neil.baldwin – Page 18 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Yellow car photo-bomb at Bibury

We are spending the weekend in the Cotswolds with Helen’s sisters and cousins which is an almost sometimes annual event. We find a rental cottage out of season often in the Cotswolds because it is in a roughly equal travel distance for everyone. We are staying in Winson which is a couple of miles from Bibury which has been in the news recently because an inhabitants has brought a bright yellow car and has, shock horror, parked it outside where they live, but it is messing up tourists photo’s of the quaint cottages.

I left work at 16:00 and picked Helen up on my way through Aylesbury at about 20 past four. The traffic was quite busy but moving until we got to the A40 on the north west of Oxford where as usual it ground to a halt then moved very slowly as the sets of traffic lights released us in dribs and drabs, I disobeyed the sat nav as we neared Winson and went cross country for the last 5-6 miles. We passed through Bibury but it was too dark to see the offending vehicle.

We were the third vehicle to arrive out of 5, but everyone had arrived in time for dinner to be ready for 19:30, which is one of the advantages of being equidistant for everyone. The rental property was very extensive with all five bedrooms upstairs, in total there are 5 bathrooms two of them en-suite. With the bedrooms upstairs it meant that the downstairs was very spacious, two lounges and a massive kitchen diner worked well for us.

I was in bed at a reasonable time, was soon asleep and did not notice everyone else going to bed so I must have got to sleep quite quickly, and after a good night sleep was up a reasonable 08:30 refreshed and ready for a day of walking and socialising. The plan was to walk to Bibury to see the yellow car and if possible get a bite to eat.

First thing there was a sprinkling of snow, but it was raining which did not bode well for our walking plans, however by the time we were ready to head out the sun was shining and there were clouds about, it was cold made worst by the wind. The plan was to walk to Bibury on footpaths that followed the river, which would involve crossing the river twice. We walked through the village of Winson and found a footpath across the park/field, which led to a collapsed wooden bridge over the river. Luckily there was a newer bridge 30 yards down stream.

The path took us up hill and parallel to the river but we were soon off the footpath by not paying attention to the map. Our inattention cost us a slight detour, but we were soon on a track called Potlickers Lane! At a lovely Cotswold village called Ablington we crossed the river then did a short stretch on the road before picking up a footpath that took us around the outside of Bibury and into the village at the far end.

As we got to the edge of the village we spotted the yellow car which was surrounded by people taking selfies of themself with the car. We took our own pictures then headed to the hotel/pub we wanted to eat at. Unfortunately there were no tables available so we decided to try the Catherine Wheel pub up a hill just outside the village. They fortunately were able to accommodate us and we had a great pub lunch, I would recommend the venue.

The walk back was the same route but slightly shorter as we were at the closer end of Bibury. The weather was still cold but sunny perfect for taking photos. We got back to the hut at 1600 and the women got on with the jigsaw, rock n roll.

Dinner was a buffet of cheese pizzas and other nibbles. I was in bed by 10 and Helen was not far behind, we had not taken an afternoon snooze like some of the others, in the morning we watched some of the Murray Jokovic tennis final, but I went for a walk after the second set, the weather was too good to be indoors. I walked for about and hour and a half and I came to the conclusion that the Gloucestershire council do not spend much on footpath signage something that is done very well in comparison in Buckinghamshire. I did see one of those useful phone-boxes that had been re purposed as a book exchange,

When I got back Murray had almost lost the tennis and N had made a great mung lentil curry, with stir fry peas, rice and all the trimmings, it was lovely and I will try the recipe myself sometime. Helen and I made a sharp exit after lunch we wanted to get back home in good time as I had to be up early the next day as I was travelling. All in all a very good weekend.

Websites that use my photo’s

I was at a loose end and decided it would be interesting to see if any of my photo’s from Flickr appear on websites other than my own, i.e. were being used without my permission. It turns out is is pretty easy to check using Google image search. All you need to do is grab the URL of the image you want to search for then click on the camera in the image search box paste the URL and Google will return information about the image; whether it is appears elsewhere and images that are similar.

First find your image, then (in Flickr) click on the download icon then right click on the link to the original and select “copy link address”.

The go to Google image search click on the camera icon (which is search by image) and paste in the URL you copied in the previous step and click on the Search by image button.

Google will return the search results. In the example below you can see that if found no other sizes of the image, but was able to find matching images. In this case the matching images are not the same image they are photo’s taken from the same spot but on different days.

At the bottom of the search results you get the opportunity to see visually similar images, in this case the images all have grass at the bottom, sometimes a building in the middle and all have a blue sky with white clouds.

On Page two of the search results I noticed that the image was mine.

Here is the site http://www.viajesyvacaciones.es/castillo-highclere-downton-abbey/castillo-downton-abbey/ showing my picture. It is on a page with post in Spanish about a visit to Highclere castle (Downton Abbey) they give credit to a couple of Flickr users but not me!

The picture above appears on the following URL’s http://www.quazoo.com/q/Basketball_venues_in_France and http://www.redplanet.gr/basket/euroleague/ta-eisithria-gia-to-final-four-toy-londinoy-2013.2032633.html (A Greek website)

A wet London to Brighton 2014

Another year has cone round quickly and it is time four our annual pilgrimage to Brighton. A good friend has a car that qualifies for the Bonham’s London to Brighton vintage car run, and we use it as an excuse to take Monday off and stay the Sunday night in Brighton, which this year only cost £25 at the North Street Premier Inn. Helen and I have in recent years (I have been doing it for over 21) skipped the early 05:00 start to be in Hyde Park by 07:00 and motored directly to Crawley leaving the house at a more sociable 09:00.

The drive round the M25 was steady due to the biblical rain caused by a long bank of cloud dissecting the country at 45 degrees and stationed directly over the A23 on this Sunday morning. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time we reached Gatwick Honda on the outskirts of Crawley, which new for this year is where the official coffee stop was arranged. Usually the coffee stop the is on Crawley high Street which is an ideal spot for the public to see the cars parked up on the cobbled square. The Honda dealership was on a main road with pretty poor viewing opportunities. We found a suitable place to park in a nearby housing area and soon met up with the support crew at the car show room. I heard many people grumbling about the new venue. Suddenly the rain came down again so we made a sharp exit and got back on the road to chase down the Humberette. I got some pictures of Paul Holywood who was driving the Beaulieu DeDion Bouton, we later found out that Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Ben Ainslie were taking part but did not spot them.

We did some of the office coal route but diverted off to do some catching up and with some luck caught up with the Humberette not far from Pyecombe where we had agreed to meet up for a passenger swap. Swap done we took the back road into Brighton to park the car near the Premier Inn before heading down to Madeira Drive to meet up with the others. Helen went shopping L&J whilst Rory and I went down the front. Chilli and mulled wine was on offer in the hospitality tent, but I opted for a coffee. We did the usual hanging around looking at cars before getting the car on the trailer for its journey home.

Walking back to the hotel Rory felt peckish and could not resist the opportunity for some traditional seaside fayre of Fish & Chips. Back at the hotel we found the girls and agreed to meet up at 19:00 to go and find somewhere to eat. We settled on Zafferelli’s which was just down the road. The food was good and the waiters took a shine to J and did some impromptu baby sitting so that his parents could enjoy their meal. I had Calamari Luciana (squid in a chili tomato sauce) followed by spaghetti Puttanesca both of which were good. We were all drinking and the bill came to £26 each which I thought was a fair price. We went for a final pint at the Horse and Wagon which was just up the street, a got to bed about 23:00 ish.

London to Brighton Vintage Car Run LBVCR

We woke up to rain the next morning and met up in reception at 08:50 for our tradition visit to Bill’s for breakfast. I had the vegetarian breakfast which consists of eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms on two pieces of toast one spread with Guacamole the other with chilli humus, and it is always very nice, and I washed it down with two Americano’s. Bills is on North Street just 5 minutes walk form the Premier Inn. Then we were off for a spot of shopping, and I managed to buy a T Shirt. We had to leave at about 11:30 or pay for extra parking at an exorbitant rate but that suited us as we had a stop on the way home to visit and elderly relative of Helen’s, who was expecting us for lunch.

We stopped off for a couple of hours and caught up on family news then headed off at about 14:00 home. It was still raining and we took a cross country route to avoid the tail back on the A23 near m25. We were home in good time about 16:00 we had beaten the rush hour traffic. A great weekend with friends.

Ricoh Theta, Google photospheres and Pannellum

I have a new Gadget a Ricoh Theta it is capable of taking full 360 degree panorama with one shot. It does this by have two lenses pointing in opposite directions, each one with a slightly more than 180 degrees view. The camera then stitches the two pictures together in the camera. The resolution is not great at 3584 x 1792 but they are good enough to publish on web pages as you can see from the example below. The camera have been out for over a year but have they are quite a niche thing and not that easy to get hold of. You can get them new on Amazon and eBay for about £320, they come from Japan, but I spotted a second hand one of eBay I put in a bid for just over half the new price and forgot about it. Next thing I know I have won the auction and a proud owner of a Ricoh Theta. I checked out the images on the camera when I got it and get the impression that the person that had it before had not used it much there were a dozen photos on it starting with some test ones I’m guessing it probably only ever took the 12.

I have been carrying it about for a few weeks now in an attempt to get get a feel for what pictures work and what does not. You need to be a bit careful with which way you point it because you can end up with side dark and one light, so I try to keep the sun to the side so that each camera get the same amount of light. Another issue is that it is impossible to take a picture that does not include your arm, hand and thumb on the camera button, but there are a couple of solutions to these issues, the first is to get a selfie camara holder basically a telescopic stick with a tripod mount on the end, this puts you further away from the camera so taking up less room in the picture, the other method is to use the phone app to take pictures remotely using wifi.

I have an Android phone and there is an app in the Play store for the Theta, which appears to be pretty robust. The Ricoh Theta has built in wifo and acts as an access point, which you pair with your phone then you can access the theta to download and share your photo’s. You can also take pictures remotely, and have a choice of Auto mode, Shutter priority and ISO priority and you can adjust the exposure -2.0 to +2.0EV in 1/3EV Steps. You can also do interval shooting which would be useful for timelapse or hyperlapse sequences. As I said the resolution is not great especially when you view the images full screen but it is really convenient and I and sure to have some fun with it, and the price was good.

I also create panorama pictures by stitching together photo’s using a product called PTGui, my strategy is to take three sets of photos, 6 around at 60 degree intervals and then one up (the zenith shot) and one down (the nadir shot), the sets are at different exposures -2.0EV 0EV and +2.0EV then the software stitches them and uses the exposures to produce an HDR image. The best way is to take the pictures using a tripod and a special bracket which allows the lens to be rotated around the Nodal point of the lens, which avoids parallax issues. However carrying around a tripod is a pain so I also carry a plumb bob and use that to get as close as possible. I have the Pro version of the software so I am able to make corrections for the view point of the camera, which is needed for the plumb bob method as well as the Nadir shot of the tripod method if you want to avoid having the tripod in shot. The brackets can be expensive circa £250 but I managed to make a reasonable one from an ABS pipe coupling, and a tripod and a quick release adapter.

Finally I needed a way to be able to easily display the panorama in all their glory on my site. You may have noticed that in a previous post http://neilbaldwin.nettarka-trail-bike-ride/ I had embedded some photospheres from Google which had contributed to Google Street view, I did not like the way that they were presented and they don’t always work on iPads etc. I have been looking for a pure HTML 5 solution for a while now. There are quite a few commercial packages with lots of features but I just wanted a simple solution, and the other day I found one it is called Pannellum it is open source and free of charge and does the job nicely. It took me a while to get it sorted working out what should go where and the best size for the images. One thing that threw me was that images on flickr threw an error but it turns out that Flickr is the one at fault because they return a strange thing in the get requests which makes the browser complain about a cross site scripting error. Anyway it turns out that images on Google work fine and I publish my photospheres there any how.

