These words are how I try to start every day, using the word God as I chose to understand it, and so what better way to start a new year.
Thank you to Patricia Drury for the great picture 🙂
Walking Wilson in Brooklands today I noticed this lovely red colour in the scrublands. Peter says it is Dogwood (Cornus Sanguinea) or ‘midwinter fire’, people grow it for the stunning colour of the stems.
Dogwood in the scrub
The world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, was constructed at Weybridge, Surrey in 1907. Brooklands was more than a great sporting arena, it was the birthplace of British motorsport and aviation, home of Concorde and the site of many engineering and technological achievements throughout eight decades of the 20th century.
Bench with an eye on the park
Much of the original race track is the site of superstores, the Brooklands Museum and Mercedes Benz World, however a large section has been protected as a community park, and is very popular with families as it has a child size racing track where children can play on bikes and scooters, has a super playground, and lots of walks around the wooded areas, ideal for dogs.
Families enjoying the race track with Christmas bikes, scooters and remote control cars
Wilson’s favourite swamp (See Concorde to the left of the photo)
In the centre is Wilson’s favourite swamp, which changes in size significantly when the water table moves. It almost disappears in very dry weather, but is very present in the winter.
Wilson rescues his stick from the swamp
A super stick
Model of Concorde at the entrance to Mercedes Benz at Brooklands
Brooklands is the Home of Concorde – more than 30% of every airframe, British and French, was manufactured here.
Janathon: One short dog walk today, none yesterday, felt too rotten. Feeling better today 🙂
This week’s weekly photo challenge is to pick the best pictures from 2012 and have those pictures tell everyone about your year. I have so many… to narrow it down to a few to produce a gallery was really really hard. I have tried to use new photos that I have not shown before, apologies for any duplicates!
I didn’t go abroad at all in 2012, so all the photos are from the UK. I have uploaded them in date order so don’t be surprised by the weather, we had hot days of over 25°C in March, and hailstones in July!
I’m hoping the gallery will display properly. I can not get the rectangular version to display 3 across and it keeps making one of the photos huge. I have swapped to the square version as it is a bit tidier, but some of the photos should be displayed landscape. I am going to have to learn HTML to display these the way I want!! 🙂
I have tried to put explanatory captions on the photos… there are links in the captions when there is a website which gives more information about the place or photo.
Click on any picture to see it in full.
For other interpretations of this week’s theme have a look at:
Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures
Update:
It seems the links in the captions don’t work when the photos are in a gallery, so here are the relevant links:
Hampton Open Air Pool
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Rapunzel tower at Box Hill
Birdham Pool Marina
St Martha on The Hill Church
Leonard Cohen World Tour 2012
Walton Bridge Webcam
Guildford Castle
We found another ‘Pet Christmas Tree‘ on Desborough Island during our walk today and one bauble in particular caught my eye 🙂
I decided to have a play with my camera and here are the results
Interesting Bauble on the Desborough Island Pet Christmas Tree
Pet Christmas Tree on Desborough island
Edited with my camera
To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘
This week’s Travel Theme is Festive
My other entries are here and here
We brought Wilson for a walk on Desborough Island today, a man made Island created when the ‘Desborough Cut’ was dug in 1935 order to improve flow and ease navigation on the river. The cut has helped to alleviate flooding in Shepperton and halved the distance of travel on that part of the river. It is an extremely popular spot for dog walkers, and was full of other people and dogs today despite the fact that the river is encroaching on the Island and much of it is now more like a lake than an Island!
It is one of the closest walks to our house and one of Wilson’s favourite places. The island has lots of little beaches that he heads straight for in summer, however today he had no need to look for water!!
The cut and the adjacent island were named after Lord Desborough who was chairman of the Thames Conservancy at the time and who opened it.
Wilson and the perfect stick
A lovely swampy place
Ahhhh
Wilson regularly shakes himself while still in water 🙂
Desborough Pond
Janathon Update: One 45 minute dog walk. Feeling a lot better than yesterday! 🙂
I forgot about this! We have some beautiful Apple Tree trunks decorating our porch!
Apple tree stumps decorate our porch
Here is my first entry into the ‘Word a Week Photography Challenge’ (Wood)
Here is the link to This Week’s Challenge; Wood
Looking out the window today, these would be perfect! Grannymar?
I love what the sea does to wood. I have lots and lots of photos, but a week (especially when that week includes Christmas) is far too short notice to find them all!
Here is one of my favourite photos of the sea defences at West Wittering
East Wittering Sea Defences, August 2010
And some I took recently on a really wet day down at Langstone in Chichester Harbour
Remnants of a sea structure, Langstone, Chichester Harbour
It was raining so heavily when I was taking this photo, I had to shelter the lens. I think my glove at the top adds something to the picture?
Wood that has been re-sculptured by the Sea, Langstone, November 2012
The eye of a needle
Here is my first entry into the ‘Word a Week Photography Challenge (Light)’
I still have to submit some back-entries, Blue is my favourite colour!
Here is the link to This Week’s Challenge; Wood
We brought Wilson for a walk in Oxshott Woods today, there were a lot less puddles, but he still managed to find a big muddy puddle and sit down in it. I decided not to take a photo as I thought that he might be doing it for effect 🙂
Instead the setting sun shone on this tree so I photographed it instead
A lonesome Pine
Janathon Update: One 45 minute dog walk. Also, while looking for a link for Oxshott Woods, I found this website: www.walkjogrun.net which sounds like a really good idea when I get back into training. Today was not a good day. I woke up feeling freezing. Had a long shower to try & warm up & then put on lots of clothes. Still felt cold after our walk so went back to bed fully dressed with my electric blanket on 😦 Now sitting huddled up by the radiator wrapped in lots of blankets. I thought I was getting better, but not today.
Day One 