Terrifying Treacle Bread

This is actually delicious - it's only 'terrifying' to fit with a Halloween-themed charity cake sale at work tomorrow. It's also simple to make - just two mugs of self-raising flour and a mug each of caster sugar, milk and fruit. Then an egg, a pinch of salt and four desert-spoons of treacle. No fancy measurements - just mix it all together then into a loaf tin and an hour and a quarter at 150 C.

Trouble is - will there be any left for anyone else?

Watford traffic in minature

I was in Watford earlier this week through work, and the view from the fifth floor of my hotel wasn't the most inspiring. Having a view from above and my camera phone to hand gave me an idea to try though which I'd read about in a recent photoraphy magazine. A popular technique at the moment seems to be to make a photo appear as a scale model by adjusting the blur and focusing effects, and with plenty of traffic on the road below, this is the result.

Is the river cleaner?

A lazy weekend for us... but the sun finally came out in the afternoon today so we decided on a little fresh air. Witton Park is especially familiar to me, having lived nearby for many years, and we followed a well walked route through the playing fields at Pleasington, then back along the riverside into the park proper and then along to the main cafe.

The river flowing through the park is the Darwen, a fairly short but fast flowing river rising in the hills above the town which gives it its name. By the time it reaches the park, it has been joined by the Blakewater, the blake 'burn' which gives Blackburn its name. Wikipedia suggests 'blake' means either 'black' or possibly'clear', so the name could either refer to pollution (the river was treated as a sewer over many centuries), or perhaps to an earlier time when the river was in better health.

Both the Blakewater and Darwen were heavily polluted up right into the seventies, as dyes and paint from nearby industry were often flushed into the river, but in recent years the pollution has ceased and a clean-up effort has even brought fish back to the river again.


We couldn't see any fish during our stroll, and although the industrial contamination is no more, more everyday pollution in the form of rubbish and litter is still around, and this is despite a 'litter trap' near the entrance to the park.

Strolling through Roddlesworth

One of our favourite walks, especially at this time of year, is through the woods at Roddlesworth, between the villages of Tockholes and Abbey Village not far from where we live. There are a number of paths through the trees which also skirt round three reasonably-sized reservoirs, and the water and trees make walking very pleasant and usually frame some nice photos.

We walked from Abbey Village through the woods up to the visitor centre and cafe at Tockholes, the usual starting point for several routes, including some up the hillside to Darwen Tower, just a couple of miles further on. The cafe contains some displays about the area and its wildlife, but also of interest was a number of photos for sale, all taken by local photographers in the local area. These included the woods we'd just walked through as well as the nearby hills, moorland, and of course the tower itself.

Despite the inspiration and the scenery on the walk back, my photos today didn't really work out - the trees hadn't quite reached their autumn best yet and my imagination was lacking. The best I could muster was this shot of Upper Roddlesworth reservoir, taken from within the woods so that the trees were silhouetted against the water - not really the autumnal shot I was expecting to get.

A first portrait assignment

Back in the spring, I, along with all my colleagues at work, found myself encouraged once again to donate 'lots' for our annual charity auction. The auctions have always been a great success, over the years raising several thousand pounds for charity. Each year some of my colleagues have donated their skills as well as more tangible things, such as an afternoon's gardening, a dog walking service and even a professional chef to come and cook a meal at your home!

This year, I made my own offer for the auction - as a challenge to myself I agreed I would donate my photography skills for a portrait sitting at their home, something which would cost well over £200 at a professional studio. I'd read several articles in magazines where a similar effect could be created in a brightly lit room at home, with a white sheet for a background, a decent flashgun and reflector together with some editing work afterwards in Photoshop, so I nervously agreed to offering my services on a best endeavours basis.

Landscapes and still lifes are more controllable than people, so this was well outside my comfort zone and I was anxious to see firstly whether people would bid at all, and secondly if they did, who would win and how much would they be prepared to pay? And then of course, what would they expect for their money and could I deliver the goods?

In the event, there was no last minute Ebay-style rush to buy, and if we'd had a reserve price then my offer wouldn't have sold at all! Not to be disheartened, I was pleased to hear a couple of bids come in and the winner was Ian, a colleague on my own team, who'd pledged £12 for a family photo shoot. Not a fortune but enough to make it a serious venture - the pressure was on!

Fast forward to today, much longer after the event that it should have been, but we finally found a convenient date for the shoot. So, over at Ian's house the furniture had been moved, the white sheets were in place covering the walls and floor, and Ian's two daughters were ready and extremely excited to be the two models for the morning!

Our photo shoot turned out to be great fun, the girls were naturals at posing for the camera and even disappeared twice to change clothes! I shot a number of portraits of the two girls together, some of them on their own, and some family shots with Mum and Dad too. We had some great laughs and really enjoyed ourselves, and the hour we'd planned flew by. Afterwards I had nearly 80 pictures to assess in Photoshop, with the hope of producing a dozen or so good enough to be enlarged and printed. This would take much longer than the shoot itself, but here are a couple which I'm already very pleased with:



The next stage is to share all the pictures which have worked out, and then see which they want to print out and in what format. I'm looking forward to see how they print up in detail. Will I do it again next year? - perhaps, we'll wait and see.

Garstang's Bridge of Sighs?

Even though our holiday was over, we hadn't finished seeing the sights, as we were told about a bridge over the Lancaster canal at Garstang which was supposedly modelled on the famous Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Having visited Venice many years ago and seen the original for real, we just had to take a walk along the canal to see this for ourselves.