My next project will be to create a PHP function to use the code so that I can publish my collection of Church photospheres on a dedicated website. I want to store the the details in a searchable database so that people can search for churches and then see the inside of them. you will need to watch this space for news of that project, but in the mean time you can see the waiting images on my Google plus site here https://www.google.com/maps/views/profile/116324611784531709687?gl=gb&pv=1&tab=1 enjoy.

A circular walk from Croyde to Sauton and back

Three of us (the men) decided a walk would be preferable to a shopping trip, so we thought a walk to Suanton Sands for lunch and back again looked like a good idea. We headed into Croyde and then hit the beach and headed up between the dunes where the stream flows onto the beach, from there you can pick up a foot path that heads to the center of Croyde, along Carpenters Lane, rather than having to walk along the road. When we hit the main road J went to grab his Telegraph from the post office while T and I waited.

Head out of Croyde by taking Cloutmans Lane which turns into Milkaway Lane, perhaps because they used it to get the milk to town possibly? Take a right branch onto Pathdown lane, a suitable name had we been going in the other direction. It was a steep climb but meant that we got all the hard up hill out of the way at the beginning of the walk always the best option in my opinion. Eventually you get to the top of the hill which is wide and round, but at the very summit you have views all around. Over the top the foot path signs are mounted on large gate posts we speculated whether people ogt lost in the fog up there and whether veering off the path could lead to a fall off a cliff.

It would be mainly down hill from now on, we headed down to Saunton Court a very large house with a very manucured expansive lawn and garden, where you walk down the drive and eventually get to the main road at which point (according to the map) there was a vague path which you could pick up if you walked into the golf course club house area. We were a bit worried about being told to get out of the golf course but followed the road to the clubhouse then the signs to the driving range, were a trodden path headed down the back of some houses and parallel to the road and in the direction of the cafe at Saunton Sands.

It was time for lunch so we decided on the Cafe with the terrace who were more than happy to allow the dog. The cafe is run by the Hotel above and the smart waiters in all black seemed very good at their job. I order a coffee to go with my Smoked fish anti-pasto platter/starter, Mr T had the meat anti-pasto and J had spaghetti bolognese. The food took quite some time to arrive but the sit down after the long walk and the lovely weather was welcome anyway. The food when it turned up was excellent. I managed to leave my phone there when we left but realised very soon and was able to retrieve it by retracing only 100m or walking.

Again the walk started with a steep section up to the hotel over the road onto the foot path which climed a bit more to get above the road which it followed all the way to the end of the finger of land which ended at Downend, where we had to turn the corner and then walk back the way we cam up the road for about 75 yards, to follow the coastal path around the point and onto the beach at Croyde. We crossed the beach on the harder sand hwere the sea had been at high tide for an easier walk. Back at the hut we had a peaceful rest of the afternoon updating blogs and reading.

The ladies had followed us to the Cafe at Saunton and the service was even slower for them they they waited an hour while the waiters forgot their order then they were given their drinks for free as an apology. We had fish and chips for tea from Braunton.

Tarka Trail bike ride

Activity number four was to be a bike ride, split into two teams and five of us went for a bike ride from Fremington on the Tarka Trail. We rented bikes from http://www.biketrail.co.uk/Biketrail_Home.htm where found the bikes to be reasonably priced and well maintained, i.e. everything was tight tyyes hard, gears changed and brakes worked. We got ourselves helmets and headed down the Tarka Trail.

According to the sustrans website : “The Tarka Trail is one of the country’s longest continuous traffic-free walking and cycling paths, and forms part of the Devon Coast to Coast Cycle Route.”. it is a great place for a bike ride as it is fla because it follows for the section we were on the route of and disused railway track that hugged the estuary edge along the Devon coast.

