This week’s photograph is of Lydd Church in Kent. It is a large church — it not know as “the cathedral of the marshes” for nothing. (That’s the Romney Marsh, by the way.) There has been a church on this site for 1000 years or more — there is a piece of Saxon wall in the NW corner of the nave which has only relatively recently been recognised as such. This is a panoramic joiner image of the south side of the church taken in August 2007.

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Lydd Church, Southern Aspect
August 2007

This week’s photo is from the shorty holiday we had in Rye in September 2010 with our friend Katy and her kids.

I found a lot of very flat stones on the beach at Rye Harbour which I assume are due to them coming from thin beds of sedimentary rocks in the cliffs further along the coast, although some was clearly brick or concrete. I was interested by the variety of colours and textures.

Stone Pile
Rye, September 2010
It’s also surprising what can be pressed into service as a backcloth. I had to use something other than the scruffy patio table at our rental house, and a black t-shirt (complete with white cat’s hairs), although not ideal, did the job.

Paris in the Springtime … A quiet square at the western end of Ile de la Cité. This was taken on a warm Friday lunchtime. Noreen and I were sitting outside the café having a delightful lunch with our friend Allison, who was a student in Paris at the time. All the while, just visible in the middle distance, there was a group of Parisian workmen playing boules.

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Montage: Place Dauphine
Paris, May 2006

Let’s have something cheering to combat this ghastly Spring weather.

This rose was spotted growing over a garden wall in Pinner, a couple of summers ago.

Roadside Rosebud
Pinner, July 2011

This week’s photo is only a rubbishy snapshot of “Harry the Cat” fast asleep in the paper recycling box by my desk. I don’t understand what it is about cats and boxes; or dogs and water come to that!

Cat Recycling
6 March 2013

This is a miniature Phaelenopsis orchid of my mother’s which I’ve been looking after and which has come back into flower in the last week. Seen here enjoying the sunshine on our study windowsill next to the scented geranium cuttings being rooted for this summer’s patio planting etc. The orchid was returned to my mother when we went to see her yesterday; we also took a collection of catkins for her to paint.

Mini Orchid
4 March 2013

I took this while sitting people watching at London’s Paddington Station. GOK what these two where on, or where they’d been, at 10 in the morning!

Jack Hats
London Paddington; July 2012

Another instalment in our occasional series celebrating the underbelly of Britain, at least as perpetrated locally. This is the Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

This empty shop (at one time I recall it was a double glazing showroom) is at Rayners Lane, in west London, opposite the tube station. This was a nice small local shopping area, even when I worked there almost 30 years ago. But no longer. Now it is decidedly scrofulous and decaying; populated only by Asian and Polish establishments which never seem to do any trade.

And as you’ll see that above is next to this …

Which has definitely been tidied up a bit in the last couple of years, but to me still looks pretty disreputable.