Sometimes reality can get in the way of a good story. One bridge was built from blocks hewn of pure white limestone, given a romantic name by Lord Byron and contains windows with stone bars; the other is, as far as I can tell, nameless, built by the Fylde Water Board in 1927 and carries drinking water to Blackpool.

The bridge is certainly unique, being quite different from ordinary canal bridges as the photo shows, but that's really as close as it gets.

Braving the cold on Black Rock Sands

Ever since we got here, I wanted to spend a day just down on a beach enjoying the sand and the sun. But on each of the sunniest days of our week in North Wales, we've had other places to see instead, so for our last full day of our holiday I was determined we'd find time to relax on the sands.

Our first attempt at finding some quality sand was Llanbedrog, just down the hill from our cottage. I was also keen to visit the beach here becase of a photo I'd seen of the colourful beach huts there on Google Earth, however when we arrived at the car park, the beach huts were already lined up, well away from the beach, to escape the winter storms. Only Dad was inspired enough to take their photo. Despite this anti-climax, we headed down to the beach past a very tempting cafe and onto a sweeping, but pebbly beach. After a brief walk we decided to seek out a better beach, so it was back to the car and off elsewhere.

A friend had recommended another spot at 'The Warren', just up the road from Llanbedrog, but although we found it easily enough, it had been developed into a large caravan and holiday home site, complete with automatic barriers, and not really for us.

And all week, Dad had been telling us about the magnificent, flat, sandy beach near Porthmadog - Black Rock Sands - were he'd played football 50 years ago in the sunshine. So we agreed to head back along the coast road once again to take a look.

Straight away, one good thing about the beach here was that the road opens out right onto the beach and cars can simply park up on the sand, which means all the necessary beachy stuff in the boot such as chairs, cool bag, kites etc was easily accessible. In late September, with a cool breeze blowing in off the sea, it certainly wasn't summer, as Carole demonstrates here in a perhaps slightly exaggerated photoshoot. Still, the rug didn't go straight back in the car afterwards.









After a while it seemed to be getting a little warmer (or were we just becoming numb to the cold?) and a combination of kite flying and frisby-throwing helped to keep our core temperatures up. Later on, the sun tried it's best to shine, and we took a stroll along the beach to take in the sea air whilst at the same time collecting driftwood for the open fire back at the cottage.


This part of North Wales was part of Edward I's 'ring of iron', a series of seven fortified castles around the coast to suppress the Welsh, and two of his finest castles, Criccieth and Harlech, are visible from the sands at Black Rock.

Back at the cottage, our week was nearly over, but as we lit our last open fire and began to gather our things, we could review our photos and reflect on a wonderful week in the Welsh countryside. I'm sure we'll be back!

No 6 at Portmeirion

We wanted another sunny day for a visit to Portmeirion so that the colourful buildings would be at their finest and our collective cameras, which have taken almost 1,000 pictures so far this week, would make the most of them.

Portmeirion is just around the estuary from Porthmadog, although you can't easily see it from the coastline - it's secrets are contained until you've parked up and paid your entry fee. It is though a beautiful site, both in terms of its natural setting and its striking architecture.







The idea of a village on the peninsula was born in the early 1920s, when architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis bought land on the site and changed the original Welsh name of the area - Port because of its coastal locality and Meirion to reflect the historic Welsh county in which it was situated. Williams-Ellis already had his idea of developing a village on such a site, in the belief that he could enhance the surroundings and create something even greater.

Portmeirion was built in two stages, from 1925 to 1939 and 1954 to 1976, in a mainly Italianate style but not modelled, as many thought, on Portofino in Italy. Although the buildings and gardens have an Italian feel, many of the buildings were salvaged from elsewhere and rebuilt, all to a carefully thought out plan.

Although visitors come to see the site and Williams-Ellis's creation, it is also known as the location for the cult 60s TV series 'The Prisoner'. Patrick McGoohan starred as the lead character, known only as 'No 6', who was housed in one of the cottages in the village. Dad was particularly keen to see the village because of its association with the series, whereas the rest of us were just curious to see the distinctive buildings and explore the surroundings.

We spent the best part of the afternoon in the village and the woodland walks, so had only a short time to explore Criccieth and its medieval castle as planned on the way back. From the short walk we made around the town its easy to see why Criccieth is a popular place to visit, but we as the light started to fade it was time to head back to the cottage.

The Menai bridges

There's a lay-by on the A5 across into Anglesey which gives great views down to the straits and Telford's original suspension bridge, elegantly spanning the water ever since 1826. The Menai Straits are a notorious stretch of water where the currents swirl around with the competing tides, where whirlpools and rocks lie in wait for unfortunate ships, so the completion of the bridge was a major event.



By 1850, Robert Stephenson completed his equally famous railway bridge, but to see this we had to park up closer to Telford's original. We found a little car park where paths led through woods down to the shore, and out via a causeway to an old tiny church looking out across the water. The views across either side to both bridges were great - such a tranquil spot. The walk back to the car took us along the 'Belgian Promenade', built during the First World War by Belgian refugees, and again the views of the bridges dominated the scene. A great spot for a short stroll.

That station on Anglesey...

Here's Carole learning a little Welsh on a visit to Anglesey.

Maybe I'm falling into the trap laid out for the tourists, but the sign opposite the station explains that Llanfairpwllgwyngyll- gogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch literally means "The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave". The name was an invention of the Victorians, who wanted to extend the name of the village from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll simply to attract the tourists. It was a deliberate atempt to bring money into the village, which clearly worked - the car park by the station was full as people flocked to the large store to buy their souvenirs.