Category Archives: Photos

Detroit is in trouble…

I pulled up behind this enormous truck, which towered over the (not insubstantial) car I had borrowed from my in-laws. There was one person in it, the driver, on his way to work, I should think.

Protectionism

There are two stickers on the back. The left one says, “Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign!” and the other, “Please don’t fly MY flag on your foreign car!”

Somehow I think that’s not the real problem…

Salisbury suggestions

If you’re visiting Salisbury Cathedral, and you want to make sure your photos don’t look too much like those Constable paintings, here are some suggestions:

  • Ask any passing peasants, cattle, haywains etc to keep out of the frame
  • Take only an 80mm equivalent lens, which means there’s no way you can actually get a shot of the whole cathedral
  • Arrive just as it’s getting dark.

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(Click for more)

Grotto Garage

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Above Cotignac, Provence.

If there’s a convenient cave in the cliff next to your house, where better to park your Renault 4?

All that’s best of dark and bright…

Just to stop my friends at home from getting too jealous, I should point out that the storm clouds sometimes gather even in Provence in the summer.

Some of the most impressive formations I’ve seen for a long time swirled overhead this morning, and the hills echoed with the low rumble of thunder.

Cotignac clouds

Note that this photo was taken just before 9am this morning at the same spot as my post of a couple of days ago.

Still, I’m not expecting too much sympathy… we jumped in the pool, then had a splendid breakfast brought up by John and Fiona from the town below, and the sun is now shining brightly again…

En Provence

It’s tough here.

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Yesterday afternoon in Cambridge I had my headlights and wipers on. It’s amazing what a couple of hours in a plane can do.

Pointing the way

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Cambridge was a seething, bubbling broth of tourists and language students today – more than I can remember in a long time. They were trying to go in all of these directions. At once. I had to push my bike along a few streets because it was pointless trying to ride it.

Normally I know better than to go into town on a sunny Saturday morning, but I had promised myself a new camera lens. Very pleased with it so far…

On and off

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What colour is a light switch?

Good indentations

I saw and liked this Python / Google T-shirt at Opentech.
(If you don’t understand it, don’t worry – it’s a very geeky joke!)

Parental duties

Mr & Mrs Blackie, as we’ve christened them, have been busy and have produced a second nestful of squeaking chicks in the clematis outside our kitchen window, a gang who obviously need constant feeding.

Having a strange man land in the garden in a deck chair this afternoon didn’t stop them, but they kept a close eye on me as they went about their duties.

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Parental transport responsibilities

You know how people say (when their kids reach a certain age) that they’re just taxi drivers now?

It could be worse. They could actually be the taxi!

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I had great fun with my friends Martin, Hilary and Eddie today in my… ahem… two-man canoe…

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Regular readers will no doubt be amused that four days after writing proudly about my iPod-waterproofing system, I bent a little too far forward while standing on a pier and my phone, which of course wasn’t in such an enclosure, slipped out of my shirt pocket.

So I ended up doing a little swimming in the Great Ouse that I hadn’t really planned, and it was actually most refreshing. For me. I haven’t yet dared ask the phone how it feels…

Feathered friends

Blackbirdlets

These three have grown fast since they fluttered down out of their nest a couple of weeks ago. Still definitely not adults, though!

Ancient and modern

Some pics from this afternoon’s walk around Isleham.

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The cat is a few years old. The priory behind, about a millennium.

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Flutter by.

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Wall-eyed.

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This used to be a railway cutting, but no longer. Cars can’t go there either. But pedestrians can find a way…

(These are on Flickr – you can click them for different sizes and for others in the set. As with most of my photos recently, they’re geotagged, so Flickr can show you where they are on a map if you should happen to be curious!)

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser