Photo taken at: Holborn tube station
Tag: UK
Hastings and what you find in a typical British sea town
I went for a photography meetup on Sunday and the trip went to Hasting. Hasting is a about 2 hours from London by train and while it is an ok place with cliffs, fishing boats and of course the sea, I still prefer Eastbourne (Beachy Head) and Brighton.
The weather was perfect (my face is still red) but somehow I wasn’t 100% motivated to take photos so they are not all great. But I am very happy with the above young seagull photo. I love the colours.
I think in the end the theme for me became taking photos of typical things on a British beach.
So we have seagulls, women in bikini (and I will leave it up to you if that is a good thing or not …), men putting up windscreens, deck chairs, swan water bikes and families with fish and chips (and the man wearing a t-shirt saying – “If found – return to the pub” ).
Surprisingly enough Hastings also has two Funiculars.
Weirdest photo of the day must be this bear:
It looks incredibly sad and depressed. Understandable if you have a hole in your belly and are attached to a red tractor.
Cameras, cancelled moves and the coast
Just a small practical anouncement: I am not moving to Notting Hill. I removed the previous post, I am not getting into any details, it is just not going to happen. Not now anyway, I will keep my eyes open for other chances.
I bought a new pocket camera, a Panasonic T4. It replaces my Canon Ixus, a camera I have never been happy about. The Panasonic is small enough to fit in your pocket, has 10x zoom and I have been giving it a test drive the last couple of days.
Both in London, and today on a trip to the Eastbourne coast. It did remarkably well. The built in image stabilization really works well and I haven’t been able to get shaky pictures yet. That’s something new after the Canon. Click on the images for the full size!
Daily morning tube station on my way to work
And the new art work in front of the Channel 4 building. I like the colourful umbrellas. They had to repair it after a windy day, some of the umbrellas didn’t survive.
Low tide near Beachy Head with two tiny people walking around on the sand. Looks a bit like the fjords in Norway from here.
Still one of my favourite lighthouses in the UK
because of it’s great location
in front of the white cliffs (Spot more tiny people on the top of the cliffs)
and in the water.
Say Yes more and No less
- No: I am OK with Organic food, but this “Sparkling Delicious organic Cola” is not Sparkling and as far from Delicious as it can be, it is the worst tasting cola I have ever tasted. So that’s a no. Never again. Yuk.
- Yes is what I said to a Tweatup (Twitterers eat and meet up) last Saturday. This meant that I had a late but great lunch in a great Indian restaurant in East London last weekend. I had never been in that area before, and I have never tried Indian food like this, it was like the Indian version of tapas. Very recommended!
Address:
Vijay’s Chawalla
268-270 Green Street, Forest Gate,
E7 8LF London(Tube: Upton Park)
- On Wednesday I have said yes to a pop quiz in a pub in Soho with 3 (that’s 3 the mobile phone company). Pub/Pop quizzes are so typical British, I have never really been to one in a pub before, so in stead of declining I am going. I can always leave if it turns into a big drink fest. I will report back on how it was, I consider it a part of my British education. And apart from that, there is always a chance that I pick up some inspiration for future writings.
And I am generally going to say yes more. I won’t go as far as becoming a Yes Man, but I think I need to push myself a bit and go and do some things that I have not tried before.
- And phew – I have a first serious response on my flatmate ad (that’s for the flat where I currently live). I will be away this weekend, but will hopefully meet with her soon after the weekend. She sounds promising!
- And as you might have noticed, the coffee cup is gone, I was so tired of it. I went back to a more minimal look, and finally feel the logo looks right in this design. I will have a proper spring cleanup in the sidebar soon too. For now it has to do? Like it?
What new things have you tried (or are going to try) recently?
42 (+ 2 days)
It’s really not bad to spend your 42nd birthday with your best friend in a cafe in Widecombe-In-The-Moor having a cream tea that looked as good as this and tasted as good too.
We also visited Princetown which is known for the prison. And if you have seen Lucky Break (which of course you have, as Bill is in it) then you might recognize the prison. Lucky Break has partly been shot in Dartmoor Prison.
In Princetown I had my first Knickerbocker Glory ever (good experience) in a cafe built in their old police station.
