Interesting – Page 5 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Trans-Atlantic cables at Porthcurno

The weather was predicted to get a bit colder and the wind would be from the north so we took the opportunity to head south to Porthcurno. It took about 35 minutes to drive there, and the roads became narrower the closer we got. We had to reverse up as we got to the car park to let a bus through, but not before a BMW had forced its way through.

There were two adjacent dark parks, and we noticed before we parked that the one for the museum was £5 for the day but the council one was £6.40. We parked at the museum but had no change so I had to walk up the hill to the museum entrance to ask them for some change, they were very obliging even more reason to use their car park, and proceeds of the parking go to the museum which is all good to.

Our plan was a walk along the coast path, and possibly the museum after. The museum is all about communication and the history of the cables that circle the world. We visited it some years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.

At the bottom of the expensive car park we followed the path to the beach but took a left fork up the coast path. We knew the path was step because we have done it before. The sun was out and light layers were the order of the day. The air was clear when you looked west and the sea a lovely shade of turquoise, and there was hardly a breath of wind. At times in exposed places a fresh breeze was welcome especially after a long climb in the heat.

Eventually we got to our intended destination Penberth cove where there is a working fishing village, with a stone quay where the boats are winched up out of the water. We sat on a bench for a rest before talking the very step path back out of the cove and back along the path we had just descended. Our destination was Logan rock about half way back where we could have lunch with a view.

We had our sandwiches on the narrow price of lad that leads to Logan Rock. You get a great view of the beach at Porthcurno in the distance. We also opted a nudist on what looked like and inaccessible beach (perhaps he swam there?). It was difficult to tell given the distance and despite binoculars but we decided it was a male. He was lying on a rock, in plane sight. We spotted seem canoeists heading his way and their presence made home hide his dignity.

I crossed the narrow bit of land to see if I could get to the rock. It took some doing especially with my camera in one hand. But I got almost to the rock before turning back and taking a couple of panorama sets.

Fishermans cottage Penberth Cove Cornwall

Here is some information from Wikipedia about he Logan Rock. “The Logan Rock (Cornish: Men Omborth, meaning balanced stone) near the village of Treen in Cornwall, England, UK, is an example of a logan or rocking stone. Although it weighs some 80 tons, it was dislodged in 1824 by a group of British seamen, intent on showing what the Navy could do. However following complaints from local residents for whom the rock had become a tourist attraction and source of income, the seamen were forced to restore it. Today the stone still rocks but it takes a lot of effort.”

We were quite tired by the time we got back to the car so we gave the museum a miss. We headed around the cost past lands end to St Just where we fondly remembered a great coffee shop, and we hoped it would still be there. The parking is free (yes free) in St Just, and the cafe is still there. We had a coffee each and I flicked though an interesting book that had some very detailed theories to explain that the twin towers collapse was caused by weather and magnetic storms and the like. Very strange I though as it was clear from the video footage that airplanes had hit the tower and that was in my mind the reason for them falling down.

We had a walk around the church yard and the church it self and had a look at the rest of the town, then we got back to the car and headed back to Hayle via the coast road. The north end of Cornwall is very isolated with few houses and only a couple of farms that can be seen from the road. Back in the Hayle we got stuck in a queue to leave the town so we popped into the Coop to get some food for tea. Quorum sausages in a bun was what we ended up having.

St Michaels Mount and a quick dip in the Sea

Didn’t get up till 09:00 which is unusual for us. There are a lot of places to visit within a short drive at this end of the South west peninsula, so we decided that St Michaels mount was only 20 minutes drive and we have never been before.

The mount is well sign posted when you get close, and there is plenty of parking. One tip is that there is parking nearer the ferry boats you don’t have to park at the first one you find. National trust member do not get preferential treatment and have to pay for the parking,

A 5 minute walk got us to the Orange jetty which was in use a the time we arrived. You can use a causeway at low tide but it would only be cross able early evening and we were there a few hours off high tide, so we would have to get the boat. There are quite a few boats who very people across the bay to the mount, and they could not load the passengers quick enough. I imagine it is quite a good business if you can get the licence or franchise.

The boat across costs £2 per person each way which seems reasonable. They drop you off in the harbour of the mount, then you can choose between the castle or the gardens first. We choose the castle which turns out to be a very steep walk. The castle is still home to the landed gentry whose family inherited it, but there are plenty of room to look around, and lots of antique weapons on display.

