Views from the top

Looking down on Market Place and on to St.Peter's Street and St.Peter's church in the distance

St.Albans Cathedral - looking in to the sun unfortunately

The Peahen junction

Christopher Place shopping centre

Up St.Albans clock tower

Here's the bell in the clock tower - I don't think it has been rung for some time!

At the top - you can see the door to the roof on the right

This is the 'guide' on the roof showing what you can see in each direction - very well done

St.Albans Clock Tower

Recently St.Albans clock tower reopened after a 'spruce up'. I've never climbed the tower so we went along to see what had been done. It's all very smart now with very good information boards.

 Here's the clock itself. Even this seems to have been cleaned up.

 No nice old pennies like on Big Ben's pendulum - just a collection of old washers to ensure it keeps the correct time.

 More of the clock mechanism.

Peonies

Couple of nice peonies in the garden

Caravans and Motorhomes

SWMBO made a very valid observation the other day..."Why are caravans and motorhomes always (usually?) white?"

Yes, surely if they were green for example, they would blend in to the scenery and avoid impacting on beauty spots so much. There's nothing worse than seeing a campsite on a hillside with rows and rows of white caravans. Paint them green!

A Dover church

Here's a couple of nice photos of a derelict church in Dover town.
The church was bombed during the war and the ruins left as a memorial.
I particularly liked the way this doorway had been 'bricked up'.

Dover Castle - final post

I have been contacted by Britain's National Tourism Agency asking if I would like to include a link to their web page about Dover Castle?
"Good idea", I said... Clickety Click here it is!
As I've said many times, I must include more links.

Anglo-Saxon church, St.Mary in Castro (St.Mary in the Castle), and Roman lighthouse - The Pharos

Inside the church - obviously!

We also visited the secret wartime tunnels but no photography was allowed. As I'm being watched by the National Tourism Agency, I'd better not reproduce any of the official photographs here! Anyway, go and have a look yourselves.

Inside Dover Castle

Apparently the displays inside the castle are greatly improved since SWMBO was last there.

The great dining hall.

Even some 'actors' doing their best to bring the castle to life.

Dover town and port

Views from the castle grounds.

Dover Castle

We trudged up the HUGE hill to the castle and spent a couple of hours happily wandering around. SWMBO hadn't been there for years.

The only downside was, as we realised afterwards, that we were given pensioner rates at the admission desk - they didn't feel they needed to ask obviously!

Mind you, after the climb up that hill, we probably did look like we hadn't got many more years left.

This is inside the wartime lookout post.



HS1 to Dover

SWMBO has spent all her life (well, not ALL her life, you know what I mean) travelling to Dover from St.Albans as she has a huge number of relatives there.

"In the old days" this involved catching the train to London and then crossing London by underground or taxi (depending on the amount of luggage they had) to Charing Cross then catching a slow train to Dover.

Now, we catch the train from St.Albans to St.Pancras, change platforms and catch the new HS1 train to Dover. This uses the Eurostar line to Ashford then branches off to travel via Folkestone to Dover. Really comfortable and fast service.

I've never travelled to Dover by train before and was amazed to find that Folkestone has two railway stations - Folkestone West and Folkestone Central. They are very close to one another, and the train stopped at both.

 Very comfortable, clean and quiet.

 Dover Priory station which has recently been refurbished.

Last of the bluebells

On Sunday we went for a walk up to Flamstead (maybe to The Spotted Dog?). On the way we visited Flamsteadbury Wood to catch the last of the bluebells.

Note to selves: Go a bit earlier next year.

British Pink Floyd - Epilogue

Why did I have a change of heart? Well...when we arrived at the concert we were all given a promotional DVD and I've only just had a chance to watch it. It is excellent - really good footage with top quality sound. Maybe British Pink Floyd may now have the edge over Australian Pink Floyd. I really need a promotional DVD of Australian Pink Floyd now, don't I?

British Pink Floyd - Part 2

After the interval we had a fairly heavy handed rendition of Echoes which was followed by Keep Talking. The sound was still not 100% and I've still to hear Stephen Hawking, likewise with One Of These Days where I'm still waiting to hear the threat to cut me in to little pieces.

The concert ended with the traditional Comfortably Numb, ending with Run Like Hell.

All in all it was a very enjoyable evening with Australian Pink Floyd retaining top spot in the tribute act stakes.

Then...I had a change of heart...

British Pink Floyd vs Australian Pink Floyd

We like Pink Floyd tribute bands...

Last night we went to see British Pink Floyd at Milton Keynes theatre.

A thoroughly enjoyable concert but the general concensus around the bar area at half time was that Australian Pink Floyd just had the edge.

I commented to a couple a chaps that the first half seemed somehow slow and laboured which was agreed with, adding that the sound balance didn't seem 100%.

1. Australian Pink Floyd

2. British Pink Floyd

3. Think Floyd

"Welcome to the Machine"

Sound not brilliant but...

Concert second half to follow - don't go away!

INTERMISSION

Deepcut locks

Really nice section of the canal along here with excellent towpath.

There were also a lot of cyclists, one of whom was heard to be complaining about the number of walkers on the towpath - cheeky bu**er!

Deepcut locks are only open 9:00 to 12:00 daily.

Close by is Deepcut Barracks

 

View from Deepcut lock

 Nearby nature reserve with huge numbers of cowslips



Basingstoke Canal

We've just been to a wedding in Surrey and took the opportunity to get a mini boating fix. The Basingstoke Canal was quite near so we went to Brookwood and parked the car to go on a walk along the canal. On the way to the Brookwood flight we saw this Cormorant - at least I think that's what it is!

On arrival at the flight it was clear we weren't going to see much boating action as this lock was drained for the fitting of some new gates.

 A slight barrier to navigation?

Nice gates though...