After 30 minutes we stopped for a coffee at a shack at the entrance to a £5 beach car park.It was not an ideal spot as the wind was blowing and with the dry weather dust was being blow about, however the hot chocolate I had was nice. Back on the trail we actually hit a very slight incline as we got towards what would have been Bideford station where we could have stopped for lunch at a pub but it was a bit early, soe we cycled on by, our aim was to get to the Puffing Billy pub a place we had stopped at the previous occasion that we used the Tarka Trail.

The trail does have some slight inclines and descents especially when it crosses land which is does a few times when the river meanders and the railway takes the more direct route. The trail often crosses the river on a bridge at those points and they are usually populated by fishermen, who had caught a few crabs but we did not see any evidence of fish. Eventually we arrived at Puffing Billy bit after using he facilities we found out that the new owners only had soft drinks, sausage rolls and pasties to offer. We then had a dilemma do we carry on to the next place or turn back to the pub we had passed earlier.

We opted for the pub as they was a sure bet and the other two options, carry on or cycle up steep hill, all had risks. Risks that the two girls would not like cycling up hill and then after having cycled up hill (or not) the place not serving food as it was getting towards 14:00. It did not take long t get back to the pub as we were all hungry and it seemed that there was a very slight incline in our favour. The food at the pub was of good quality and generous portions, if it was not salad/sandwich then it was deep fried but done very well. I had a cheese and pickle sandwich which was essentially the same as the ploughmans that Mr T had but the cheese was between the bread I got all the same trimmings. Two of us had scampi and chips which looked very nice too. All in all a very nce lunch and the half of bitter went down a treat.

On the way back we stopped off at Bideford beach for an ice cream and a slightly alternate route along the sea front and then rejoined the trail again. We were soon back at the cycle rental place in Fremington at about 16:30 in plenty of time for the 17:00 deadline when the establishment shuts up shop. We had cycled about 24 miles and spent best part of a leisurely day doing it.

We had a salad/buffet evening meal prepared by H&C and foraged by N&A, followed by an exciting episode of Bake Off.

Activity number three sea kayaking near Ilfracombe

Mr T fancied some sea kayaking and C was up for it, I threw myself into the mix we had the minimum of three people required for a couple of hours paddling along the coast. The rendez-vous was at 12:30 in a car park at Helle Bay just the other side of Ilfracombe. We had a leisurely start with the late appointment and took our time over breakfast. I filled some of the time taking some local panorama photo sets.

The drive to the Helle Bay took only 30 minutes compared to our estimated 40 minutes so we were very early. The guy taking us for the paddle was a bit early too. We were soon into our wetsuits but I had managed to leave my car keys in my shorts pocket, so a partial wetsuit removal was required. We had a fairly long walk to the waters edge carrying kayaks which made the arms burn a bit a good preparation for the paddling? Once there we had the obligatory safety brief and instructions on what to do in the very unlikely event that we were to fall out of the kayaks, and that a clenched fist means I need help.

We jumped in the kayaks and headed out to sea, the water was a bit choppy compared to the mill pond we had left over in Croyde. We were about a hundred yards out when C decided enough was enough the kayak seat did not suit her hip and could not last two hours on discomfort. We paddled back in then Mr T and I then shared the double and headed back out again.

The seas was quite choppy and paddling was hard again the wind and out of the bay to the north but once around the corner and in the lee of the wind it was much calmer. We kept close to the shoreline and worked our way in and out of the rocky shore. The guide also took coasteering parties around the area so knew his way in and out of the inlets. After about 45 minutes we turned around the plan was to head across the bay and south towards Ilfracombe. The sea was now more choppy but with the wind behind us we were soon across the bay, and into the rocks. The wave direction and currents between the rocks meant were were whisked along just passengers. I remember thinking it is going to be hard work paddling back against the current and wind. We did some more looking at the rocks and visited a couple of caves one with an interesting circulr poo which was called the washing machine, then headed back.

