A Taste of the North... (part 1)

Me again, hello!

So, as you may or may not know, in October I'm going to become a temporary Northerner when I go to study at Durham University. In a desperate attempt to acclimatize myself to the incessant winds, constant blizzards and eternal twilight that comes with going further north than Birmingham, I thought I'd go to the Lake District for a few days with two of my friends, Ross and Thomas (Hi!).

Get that name dropping - not only do I have friends, I have more than 2 of them! Bet you're jealous now.

Anyhow, when we turned up the Lake District was, miraculous, not only sunny but HOT, SUNNY and even NICE WEATHER. I was pretty sure it was just a ruse. Anyhow, we used out first full day there to go for a brisk walk, up Striding Edge on a small hill called Hellvelyn.



Yup. He looks about how I felt, standing at the start of Striding edge. It's very much an edge. Badly named though, because Striding is a bit hard. It's more...well, climbing really.

Ross and Thom there, taking centre stage.Thanks guys.What you can't see is the VERY steep, deep and ... fleep ... drop that they're looking down! Here's the ridge from a different angle...

Yup. Remind me not to do that on a windy day...

Anyway, here's the view from the top. With Ross trying to work out the name of EVERY peak within sight.

That's a nice looking tarn. Not very red, which is strange if you know that it's called "Red Tarn". Here's a barefoot man on a rock, waaaaay down below.

That's right - it's Ross and his friendly reflection. I should probably rotate it so that the horizon's straight, but I've already put the picture up now so I won't. You live and learn. Finally, for now, here's the way back down - we chose Swirral edge, a much less scary (but still steep) walk:

Very nice.

Anyhow, you may have noticed the GORGEOUS weather...suspiciously gorgeous. Ominously nice. Beautiful. SURELY there couldn't be any surprises on such a short gallivant*. Surely...

TO BE CONTINUED...

*Pretty sure this counts as a real word. 

"Wildlife" Photography

In between finishing my dissertation and panicking about my Hilbert Spaces coursework, I took some photos! Whilst in Thetford Forest with assorted family, family friends, family friends families and so forth, I thought I'd get some nice shots of the local wildlife.

Firstly though, the lesser spotted "Liverpool Street Pigeon"...it took a fair while to get him to stand in the right place so that the tiled floor pulled your eyes into the picture, but there were enough chips lying around on the floor to use as bait.

And some more London dwellers: Portrait style. Although I still think it counts as wildlife photography...sorry Rach!




One more for luck - this one works best with Madness singing "It Must Be Love" in the background...it's difficult to get a more soppy picture! I didn't do the soft-focus on purpose, it was just that somebody had decided it was a good idea to relocate the entire North Sea to Norfolk all at once. Wet is not the word.*

Anyway, I did get some proper wildlife, but I'll save that until after the Hilbert Spaces deadline.

Ta ta for now,

J

*Wet is, in fact, the word.