Lago Ercina

Lago Ercina, Picos de Europa mountains, Northern Spain. The start of the walk up to the Ario refugio.

Covadonga

The shrine above the sacred spring, Covadonga, Asturias, Northern Spain.

Sunset over the Bay of Biscay

Off to Spain on the Plymouth-Santander ferry.

Hydrangeas

The wet weather has done wonders for the hydrangeas this year.

New arrivals

Two new arrivals at the stables today, a pair of miniature donkeys called Bilbo and Frodo. The photo doesn't really show how small they are. So cute! (But very strong willed...)

The neighbour's house

A wet afternoon followed by a beautiful clear evening.

The new bathroom

Very blue and white, and with a bath long enough and deep enough to really stretch out and soak in.

A beer and a pizza

Pizza was promised if the kids were well behaved while I had my hair cut. The hairdresser produced hot chocolate, crisps, and a Nintendo DS for each of them to play on - needless to say they're now quite keen on accompanying me to the hairdressers!

The beer and pizza were good, though.

Self portrait

Self portrait with Greek bracelet (a good luck charm and reminder of some fine sailing).

Village pond

The new(ish) planting around the village pond has really come into its own this year.

Cosmos in bud

Another Cosmos photo - they really are looking glorious in the garden right now.

Post boxes will never be the same again

Our Geology tutor was also a mine of information on the history of Royal Mail postboxes... our entire tutor group is now looking out for rare examples (which this isn't, by the way).

OU geologists in action

Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral in the rain.

Dark inclusion in the Shap granite

Staithes

Geology field trip to Staithes.

Hillbeck

Asymmetrical anticline in the Carboniferous Limestone above Hillbeck Quarry near Brough in the Vale of Eden. Anticline plunges at about 20 degrees to the East. A fault runs E-W along the line of the valley in the middle of the photograph.

Back to being a student again

My summer school accomodation at Trevelyan College, Durham University. Not too bad for a student room :-)

My local

We have 5 pubs in the village, all catering to slightly different tastes, but this one is the best - this one's the real ale pub :-)

Hollyhocks

The quintessential English cottage garden flower.

Slug damage

Those Hostas are just so tasty...

Come into my parlour...

One of our garden spiders setting its trap in Fern Alley.

After the storm

The most massive thunderstorm blew through while DS was at his riding lesson.

Beetlemania

"He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles" - the reported reply of the biologist JBS Haldane when asked if he could say anything about God from his study of nature.

Globe thistle

These are just starting to come into flower. The bees love them, which doubles their value to me - they look stunning throughout their lifespan, and they're an excellent wildlife plant too.

Sunflower

Another of the gorgeous sunflowers in our garden.

Hoverfly on the Hebe

The Hebe is covered in flowers once again, and the flowers are covered in bees and hoverflies.

Come into my sunflower...

Wildlife lurking in the flower border.

Brugmannsia

Surely not of this planet.

Passion Flowers

This was once a small and scrappy plant, placed along the back fence of the vegetable patch in what seemed at the time to be a vain hope it would one day grow large enough to cover the fence and give us some privacy from the footpath.

The triffid now reaches out to threaten passers-by, and has to be regularly and brutally controlled in order to curb its tendancies towards world domination.

I do like plants that take care of themselves!

Victory parade

Our village football team got promoted this season - they're now the most highly ranked village soccer team in the country! They took the trophy on a victory parade around Cambridge, and finished up taking part in our village Feast Parade in the afternoon. Best of all, DS and some of the the other kids who play for village youth teams got to ride on top of the bus with them :-)