is open again and I can't wait!

Lessons Learned: Apparently if you run a hand through a lion's mane not only will you probably not get your hand back, but it feels bristly and not as fab and fluffy as it looks. Might not try it then.

Diet Diary Yup it's back and lockdown has not been kind. So I am back to needing to lose at least 3 camera bags and as I now have a shiny new camera and lens which both weigh an absolute ton, a camera bag is a lot heavier than it used to be!