We did the house and then worked our way down the cobbled path back to the harbour where we had lunch at the sail loft restaurant, and sandwich each was great. Next up was the gardens which are mainly on the south side of the island, I guess that is where the sun shines. Again there was a lot of walking up and down cobbled paths , but the flowers and terraces were looking great with all the spring flowers. Helen chose to sit on the grass at the bottom while I did the gardens.

We queued for the boat which did not take long the boats seem to be able to load people in about a minute or two and the boats queue up too. Near the car park was an RSPB reserve so we took the opportunity to have a wander around. There was not much about, Helen heard chiffchaff and saw a reed bunting. We grabbed some food at the local M&S on the way ack to the hut.

Helen decided that she wanted to go for a swim, so I went down to the beach to hold her shoes, and take some photos as the atmosphere was clear and good for pics. It turns out the water was cold, so Helen only managed to get wet up to her waist.

The smell of rotting seaweed

Bank holiday Monday we decided to do a walk from the hut to save having to battle with traffic and parking. We left the hut a a reasonable 09:30, and headed north across the beck towards where the Red River hits the beach an d the Godrevy car park is, twin we headed up the coastal path towards Godrevy Point then on to Navax Point.

There were plenty of flowers to see on the Cornish walls including Shrift or Sea Pink, Spring Squill, and Sheep’s Bit. At Mutton Cove thee is an inaccessible beach where we saw a load of seals hanging out on the beach doing that thing where they lie on their site and lift there heads and tails, it looks very uncomfortable but they seem to do it naturally.

We were hoping to take a track and footpath to avoid some of an inevitable bit of road but it was not clear that it was a right of way so we ended up taking the road for about half a mile back to the Red River, and a welcome coffee at the cafe on the National Trust car park. It was a short walk across the dunes back to the hut it passed through the local nature reserve where we saw a reed bunting on the small reed bed.

Back at the hut we had a rest and watched the surfers withy Madmen in the background, then we thought we we have a drive to Portreath. An interesting place and apparently the busiest port in Cornwall, however the tide was out and the smell from the seaweed filled harbour was over powering. The town it self was looking a bit worn at the edges like it had seen better days. There were very few shops to service the many holiday homes.

When we got back to the hut our friend the Herring Gull was sat on the wall. I suspect that someone has fed him in the past and he turns up late afternoon in the hope of being fed again.

St Ives and The Tate

We had a really goods night sleep, but woke up to a rainy day, then Helen realised that she had bought 2 bottles of shampoo rather than one of shampoo and one of conditioner, it meant a trip to the shops. Not such a bad thing when it is a rainy day, we could take the opportunity to to take a drive out and visit an I outdoor venue whilst the could see emptied themselves. We decided that we would take a look at St Ives at least for the morning.

It did not take long to get to St Ives and we took a chance on the parking, we passed a parking at the top of the town but decided to try for one in the town it self. Luckily for us there were two spaces in the small car park almost opposite the Tate St Ives. We head straight for Sid gallery paid our £11 entrance each and headed up to the cafe for a coffee. The view from the cafe is great it is just about above all the roof tops and you can see both sites of the St Ives peninsula. After a coffee we heard down the stairs to the galleries. As you expect from The Tate the art is modern which I find difficult to understand, but we liked some of it and even saw a scheme that might work as a feature wall for our kitchen. Interestingly we got a book in the gift shop with the title “WHY YOUR FIVE YEAR OLD COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT – modern art explained”.

Suitably cultured we headed into town which was easier said than done as the streets are narrow and despite restrictions there is quite a lot of traffic vying for space. We did eventually make to the quay side which was heaving, with people out shopping, or just aimlessly walking about like we were. Helen made a couple of purchase and I bought and artisan loaf of bread for sandwiches at lunch time. It went well with the Cornish blue I purchased on the way down.

We stopped off at M&S on the way back for a couple of evening meals, had a sandwich then headed out for a local walk. There was a sea fret moving in so even though I took my camera I did not have much hope of many pictures. We headed across the black to the far end then headed inland following the Red River, then around a small nature reserve, until we arrived at the village of Gwithian. We had a look around a art exhibition in the village hall, then a quick look at the village church. One thing I notice about the churches is that the bricks are not worn because they are made of granite rather than the chalk around Buckinghamshire, it seemed rude not to have a half at the Red River inn. I had the local summer ale which was Devine.

