Category Archives: Landscape

Jan 06 2022
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Daily Post, Landscape, Sport

The Dee estuary (and golfers)

Wednesday 5th January 2022, 12.20pm (day 3,786)

Dee estuary and golfers, 5/1/22

Anybody who thought I might spend a second consecutive day of bright winter sunshine ‘working from home’ obviously doesn’t know me very well. I guess the same applies to these three guys, though they enjoy here a form of sporting entertainment that’s not for me.

This is taken on the west coast of the Wirral peninsula. The river is the Dee, and the land in the background is Wales. Visible on the horizon is Moel Famau, where I spent a rather good day last June, doing the same thing as I did today — bagging a County Top walk. I guess this counts as a photo where one can definitely see the territory of two different countries, as long as you non-Britons accept that England and Wales are different places (which they are, in many ways).

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Jan 02 2022
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Daily Post, Landscape

Sunbeams on a New Year’s Day

Saturday 1st January 2022, 1.05pm (day 3,782)

Sunbeams, Dewsbury, 1/1/22

Welcome to 2022, and if all the days of weather are as good as 1st January, that will be fine by me. A beautiful day, and quite warm. I realise this would be a better photo without the foliage to the left but I couldn’t move it, and with limited positions from which this view was visible I decided I’d rather capture the sunbeams before they disappeared.

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Dec 26 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Field of gloom

Sunday 26th December 2021, 2.00pm (day 3,776)

Gloomy field, 26/12/21

I’m not trying to be overtly metaphorical here. But this shot certainly sums up today’s weather. Enough snow to feel, not enough to make a difference, all under steel-grey skies.

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Dec 14 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Landscape

Above Bassenthwaite Lake

Monday 13th December 2021, 11.40am (day 3,763)

Sheep portrait, Bass Lake, 13/12/21

As the country spirals back down into a stupid, paranoid and self-deluding feeling of ‘safety’, I’ve given up trying to talk to anyone about this so will just carry on doing my thing, including all activities which are health-giving and beneficial. The Lake District seems a fine setting for just that sort of thing. This is the National Park’s 150th appearance on this blog; an average of over once a month, which emphasises its value. ‘Work from home’? Bollocks to it. That will kill us all, faster than anything else.

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Dec 01 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

The dune sea, at sunset

Wednesday 1st December 2021, 4.45pm (day 3,751)

Dune sea, 1/12/21

The flight home. The Sahara looked astonishing: this was a day when I wish I could break my own rules and post more than one photo. The River Niger certainly was worth seeing, a braid of blue and green running through a sandy wasteland. We must have crossed that somewhere in Mali.

But instead I will go with this shot; for much of the three hours it took to cross the desert I was thinking, hmmm, well it’s certainly barren, but more rocky than sandy. But then came this sea, this ocean of dunes, tinged by the setting sun. This must be far enough north to be somewhere in Algeria. Not that national boundaries really mean a lot here. If anything this is Arrakis. Had a gigantic sandworm crested out of this stuff with Fremen on its back, I would not have been surprised.

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Nov 30 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Sandy Bay, and Lot

Saturday 27th November 2021, 1.20pm (day 3,747)

The spectacular scenery of St Helena is enhanced by the fact that the pattern of vegetation one sees in the UK is reversed. It is the coast, the lower levels, that is rocky and barren, and the mountains which are covered in lush vegetation: all down to the fact that the rain falls high up, but not low down. This is taken from the Blue Hill area, looking down to Sandy Bay, past the basalt pillar known as ‘Lot’ (and his wife is somewhere over to the right of this image).

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Nov 26 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Bare hillside

Thursday 25th November 2021, 5.40pm (day 3,745)

Bare hillside, 25/11/21

Until the 1500s St Helena was covered in forest. Then humanity arrived, and even if people didn’t cut down the trees themselves, they released goats onto the island, which munched away at any new shoots for the subsequent half-millennium. Although some recovery has been made recently, in places, a lot of the lower parts of the island look like this as a result. It’s attractive, in its way, but it’s also dead land. Only about 21% of the island is cultivated with another 11% afforested. 54% is classed as ‘barren’. Two years ago today I was in Java, another steep volcanic island; but one festooned with terraces, every inch used to support the population. The contrast is notable.

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Nov 22 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Briars Pavilion and the Heart-Shaped Waterfall

Monday 22nd November 2021, 10.35am (day 3,742)

Heart-Shaped waterfall, 22/11/21

Briars Pavilion — the first home of St Helena’s most famous resident, Napoleon Bonaparte. When he arrived here in 1815 post-Waterloo, he lived here for the first couple of months while his more permanent home (Longwood House) was being prepared.

The Heart-Shaped Waterfall — well that is its official name, and you have to say that it is appropriate. But it seems they only turn it on during the winter months (May – September).

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Nov 21 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

The interior

Saturday 20th November 2021, 12.25pm (day 3,740)

Time to do some exploring. It’d be nice if the weather improved — even the locals are complaining that it should be sunnier and warmer by this time in the year — but at least the drizzle gives this shot a nicely melancholy atmosphere. This is taken almost in the very centre of the island, very close to where Edmond Halley, the famous astronomer, set up an observatory in 1677.

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Nov 19 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Visitors’ parking, Bradley’s Camp

Thursday 18th November 2021, 9.20am (day 3,738)

Bradley's Camp view, 18/11/21

After eight days in a row in the house, a morning out — so I could have something stuck up my nose, and then be returned. Somebody, somewhere, thinks there’s a point to all this. (I will add that I had things stuck up my nose both before flying here, and on arrival, and have been in isolation since.)

The island has a verdant interior but the rim is very barren. Out by the airport sits “Bradley’s Camp”, a bunch of prefabs surrounded by barbed wire and personal security that is presumably where the local authorities stick the asylum seekers, people with a 0.0001% chance of having a currently fashionable communicable disease, and other undesirables. But at least it has parking facilities for visitors.

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