Category Archives: Landscape

Tableau: cows, turbine and Flagstaff Peak

Tuesday 14th January 2025, 12.40pm (day 4,891)

Cows, turbine and Flagstaff, 14/1/25

Whatever the wind farm on Deadwood Plain is doing to help St Helena generate power in a sustainable way, this particular turbine ain’t contributing. The cows seem stoic about the situation, though, as cows so often do. I passed on my way up Flagstaff Peak behind, at 2,257 feet above sea level. A century and a quarter ago, this place would have been crowded with tents and huts — it was a prison camp for those captured in the Boer War (fought so the British state could get its hands on gold and diamonds, before anyone tells you it had worthier motives).

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Resting in peace, on St Helena

Sunday 12th January 2025, 10.55am (day 4,889)

Grave and the Peaks, 12/1/25

I wasn’t flying from Cape Town back home, in case you were wondering, but instead to St Helena, for my fourth visit. Who can ever say these things for sure, but it’s possibly my last — put it this way, it’s the last, for now, for which I have the money, or rather, for which someone else has given me the money, in this case the British Academy (to whom thanks are due).

Whomever resides in this particular spot these days has definitely made their last visit to this remote little island, though. There are worse places to spend eternity.

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The Cape of Good Hope

Saturday 11th January 2025, 9.40am (day 4,888)

I’m sure this is one of those places of which we’ve all heard, but have never given a great deal of thought to what it might actually look like. Well — here you go. As seen shortly after take-off from Cape Town airport this morning.

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The Tablecloth

Thursday 9th January 2025, 12:00 noon (day 4,886)

Tablecloth cloud, 9/1/25

I had hoped to ascend Table Mountain whilst here, but today was my only real chance and, all day, it was draped in what is locally known as ‘The Tablecloth’ — and it’s a very accurate description of this particular cloud. Surely there are very few cities in the world with such a monumental lump of rock sat right by the downtown area.

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The Moon and Venus

Thursday 2nd January 2025, 4.45pm (day 4,879)

Moon and Venus, 2/1/25

Clear skies are not always a feature of the time of year, so let’s take the chance to photograph this impending conjunction tonight, although surely the Moon is going to move even closer (apparently, anyway) to Venus before the weekend. A fleeting contrail decides to butt its oar in, too.

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Coniston Old Man, from afar

Wednesday 1st January 2025, 3.00pm (day 4,878)

Coniston Old Man, 1/1/25

As a location, the Lake District has featured 171 times on this blog, so about once every 28.5 days, or roughly every four weeks. But in 2024 the place appeared only three times, the lowest yearly total by some distance. Finishing the commitment to hoik myself twice around the Wainwrights has made an obvious difference. This shot is taken from no nearer than Morecambe, with a very long zoom. Will I be back more in ’25? In all honesty — probably not.

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Stone coffins and Morecambe Bay

Tuesday 31st December 2024, 10.45am (day 4,877)

Stone coffins, 31/12/24

There was a New Year’s Eve party tonight but none of the pictures taken there really worked, and so let’s end 2024 on what might be an overly morbid note. But I do like the row of old stone-cut graves that sit above Morecambe Bay near St Patrick’s church, Heysham. And the designer of the cover of The Best of Black Sabbath must have liked them too. That photo is better than mine (I’m not even close to getting the horizon straight, and don’t care), but my excuse is that I was stood above them in the most revolting wind and rain; 2024, at least in the UK, really didn’t bow out with great weather.

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Above Dove Stones reservoir

Monday 23rd December 2024, 10.10am (day 4,869)

Dove Stones hiker, 23/12/24

Well, I didn’t have anything better today, and by the signs of it, neither did he. I hope he enjoyed his bout of exercise as much as I did. (For more details see my other blog.)

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Stoodley Pike, with birds

Thursday 19th December 2024, 2.30pm (day 4,865)

Stoodley Pike, 19/12/24

The birds are there, you just need to realise that they’re not grit on the lens. A beautiful afternoon to mark my last day of work until 2025; a shame it is not forecast to last.

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Frosty morning

Thursday 28th November 2024, 8.35am (day 4,844)

Frosty view, 28/11/24

12 of the last 16 shots have been taken in Hebden Bridge, and there are going to be more coming up — by recent standards, an unusually static state of affairs. But when it looks like this in the morning, I don’t really care.

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