Have at it!

This is a highly uninteresting photo, but shows the point when I was turning left to go home from Stamford saw the sign 'Welcome to Lincolnshire', meaning across the road was a brand new county for me to take photos of. That added quite a bit of more territory for me as well as a new set of photos on Flickr.

'Parcere Subjectis'

This stone arch forms the entrance to Dartmoor Prison outer prison yard and is well known in the area around Princetown, a remote village located close to the centre of Dartmoor. The phrase, ‘Parcere Subjectis’, which can be seen inscribed into the granite at the top of the outer arch is part of a phrase from the pen of Virgil, the great Roman poet, and translates as ‘Spare the Vanquished’.

Back to may old haunt (1965-93), Hampstead Garden Suburb.

The tower at Kew Gardens. You can go up it, but without wanting to make a pun when you can there's usually a long queue and I haven't.

This is a gallic style cross sculpted from local granite located in an abandoned cemetery, in all likelihood the resting place of members of the Clan MacKinnon, near the village of Torrin on the Isle of Skye.

Because of Skye's location off the north-west coast of Scotland, it became the final resting place of many sailors, both naval and merchant marine, who lost their lives during the Battle of the Atlantic. It's sad to think that the small number of headstones commemorating the lives of these men, many unknown and unidentifiable, sited here have no family to visit them and have been largely forgotten.

The only good thing to come from this, if there is such a thing, is that they'll be spending eternity in one of the most beautiful places in the world .

As many people will know I collect photos of the pre-1964 road signs remaining in place, and the red triangle warning series are both the rarest and most representative of the era I was born in, and have spent about seven years gradually getting one or two a year slowly adding the odd example to the list. The roundabout one was one of the rarest, one in Scotland and one in Wolverhampton, both now gone and way too far for me to get to.

The crossroads had a few more, but two in London were removed before I knew about them as they were replaced with a roundabout, one in Kent also went and it turned out when I went to The Cotswolds there was one a mile from where I was. Recently someone who spots them for me locally put one up in his photos, and initially I assumed it was local but when I asked turned out it was near Clacton on the east coast, so off I went on Tuesday and finally got one, and another very rare (unique now?) direction sign on the way I passed by chance.

Driving through the forest in the south-west of Western Australia. Such scenic drives are getting rarer as the government clears trees from the roadside in the name of safety, leave a barren open landscape. I much prefer the trees even if they do reduce visibility.

Misty dawn at Paignton harbour.

This is a view of the working water wheels at Cricklepit Mill in Exeter. This mill is many hundreds of years old and was, until quite recently, in such a state of disrepair that it was virtually derelict. Since its restoration it has been the headquarters of the Devon Wildlife Trust.

Nearly thirty years ago when I was a volunteer for the DWT our headquarters were located outside the city in a group of former WW2 era temporary barracks which have since been torn down and replaced with a huge Sainsbury supermarket. I wish we'd had a facility like Cricklepit Mill back then.

Loads of our roads are still cut through forests, they covered half of England originally and have never caused a single problem to a sober driver.

This is the first time I've visited this shop in Muswell Hill, which only sells items made in Britain. Certain people tried to have it shut down for being racist or suchlike but happily it survived and may inspire more to open elsewhere.

'The Lost Toy'

A level crossing in Kelvedon, Essex

Grey Herons, Ardea cinerea, are usually quite secretive and nervous... Except for this one that walked almost right up to my hide this morning!

Mandarin duck and drake, Aix galericulata, which arrived just after the Grey Heron had departed.

Hendon library, one of the only local now standing.

This is where I bought my first digital camera in November 2005 as they had a half price sale. They now cost a quarter as much.

These birds have been showing up more and more often in recent years. This is a Little Egret, Egretta garzetta, that I photographed in the Teign estuary here in Devon. Later this week I shall be walking both banks of the entire estuary, some 12 miles or thereabouts and taking in an entire tide cycle, so any of you interested in seeing images of our local bird life will, hopefully, be spoilt for choice.

I was just poking around in the garden when I found something odd in the aubretia, a golden egg! What use is that for Easter, I can't eat it.

Another view of Kew Gardens Station

A magnolia in Thames Ditton

Here in Torquay over the next few days, the competitors in the International Tall Ships Race 2017 are stopping over in the bay. This, one of the first vessels to arrive here early this morning, is the Dutch sail training ship 'Wylde Swan'. This vessel was built in Germany in 1920 and was originally steam powered, but in 2010 she achieved worldwide certification as a fast, two-masted topsail schooner. More and more of these wonderful vessels are arriving here every hour and, by early tomorrow morning, the bay will be filled with some thirty historic vessels including barque's, brigantines, three and four masted schooners, a caravelle and a carrack amongst many others...

Two guesses as to where I shall be at the crack of dawn tomorrow!

Summer is coming!

This is the moon. Or possibly the desert at Joshua Tree National Park in California. Either way, it looks like my kind of place.

A traditional British flowerbed, besides the yucca palm, in Thames Ditton.