Monday 21 April 2014

Bluebells at Hole Park

Having never visited Hole Park Garden - they are all of four miles from our front door! - we decided that as the bluebells were out in force, it was about time we trundled off to Rolvenden and too a look to see what all the fuss was about.

Hole Park
As well as the planting there were plenty of other photo friendly elements to the grounds...

Some interesting statues

from different angles!

views across to Rolvenden windmill

hedges

tulips

heather

funky trees

and of course bluebells

Lots of bluebells 
did I mention trees?

Azaleas
more trees

There was also a cool swimming pool - I quite fancied a dip


Monday 7 April 2014

A trip to London and The View from The Shard

So the long awaited day arrived. Family Allen bundled off to our fair capital city and spent the afternoon eating, walking and taking photographs. Here are some of mine...


Tower Bridge
The Tower of London
At the end of this blog entry, I have repeated these two shots, but taken at night.

this is where we are going - The Shard

We had toyed with trying to cancel the trip as the weather forecast had been pretty bad, however on the day it wasn't a complete write off, the daytime was a little too dull and overcast but after a quick downpour, which we missed as we were ascending The Shard, the clouds lifted and the view was every bit as spectacular as I had hoped for. 

London's River Thames
we're quite high up!
As the light started to fade, The City turned on it's lights and began to look really quite special

St Paul's as the light starts to fade

Westminster, Buckingham Palace and The London Eye
No tripods were allowed so getting a steady hand-held shot using night time exposures and focussing past the rain spattered windows certainly proved to be a bit of a challenge


The River Thames and Canary Wharf
River Thames
Tower Bridge and Docklands
We finally came back down to earth and I couldn't resist the chance for a couple of quick shots of the sites at ground level.
Tower of London all lit-up

Tower Bridge by night