St Ives, north Cornwall.

For some reason I didn't expect a surf beach here.

St Ives township.

As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits: kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
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Tin mining

Cornwall was a tin mining centre - the above beast was a pump used for mining. Apparently tinm was alway found below the water table.

That sounds a bit precarious and more than enough reason for some early relatives to high tail it to Australia.
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Melbourne - 10,500 miles.

Not just Land's End - the end of life as we know it.

Temperance Hotel, at Land's End.
Seems it should be the best place to have a drink.
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Hardy travellers. Or a low bridge.

Bits of Cornwall

The Eden Project, Cornwall.

An ambitious project in a disused china clay quarry, it houses many plants in a local environment as well as two 'maintained' ones - tropical rain forest and Mediterranean.

All of it fascinating but I felt some of the rain forest plants were a bit stressed - it is moist and humid but it never actually rains, so the leaves are a bit dusty and unloved on some plants.

But for a place to see so many plants, from so many countries, it is amazing.
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Clevedon Pier, Cornwall.

Misc shots

General scenery in Cotswalds area. Green, green, green.


More green, often seems like driving down long green tunnels.


The green at Christ Church meadow, Oxford.


Central Oxford, believe it or not.
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Harrowfields

Stayed at a lovely B&B in a small town called Eckington.

The rooster watching me closely. Every so often, as I was photographing him, he would run sideways at me, bump into me and give me a long, meaningful stare.

Misc shots - mostly thatch

Note the two birds on the top - a thatcher's signature.





Cemetery at Eckington. Full of life - squirrels and quail. (Sorry, this phot is lost but I can't be bothered trying to relocate it to another post.


A cat & mouse signature in a thatch.
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Tewkesbury

A canal. Some much stuff is green here.


Tewkesbury Abbey, the architecture of awe.


One of the windows in the abbey.

Margaret puts a few stitches in a tapestry.

Misc shots

Old and new.

A mulberry tree that supposedly traces its pedigree to Shakespeare's garden.

Better find another excuse...

In a toilet somewhere around Stratford upon Avon, a dispenser of condoms and headache tablets.

You have a headache? I have just the thing...
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The other Romeo? No, apparently not.

At Shakespeare's birthplace, an actor plays the role of Romeo from 'A Comedy of Errors'.

(Later) Well, it sounded like Romeo. It was in fact Dromio. (Thanks to David Guthrie for the correction.)
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Anne Hathaway's Cottage