Looking back on the walk up to Tintwistle Knarr

I Did not feel energetic today so Lynne and I walked up to Tintwistle Knarr to look at the heather in flower and then straight back down again. We stopped to look at butterflies and to admire the view.

I went for another walk, it is becoming a habit like smoking, I will give it up after this seven week holiday. I took a photo. You can tell I need to get back to work I am getting illusions of being creative. It is another flower an umbellifer. It will be a retirement project to identify some of them.

Lynne and I went for a walk on the moors yesterday evening and on our way down we found a small, sheltered, grass covered quarry that is used by young people. We rather liked this bit of graffiti. In fact we liked it enough to pick up a couple of beer cans they had left to leave it looking nice.

A rare event Kate, Lena, Lynne and Mike in the same place at the same time. We visited my parents in Waddington- family photograph. We also made a visit to Bradford and Saltaire. There were retail opportunities!

Our last diving trip to Lanzarote was blown out by high winds. This one was a lot more successful I dived everyday and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We used a RIB so it was no walking, just roll over the side of the boat. The Lava tubes were great to dive in and between and we were surprised by the number of fish. I had promised that I would not take photographs in my first year of diving so I would concentrate on diving skills. A camera did make diving a lot more difficult but I loved doing it. I spent considerable time on photoshop afterwards getting the colours right. And video is another set of skills again which I have not started to learn.

My first underwater photographs

I am just back from a great school trip to the Peak District. The children were well behaved and loved it, the weather was good and the staff fun to be with. I spent a lot of the week with Jake a boy who had been blind from birth. He took part in every activity and described it as the best week he had ever had in school. I think it was the best week of my year in school as well.

I took less photographs than usual as I was with Jake.

We have waited a long time to see these little birds. We were in the right place at the right time. The Arctic terns were not so pleased to see us. We took a short boat trip to a Farne Island.

The photographs

I have been here a lot of times. The sky is big, driving is fun, the climbing is on a small scale yet exhilarating and it is beside the sea. It rained all Saturday so we stopped off at the YSP and looked at the David Nash work that was inside and out of the rain. It rained most of Sunday and then the sun came out. Haley, Pete, Mike, Lynne, Ali and Mike hired a house in Wooler and most of us did a lot of climbing.

Ali and Lynne at Bowden Doors click on image to get the God’s own county effect

See the photographs of Bowden Doors and YSP

A crag within walking distance of the house that was once the most popular crag in the Peak District due to its closeness to the railway station. It is now a place that people rarely climb. I have never been there. The conditions were right, no rain for weeks and no one around to suggest to me that an hour walk in was unreasonable for a Peak District Gritstone crag.

We did The long Climb S 4a, Pillar Ridge HS 4b and Tower face VS 5a. Two hours of walking, some climbing, perigrine falcons, hardly any driving and some sun. What more could one ask for.

The photographs

An exciting day diving on the Thistlegorm. An early start, problems with the boat and the swell. The diving was excellent.

The photographs

It is me on Shadow Wall Carreg Wastad! photograph Ali Smigova

I went to Wales with Lynne, Ali, Mike, Pete and Haley. A weekend that was a regular trip in the late 70s and 80s. It was fun to do a couple or routes feeding off the excitement of some younger people who were doing them for the first time. We decided to camp (more…)

I promised myself that I would not take photographs underwater until I was a good enough diver to be able to manage the diving without much thought so I could concentrate on the camera settings. I am getting there but I dived with people that have done hundreds of dives David Salgo and Swiss Robinson. I have taken their photographs, they were diving with me when most of these were taken, played with them in Photoshop and produced this album.

Dahab and Sharm photographs – Swiss Robinson and David Salgo

26 dives and 23 hours underwater, I like diving

Above water photographs

Our last holiday had an exiting start with storms, this one was the same.

The photographs

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My knee was hurting so I could not do what I wanted to do. I would have liked to have gone climbing but Pete was painting his and Haley’s bathroom and Lynne has had thirty years experience of saying NO if I suggest she should hold my ropes in a Stoney Middleton quarry. She says NO in the summer and when it is freezing…. The weather was perfect, a beautiful deep blue sky and no wind. I went for a slow walk, hoping to take some pictures of birds. We had seen in the garden groups of long tailed tits this morning so I was hopeful. I stood around for an hour or so and saw a robin. The photo above was taken as I passed through a farm yard.