We had to paddle hard to get through the worse bits and then turned around and landed on a beach for a rest while the guide explained how the rock arch we were near had partially collapsed during the severe winter storms of 2013/14. The break was welcome I had not realised how much of a strain sitting and paddling was on the core, my upper leg muscles were glad of the 5 minutes rest. We got back in the kayak for the final push to shore we had to cross out into the middle of the bay to avoid the waves crashing on the rocks to the south of the bay, but this mean that we had to paddle against the swell, which when you are low in a kayak seem much higher than the are, they looked about 5 foot but probably more like 3 peak to trough. We obviously survived and being back on dry land was welcome.

We went back to the hut and then had a leisurely rest for the remainder of the day. We had pasta cooked my myself.

Stand up surf boarding SUP

Against my better judgement I agreed to have a go at SUP (stand up surfing), which is basicslly standing on an over sized surf board with a a paddle. I imagined that I would spend a considerable amount of time climbing back on to the board then, attempting to stand up followed by falling off the baord and starting the whole process again.

The lesson was booked for 10:30 which was arounf high tide which was very convenient as the seas would be closer to the top of the beach and therefore less of a walk with a large surfboard to get to the water. They booked us in and got us to sign our lives away using the insurance indemnity form, issued us with a wetsuit of roughly the right size. Getting the wetsuit on was a bit of a struggle as I am not a regular user but despite it being damp and clod I managed to get the thing stretched over my body.

Next was the obligatory briefing where they explained that we were about to stand on a surfboard and use a paddle to move about, and that the sea was a dangerous place and should be respected, in fact it was like a mill pond. We carried the boards down to the sea which take quite and effort there is a handle at the center of gravity of the board, so basically you can only use one arm to carry it. I had to stop a few times to rest my arm.

Once at the waters edge we had a another brief this time on the techniques, i.e. how to get on the board (we knew how to get off) how to use the paddle how to steer etc, eventually we were allowed into the water. It was not long before we were stood up on the board which turned out to be not that difficult, but it was also not long before we learnt how to climb back on the board when we were out of standing depth. The wind was blowing off shore and because our technique was poor meant we were soon quite a way from the shore. Andy out instructor encouraged us to practice the turning technique he had show us and head a bit closer into to the bay.

We spent some time paddling, falling, standing up and I was soon glad they the lesson was only for one hour, as towards the end it was becoming a bit of an effort climbing back onto the board, as the falling in became quite frequent as I was attempting to use the small breaking waves to “surf” towards the shore, but mainly failed to do. Luckily we only had to carry one of the boards back to the surf school building as there was one guy on the next lesson.

Back at the hut we had a coffee and a sandwich then Helen and I headed across the bay to do sme ook pooling and panorama photo’s. John was on cooking duties and we had giant stuffed butternut squash, veggie sausages and green beans which was very tasty.

Real day one of the holiday in Croyde

First day of holiday has to start with a good walk with a view of the sea today would not be and exception. We were up relatively early after a sensible time going to bed. A leisurely break fast saw myself, Helen and Helen’s dad leave the house at 09:30 heading north up the coast path around the headland to Pulborough sands, where we had a coffee at the campsite/seaside cafe.

The return journey took us over the headland and down a very old track, you could see three ruts in the bedrock, one in the middle wide and shallow and two eaither side narrow and deep, clearly made by a horse and cart. We also spotted many Red Admiral butterflies feasting on the flowering ivy plants which they seem to love. Apparently they migrate back to Morocco when they have had their fill.

In the afternoon I had a walk across the rocks and then the beach with my camera, and took a panorama set looking back to land which turned out better than I expected. The sea was quite calm so the surfers where not getting a long run in, but I guess it was ideal conditions to learn. Back at the hut we decided to pop to the Manor pub in town which looked good from the menu we found on line, but in reality the food was not great, I like to think that it was probably because it was a Sunday and the pub had been busy all day.