It was a short walk back to the hut for some more relaxing and dolphin watching. The sunset was stunning.

Bat mobile to Gwithian Cornwall

We booked the the four days following the late bank holiday, but we did not realise that it was half term too, so not only did we pay over the odds for the rental cottage, we would also Ben on Cornwall with a lot more people that we thought we might. We decided to set off at 06:00 to get ahead of most people.

Helen was up at 05:00 and I was up soon after, and we managed a coffee and some toast before leaving the house about 06:05, the planned route A41, M25, M5, finally A30 to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The roads were quite congested when we got to Bristol then more so later on when we got onto the A30. Whilst on the M5 we spotted a Bat mobile on the back of a trailer which we guessed was heading towards a car show, as we saw a few more shiny cars heading in the same direction.

A quick review of the map and we had and alternative route heading south cross country on B roads to St Neot. Taking the B road allowed us to see what appeared to be the Lake District of Cornwall with lakes and rolling hills it was beautiful and an aspect of Cornwall I have never seen before. We noted some horses we guessed were similar to the the ones you see on Dartmoor.

The traffic was quite heavy again on the local roads but we got to the Lost Gardens of Heligan at 12:00. Heligan is a gat place to visit, and have a wander around it is set in a damp valley that is sheltered enough to grow some fairly exotic plants, as well as a lot of rhododendrons which unfortunately we’re past their best by a week of two. The gardens are fairly extensive but principally set in to two distinct areas one is a jungle in the damp valley and the other is formal gardens and vegetable plots. For lunch we had a sandwich each from the Stewards cafe, then it was exit via the expensive farmshop on site and back on the road destination Gwithian via Truro and Redruth.

At some point we passed through some towns and villages with interesting names; Fairy Cross, London Apprentice and Probus spring to mind. We drove through Truro and then stopped at Redruth where I managed to get an long over due haircut, Helen got a watch battery and we found and evening meal for later at the local Tesco. To get to the chalet we rented you have to go to Hayle then turn towards the sea and head back the way you came, the at the end of a two mile road is a group of beach hut like homes ranging from large beach huts to modern takes made mainly from wood.

We took a walk on the beach the weather was warm enough to just need a tshirt. Then we went back to the hut to have something to eat and settle in to watching some Madmen episode on the Amazon Firestick we we had bought with us and connected up to the wifi. Whilst we were watching with a view of the Sean through the windows behind the TV we saw a pod of many Dolphins pass by heading east. We were early to bed it had been a long day but don’t before watching the sunset.

Tropical Nursery tour at Kew Gardens

Special orchid display in the Princess of Wales Conservatory Kew

I noticed on the Ian visits website that there were tours round the Kew gardens tropical nursery so I sent an e-mail off on Thursday but didn’t get a reply the next day so I tried again on Friday. By lunch time I had decided that I not got a place but when on checking my e-mail I noticed that there was a reply from the lady at Kew . It said i should phone her back by 12 o’clock so it looked like it was a bit late however on rereading the e-mail I noticed that it said call by 12 o’clock or just turn up on the day so that’s what I decided to do.

I was up at a reasonable spent hour an tinkering around on the computer then headed off to buy the M25 about town 2 o’clock writing good time on 11 o’clock at the Ferry lane car park. The parking machines were solar powered and apparently there was not enough sun to power them so I had to get the parking ticket at the entrance booths. It is not cheap getting into Kew gardens it cost me £7 to park and £16 50 to get into the gardens on top of that I was having to pay £10 for the tour, however they have been in the new recently due to funding issues so they need all the support they can get. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31715081

The weather was sunny and warm a coat was not necessary iI spent a couple of hours wandering around the park looking at spring flowers taking photos then I stopped off at the Victoria gate cafe for lunch. I have a packet of crisps and a hummus, beetroot and carrot sandwich which was very nice I took them and found a bench in the sun to eat it, as the cafe was heaving with people. There was plenty of wildlife about particularly birds, I spotted lots of Ringed-necked Parakeet, Greater Spotted wood pecker and a couple of Jays. As I was walking along the edge of the lake I spotted a fat looking squirrel eating a nut sat on a branch of a bush. I stood and watched tit for a while it seemed quite tame and I was able to get within 2 metre of it. The it moved towards me ran up my leg and and then onto my rucksack had a look around realised there was nothing to eat then head back down the way it had come.

