An early start for this thread... try not to fill it up by the end of August.

A little slice of British life in Brook, Surrey

Happy sheep in the Levels Valley area near Pleasant Point in early August....happy they are not further inland where the snow is.

Hmm, I don't remember Prague being as sunny as that... oh wait, maybe on the middle day.

I think these photos of art might need a separate thread of their own, I shall give it some thought.

There is already the Craft Circle Photo Gallery in the Useful Tips etc forum. Might they find a home there?

I agree. Our best Artists and crafters' works are there.

Heroes Square in Budapest, I felt right at home.....

Satguru posted a photo of a mock Tudor pub in Witley, Surrey, in the August thread. I know I am a bit late in replying but it made me think of our mock Tudor/Elizabethan pub here in Perth. This is not a particularly good photo but on the day this was taken, there were too many cars in parked in front of it, which did not lend itself to getting a good shot. It was also a cold, wet miserable day. We went there for lunch to celebrate a friend's birthday. This pub has an interesting history. It is part of an Elizabethan Village which was built in the late 1970s by an Englishman who migrated to Australia. He built an entire village including replicas of Shakespeare's cottage and Ann Hathway's cottage, as well as some other buildings including a pub. Unfortunately he died before it was completed and it was subsequently sold to a local businessman. For a while, it was quite a tourist attraction, then it was sold and became private residences, I believe. I am not sure of the exact status of each of the buildings now, but the pub is still operational and the meals there are very good and very generous.

It will be nice if photos can also be posted in another forum as well. My mum's been at the art class for about 20 years now so has produced a lot of work, but has plenty of garden photos otherwise for here.

This is the old barracks in Devizes which is now guess what, a block of flats.

Last month I posted a photo of "The Breakaways" (near Coober Pedy, South Australia) with its unusual terrain. This photo was taken on the road between Coober Pedy and The Breakaways. It is a section of the famous "Dog (or Dingo) Fence". The fence was built in Australia during the 1880s to keep dingoes out of parts of Australia (most of New South Wales and Victoria, and the southern halves of South Australia and Queensland) to protect farmers' flocks of sheep from attack. It is one of the longest structures in the world and is the world's longest fence. It stretches 5,614 kilometres (3,488 miles) across most of Queensland and South Australia. (It really doesn't look like it would be that effective).

I've created a new thread for Works of Art. Please post your photos of things that are, or might be, in an exhibition in that thread from now on. Thanks.

Who remembers Bagpuss? Ramsbury High Street in Wiltshire, a very traditional village which has also kept all its old road signs (four plus one down the road, why I was there).

A road in the middle of Devizes

I can never think of Devizes without the Limerick!

I can't think of Devizes without thinking of Ruth Pierce. When accused of theft she cried out "May I drop down dead if I tell a lie", then she cried it out again and dropped down dead.

There's a plaque on the market cross commemorating this event which I must have read dozens of times as a child wondering if she really did it. Now it seems the jury is still out... the 18th century inquest jury found that she had been struck down by "the Visitation of the Great and Almighty God", the 19th century town council which had paid for the market cross said she dropped down dead "having the Money clutched in her Hand" but there's no contemporary evidence of that and the 20th century view was that on being accused, falsely or otherwise, she actually had a heart attack or stroke.

And as you can see from the above narrative, I'm still wondering about Ruth Pierce...

An example of civic art from the City of Exeter here in Devon.

This is a depiction of Saint Sidwell, a 6th century inhabitant of the city who was murdered, beheaded by agricultural workers with scythe's on the orders of her step-mother.

Meant for here all along, you don't get many long straight roads in Britain, why I take any I see. This runs through the middle of Aldershot army camp.

Boats on the Mahurangi River at Warkworth, north of Auckland.

Sticking with the nautical theme, here is a picture of a faithful sea-going replica of the vessel that carried John Cabot and his crew across the Atlantic Ocean to what is now Newfoundland during 1497.

This vessel has its home in the port of the city of Bristol. The 'Matthew', a type of vessel known as a Caravel, was built in Bristol between 1994 and 1996 in time to celebrate the achievement of Cabot on the 500th anniversary of his voyage to the New World in 1997.

Lake Mangamahoe, just out of New Plymouth in Taranaki. You would almost think New Zealand has a bit of water laying around....

This lake is artificial, damming the River Brent to provide a local water supply. It's just across the road and park from me.

In the past I have posted a number of pictures of our ginger-and-white cat, Crookshanks. This is our other cat Misty. She is also a "rescue" cat. Mommakat rescued her and gave her to me. The reason she has not graced the forum until now is because it is almost impossible to get a photo of her. The minute she sees you with the camera, she runs towards you for a cuddle! We don't know how old she is but when we got her in 2001, the vet estimated she was around 2 to 2-1/2 years old. So she is probably over 17 years of age now.

I love that Pic MotherGoose. The expression on her face says "Oh! Well!, if you must, you must......LOL

She is so lovely. A face full of character. What is it about rescue animals?

She is a lovely cat and very, very affectionate. I am so happy that I finally, after all these years, got a decent photograph of her - and it wasn't for lack of trying. No matter how sneaky I try to be, she has a "radar" for detecting a camera!