Tour of Britain and start of holiday in Croyde Devon

The tour of Britain was passing through the area and I had the day off so I thought I would go and have a look. After consulting the maps for the route I figured Kop Hill, a category 2 climb, would be the best place to see them as they would be going slower on the ascent. I figured that parking spaces would be at a premium in the area so I needed to have a plan. Looking at the ap there is a parking area about a mile away on a parallel road with a foot path leading to the whiteleaf car park.

Before heading out for the race I had and appointment with Roman Britain. There was an open day on Bishops field where an archaeology dig has been going on before a new housing estate is inserted into the space. There is an obvious track way across the field where the ditches which bordered the road showed up darker. The road was part of the Icknield way. They had some interesting finds on top of the usual bits of pot and animal ones they found a skeleton of a woman and in another spot the skeleton of a small child. I met up with Helen and parents to have a look around, and gave them a lift home on may way to Kop Hill.

Tour of Britain Bike Race 2014 on Kop Hill Buckinghamshire

On the way to to my parking spot, i had to negotiate many cyclists down the narrow country lanes. The parking area was about two thirds full probably unusual for a week day, so others had probably had a similar idea. The foot path was a familiar as I have walked in the area quite a few times in the past. It took about 25 minutes to get over to the whiteleaf parking area and I was glad that I parked else where as the car park was overflowing on the road leading to it. A short walk following the crowds that were gathering got me to the top of Kop hill where I walked down a few hundred yards to get to the steepest section, whch would make getting photographs easier as the cyclists would be going a bit slower.

It was not long before we saw some action, marshals and police on motor bikes and the odd official car drove ast and everyone cheered them by. There was not much room on the road due to spectators and it was not yet closed to traffic s the odd car tried to negotiate us who were spilling on to the tarmac. Eventually the motor bikes and cars got more frequent then word went out that there was a break away 6 minutes ahead of the bunch, and they were not far off. As if on queue they then appeared hauling them selves up the steepest part of the hill, then some minutes later the buch appeared passed and then the stragglers trying to keep ahead of the broom wagon passed followed by all the team cars and it was all over and very everyone started to disperse. I walked back to the car headed home again negotiating cyclists on the way, my next job was to pack for our holiday week in Croyde Devon.

Fairly early start on Saturday we picked up Helen’s parents and the dog and got away on schedule at 10:00, destination, Clevedon and Tyntesfield National Trust, which was just past half way on the journey and beyond Bristol a pinch point for M4/M5 travellers. We made good time and the roads although fairly busy kept moving all the way until we turned off towards Tyntesfield. Helen and I had been to Tyntesfield before when we had the good fortune to be able to say the weekend in the house when R who works for the National TRust was house sitting to give the property manager a weekend break.

We arrived at the house from a different direction the last time we visited from above the house on the Farm side, where they had built a large parking area. The place was pretty familiar as I had previously been for a run around the grounds. We headed straight to the cafe for a coffee and to get a slot to look around the house, we managed to get a 13:00-14:00 entrance slot which suited us perfectly. After coffee Helen loked after the dog while went with her parents around the house. The house was exactly as I remembered it not much had been moved, and I even got to see the bedrooomwe had used those years ago.

I managed to get a few panorama sets one f the chapel which although needs some further processing came out well, despite the low light, people in the way and having to hand hold the shots. We found Helen outside the cafe, and we left the property at 14:30 which would get us to Croyde for a bout 17:00. The going was good n the motorway but we got stuck behind a few lorries on the single carriage road, with very few overtaking opportunities. We arrived at the house just before 17:00 the sat nav took us down some very small roads for the last couple of miles.

I cooked a really tasty minestrone soup for tea the recipe came from the Guardian saturday cook section. It was mirepoix with tomatoes, green beans, grated courgette,canneloni beans, and spinach stirred in at the end, it was a very hearty soup with not much stock. I will most likely do the soup when we are home and freeze it for eating during the week.