Saturday 30th November 2013, Wildboarclough

Time has been very tight here at JJ Towers, there’s just been far too much stuff going on. It was something of a relief to have the excuse to get out with the Cheshire Tally-Ho! Hare & Hounds Club (Estd 1872….founder members still running I think) and trot through some lovely countryside in the good company of the Club members…and a guest: the Long Suffering Rick.
The trail, from the very excellent Crag Inn in Wildboarclough, was a little longer than it should have been. Many Hounds returned late, some running in the dark. Those who took the time to turn around and look behind them were rewarded by a breathtakingly beautiful sunset:

This is where we went (widdershins):

A little over 10 miles with around 1800’ of up and downery. And mud.
Good fun though. And Rick’s still talking to me.
And my English teacher told me not to start sentences with ‘And’. And so I’ll try not to. And I’ll be careful with the use of apostrophe’s.
And now that I’ve got a little free time I’ll attempt to fill in some gaps in the ‘ere blog.

11th August, Last week was the week that was…

Just some pics:

Flahs:

Shame about the focus on this one

Oh dear x2:

A fine example of a flying kettle, aka Suzuki GT750 2 stroke triple:

I’m fairly certain that’s a non-standard seat

Lymm Rushbearing:

(Anyone spot the Long Suffering Rick?)

Lymm Morris

Marmalade in Manchester:

And in my spare time…

Thursday 11th July, Lymm sunset

View from the TransPennine Trail, part of the E8 European route.

The E8 European long distance path is one of the European long-distance routes. It stretches over 2900 miles between Cork in Ireland to Istanbul in Turkey. You’re not expected to walk on water though.

Tuesday 12th March, Timperley at 5.50pm

The ash tree in my back garden, lit by the setting sun:
Taken with my Lumix DMC-FS40.
By the time I’d grabbed the Lumix G3 – perhaps just 30 seconds later, the sun had gone and the moment had passed.

Sunday 17th February, Sunset in Cheshire

Whilst en-route to the Clonter Opera Theatre this evening, I thought the sunset was rather nice:

 Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope

Jodrell Bank and a tree

Jodrell Bank 10 minutes later

Jodrell Bank is quite a fancy bit of kit – you can read all about it here.
Both the Clonter Opera Theatre and Jodrell Bank are well worth a visit if you’re around these parts.

The photographs were taken with my Lumix DMC-FS40.

6th January, Lengthening Days….just

Sale at 4pm this afternoon…and it’s not raining.
Looking south down the Bridgewater Canal towards Timperley. Where else?

Red at night….

Friday 19th October

Yesterday evening I had just nipped out to harass a neighbour, a fellow member of the LDWA, when I was stopped in my tracks by a most amazing sunset. My camera (The Lumix G3) was close to the front door, so…..

I see that Martin also spotted the same splendid sunset. Good, weren’t it Martin?

New toy

The purchase of a Panasonic Lumix G3 came about after an increasingly unhappy relationship with a Fuji FinePix S1500 camera which frequently crashed, losing photographs. This is a shame because other than that it’s not a bad camera for the price. Replacement memory cards, new batteries, changing the settings etc didn’t help – the damned thing just wasn’t reliable.

Anyway, the G3 came on offer so I took the plunge and bought one, it’s virtually an SLR without actually being one. So far I’m very pleased with the results – although it’s very early days. First results can be viewed here. Many of the photos on this link are very severely cropped and most are taken without a flash, which is why some will appear grainy.

I’m going to Spain soon to walk a section of the Via de la Plata and I wanted a camera that I could rely on. I rather feel this is the one.

A few features that persuaded me that this was the camera for me: A decent sized image sensor, accepts filters, viewfinder, reasonable battery life, much smaller and lighter than an SLR, very little time-lag taking photos, very fast auto-focus, idiot mode (fully automatic if needed, ie: point and shoot)….and lastly: Ian Cotterill reckons they’re a good buy.

‘Nuff said.