And we also visited Exmouth which is a lovely town on the coast. And Budleigh which is an even lovelier small town on the coast with a pebbled beach and red cliffs in stead of the white chalky ones. Most importantly here though is that they sell the best ice cream I have tasted in Britain so far.
My birthday was perfect, and my weekend was too.
Last year I was hoping that the year ahead would have me make my short film. I did not quite manage to pull that off but I am still quite confident that SweetArts will be shot in October this year.
Weymouth, Portland Bill, Durdle Door
The view from my B&B room in Weymouth Saturday morning around 8am (yes zoom lens and a room with sea view very close to the beach). It didn’t look very promising so we headed to a cafe for a coffee and the Saturday Guardian. I think the dogs are more depressed because of the ridiculous jackets they are wearing than because of the rain.
A couple of hours later …
Wonderful Weymouth and beautiful Bill
I think it is fair to conclude that the English south coast is beautiful no matter where you go. The same goes for the light houses!
UK Coast: Bognor Regis
I went to Bognor Regis, and I had a good day.
Bognor Regis is much smaller and therefore much less touristy than Brighton. The weather was marvellous, and I haven’t done much more than walk to a nearly empty piece of the pebbled beach, sit/lay down, stare over the beautiful blue sea, sniffed up the fresh sea air, waved at Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, and read my book.
Bognor Regis is typical example of a British beach site: a long promenade, several fish and chips shops, ice cream, a (not very interesting) pier, and lots of pebbles.
Pebbled beaches are so convenient. You have to wiggle a bit to find a comfortable place to sit/lay down but: no sand in your shoes, bag, book or socks!
On my way home from the nearly empty train I spotted:
42 cows
149 bunnies!
2 foxes
But no sheep. The sheep on the picture are walking around on the Isle of Man. I took several photos of the sheep there, and funny enough, on nearly every single one of them there is one sheep looking directly into the camera, as if to say:
“What are you looking at?”
Or “You are wearing such a weird coat!”
Or “Why do you have only 2 legs?”
Or maybe “Why are you not eating grass?”
If the weather stays like this next weekend, I’ll be off again. Littlehampton, Rye, Portsmouth and many more places are waiting out there. It’s good to live on an island.
Reasons to visit the Isle of Man – 1
What more do you want me to say? You need to have your priorities straight.
Award winning Davisons: The best Luxury Manx Dairy Ice Cream, made on the Isle of Man.
You can get them in Peel which has one of the finest Ice Cream Parlours in the UK.
Enough said.
The Isle of Man – an impression
A photographic impression of The Isle of Man. Maybe you will understand why I want to go back it is really wonderful.
Lighthouse Lunatic
With a long bank holiday approaching last Friday and the weather being lovely, I decided to escape London, again, and impulsively booked myself into a friendly B&B in Dover.
Pause a while and muse
A train at 9.47am on a Sunday morning – after a short night and weather that could not be more depressing – demanded a lot of willpower. But I had my book and the prospect of a train trip, and even if it was going to be rain all day, that was enough to have me leave my bed and hop on board to Eastbourne. The BBC promised heavy showers all day.
While approaching Eastbourne it magically cleared up and the grey clouds turned into sunshine and while setting a first few steps on a very steep hill in the direction of Beachy Head I discovered a couple of things:
I really need to work on my condition
Love never ends
and most importantly
I live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
Warning: Lots of pictures in this post.
Dear Britons
You know I love you
I always will
My mind’s made up
By the way that I feel
There’s no beginning
There’ll be no end
But there’s one thing
I don’t understand!
Look at this picture. This picture is taken in the toilet of a cinema in Chelsea, but trust me, I could have taken it lots of other places too. At home for example. Or at work. Or in a cafe.
I feel stupid, because I don’t get it. Here is the issue that has been mindboggling me more or less since I moved here:
Why are there 2 separate taps for hot and cold water?
And why are they so far apart that you have to move your hands from burning hot to freezingly cold?
I accept driving on the wrong side of the road, drinking tea the Milky Way, bangers and mash, I even accept Marmite – but this I don’t get. Please help me out here.