Growing up I spent alot of time at my Aunts and Uncles. I’d climb into their campervan when they were trying to leave our house and sometimes it worked and they’d take me with them. I have many fond memories of being there and tagging along with my older cousins. Brown Mini. Abba Gold. Meccano.
Uncle Reg’s shed is a bona fide fully functioning woodworking haven. Complete with proper bench, lathe and wall to wall tools, it has that very special ingredient only a real shed has; the warming, woody, varnishy smell that you don’t get anywhere else. Reliving the smell when this photo was taken was very special. Solitaire. Cheese and crackers.
Our own garden shed was a Dexion infested, fishing tackle and paint tin mosh pit, so being able to actually get in to one and bang a couple of bits of wood together was a rare and memorable treat. Thanks Uncle Reg.
It snowed and snowed and snowed.
Everyone was off work and the whole street was out building snowy things in other people’s gardens. The car wasn’t used for absolutely ages and every journey was an adventure. Major day walks to the big supermarket were made easier by the winter wonderland views and the pub at the other end.
Farnham park, where this photo was taken, is a sledger’s paradise. It only ever gets this busy on Bonfire night. You couldn’t move for homemade storage box sleighs and snowboards. We managed to find a quieter spot and trashed several plastic trays in minutes.
No one makes snowmen anymore. If you weren’t involved in the building of an igloo you were nobody. Some teenagers in our road built a massive one on the path a few houses up that lasted months. In Central Car Park the council had piled all the snow into a couple of spaces that I think is still there. I thought about making the pile into a car shape to see if it got a ticket, but it was too cold…
It snowed and snowed and snowed.
Motorist’s stranded on the A3. Panic buying. Shops running out of milk. The whole country closed down. You couldn’t get salt from anywhere. The first day it really snowed it bought half of the garden to it’s knees. Bushes and trees massacred just to get them to stand upright and to clear a path to studio. It lasted ages and then through that really slippy phase I couldn’t leave the house because I had no grip on my shoes. Some overtaking by old ladies on Firgrove Hill.
This photo was taken during a three hour expedition to Badshot Lea on a mission to find crickets for the gecko. It was at this point I made the decision that the gecko needs a new home.
Free to good home: Leopard Gecko. Comes with sand and house. Enjoys High School Musical. Ideally suited to someone living close to a pet shop.
Enquirers please email [email protected]
I wanted to call it ‘Osprey at Loch Garten’, but a few people have always found my painting of a pigeon, with the word ‘Peregrine’, slightly confusing. Some have even commented on the likeness!
Loch Garten is the place to be to see Osprey. They’ve been nesting there for ages with cameras and scopes aimed at all angles, and the visitor centre has a telly to see the young in the nest close up. My own photos were rubbish, (come to think about it – I should’ve taken one of the telly), so the Wigeon that stalked us over lunch is the next best thing. Lunch, obviously, was beside the loch, where we sat and waited for the real stars to come and hook salmon dramatically and majestic like. We wondered if these pampered celebrities prefer their fish battered, and found it easier to feed from the bins of the local chippy. Now that would’ve been a photo…
A wise man once said ‘Say what you see’. Sunset public toilets. This is from a series of great but slightly repetitive sunset photos on a beach campsite in Northwest Scotland. Yes we had a view of the loos, but we also had basking sharks and dolphins. For us, beach sites in Scotland mean windy but midge less, so you can appreciate a good sunset without being eaten alive. Instead, jellyfish avoidance tactics were needed. When we left this place we pretty much hated every other inland site we stayed at. Rain or midge. Ginger wine.
In other news, some of the pics I have already posted I have been looking at too much and may start to tinker with… Are these things allowed? Do I need to state ‘work in progress’ on everything?
Sunny days!
