Summer in England 2015 – part 4: Wellington Rocks at Tunbridge Wells

After a few hours scrambling over the rocks, it was time for food. The kids decided that they didn’t want to eat in the High Rocks pub (fussy buggers, the food choices looked awesome) so we drove off in search of a cafe or something similar. We wandered into Rusthall High St and settled on a little cafe called ‘The Daily Bread‘ – which…

Summer in England 2015 – part 3: High Rocks at Tunbridge Wells

At least forty years ago, my Grandparents took me and I think my middle sister to play on some rocks in Tunbridge Wells. I remember my Grandads white Daimler with red leather interior and that distinctive Daimler/Jaguar leathery walnut smell and I remember looking out over the rocks from Mount Ephraim. Near there, there’s a place called High Rocks which was supposed to be pretty…

Summer in England 2015 – part 2: rowing on the river at Tonbridge

The next day was overcast and had rain forecast, but we’re made of tough water resistant English stock – no hiding inside for us! We had wanted to hire a boat and cruise down the river at Tonbridge, but the exchange rate was terrible and my $AU are now worth about 30% less in £GBP than last year, so we had to downscale our…

Summer in England 2015 – Part 1: Arrival.

It’s that time of year again when I go back to spend some quality time with the kids in England. English summer is a magical time and really shows off the country to its absolute best – if you’re going to go – then July and August, even though it’s probably the busiest time, is probably the best.

Experiments with motion

Timing is everything. Usually, work and my commute dictate my timetable and I don’t get an opportunity to get to the beach with the camera, but weekends are a different story. And as luck would have it today, timing lined up perfectly and I got down to the beach with the versatile little X100T to take some abstract sunset pictures.  

First signs of spring

Seasons are a bit vague here in Perth. If you judged Perth climate by UK summer – we have summer all year round. Autumn is a week of changing leaves between 35 degree summer days and the start of rain and a cool change Winter comes and goes, but only exerts itself hard enough to warrant a jacket for a few weeks. It can be wet…

Sundays on the bike

Winter in Perth has been a bit two faced this year.  If it’s not lovely sunny and very unwinter like, it’s been hammering it down with rain and utterly miserable! Anyways – after an whole weekend of torrential rain and damp overcast skies, the sun poked through around lunchtime on Sunday and the afternoon was perfect for a ride and scrub in that new back…

Winter sunset.

As winter approaches, the skies become awesome again. Not that clear blue skies with endless sunshine over summer isn’t awesome – it’s just that autumn and winter do sunsets better. I was on the roof at the weekend, clearing out the guttering, as you do (well, as we do here in Australia – the gutters are stupidly designed and can’t cope with the rainfall…

Storm season

You know winter is coming to Perth when the rains arrive. We have a remarkably livable climate here. For most of the year it’s pretty much awesome – can be a bit too hot in the summer, and the lack of insulation and central heating can make winter a bit chilly, but for the most part – it’s peachy. But did you know we get…

Coffee and Magic

So many years ago when I first came to Perth, I used to hang out on a local Flickr group and got to know a few people on there in person.  Some really nice folks too – for example, Dodgee Bruce (although he hangs out more on Facebook these days), Jeremy and Jacob. I also met up with Charlene, who was, at the time, a 9-5 office…