I took the long route round to the White Peaks cafe and shop which was the agreed meet up for the special tour of the Tropical nursery. I arrived at the allotted time and we hung around for 10 minutes, then the nice volunteer took all 9 of us into the largest green house in a botanical park in, I’m not sure if she said United Kingdom, Europe or the World. In any case it was very extensive. The tour was very informative and the works had left out examples of Succulent, Carnivorous, rare and Orchid plants which the guide knew all about, and was very good and explaining to us. After the tour I headed home.

Sample of succulent plants in the Tropical Nursery Kew

A very nice lunch at Wisley RHS

We had a Sunday to ourselves and following a recommendation from my parents, I suggested Wisley RHS might be worth a try. The weather forecast was overcast with a promise of some breaks on the could and it was the middle of winter, not the best time to visit a garden, but we threw caution to the wind.

I picked Helen up after church at about 1020 then we headed off around the M25, the road to all venues. I missed the turning off of the A3 so we had the pleasure of visiting a plane called Burpham! The detour was slight and we were soon parking up. Given the time of year the car park was surprisingly busy we were in the last few rows of the third and final car park.

I had checked out the membership options on the RHS site, and enquired whether the single membership which allowed for a “family guest” would stretch to letting the wife in, it did so £42 later I had one year’s entrance. Given that adults pay £12 all I had to do was to visit twice on my own or once more with Helen and we were quids in.

We took a look at the map and decided that the cafe at the far side of the entrance was the place to head for as it was more or less coffee time. The cafe was heaving by the time we got there it seemed like every Londoner had decided to have coffee or lunch at the Wisley RHS cafe. We did however manage to find a table inside amongst the screaming 5 year olds. The coffee and walnut cake was great shared with Helen and the cappuccino was good.

Our next stop would be the glass houses where they had a special feature for the winter, butterflies from exotic lands were in one section. The queue sign suggested a 20 minute wait did not seem like too long, so we waited and it did not. The man controlling the entry said the sun had made the glasshouse hot so people were moving though quite quickly. Once in it was great there were lots of different types of butterfly, most of them much larger than the British varieties. They seemed quite tame too, sitting on leaves and allow me to take their photos.

From the glass house we headed up hill towards the apple tree collection, at the top there is a great view over the site. From there we headed kind of back towards the entrance. We looked in on the alpine area and I took a pan of the small glass house. The bonsai were interesting nearly all were over 50 years old and one was 150 years old, clearly not a hobby you should start a when you’re tire if you want to see the results of your efforts. The veg growing area was impressive and almost inspired me to sort out my two metre square patch at home.

We headed toward the restaurant and cafe for some lunch, it was about 13:10 and the food hall was Ramos but once we had got some food we found a whole courtyard in the the sun where no one wanted to sit, we had the place to ourselves then shared it with another couple. The food we chose was Parmesan butternut squash baked in filo pastry with a celeriac and beetroot coleslaw and a couscous salad, it went down a treat.

After lunch we wandered towards a bird hide in a far corner of the site, where the pines and heather collections are. On the way I suggested that we might see a ringed neck parakeet and would you believe it about a minute later one flew over and perched in a tree ahead. For once I had my binoculars with me and we got a good look. I have seen enough now to be able identify them was they fly over, with tree long tails and fast fighter jet like flight. There is a public footpath that runs through that part of the park and the park path goes under a bridge to allow the path to be bordered by chain link fence and barbed wired, then strangely at the other end you can get into the park with just a sign suggesting you should not and a couple of CCTV cameras as a deterrent.

We had to exit via the gift shop which was very comprehensive, and had a good book department which along with all the other tut meant that Helen spent some time browsing then spending (ed: Helen was ushered too fast out of said gift shop!). I did buy a device that allows eggs to be decapitated. The journey home was smooth and without traffic issues, we chose the M40 Beaconsfield route just for a change. I will look forward to visiting again throughout the year to see how the plants and flowers change throughout.

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.

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.