Adrian's Photoblog

This was our first visit to Rome and it had a wonderful feeling of being at the hub of the western civilisation, both in terms of the Roman world which we have all heard so much about about since we were at school and were colouring in and cutting out the Centurian..!! And also in terms of being the centre of western religion...with the Vatican and St Peter's Basilica.

We stayed for 3 nights and this gave us chance to walk around parts of the city, and spend a day looking at the Roman relics, including the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Pantheon, and another day looking at the wonderful art of the Vatican museums and St Peter's Basilica.

On our final morning we spent some time at the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps before lunch and flight home.

So, a great place to visit, and we only saw the obvious highlights - even then you spend most of your time trying to take in the sheer scale of the monuments, I feel each of need at least another visit to really start to appreciate some of the detail. Then there is the secondary sights, which I'm sure are wonderful too.

Full set of photos is at the link below...but if you're planning to go soon, don't look at them - go and see it all afresh for yourself.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157614352537514/

I have to admit that we used to mock the Brecon Beacons when I was a lad on the doorstep of the lake district, but this is fine walking country and the north east faces are really dramatic. Besides, when you live in Romsey, everything looks big..!!

The photo is deceptive...this was one of the coldest days of the winter, -6C on the summit of Pen y Fan and with a strong /gale force wind slicing over the ridges. I had the fine company of 'Richard of the Pyrenees' and after a cold grey start, the day opened out to provide an hour or 2 of dramatic sunshine.

This is Pen y Fan, Cribyn, and Fan y Big (no chuckles please), but the full set can be seen at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157613287675959/detail/

The idea of putting slides into a scanner one by one and peering at them for dust is too tedious to contemplate, so I came up with an idea of photographing a projected image instead (and avoids buying a scanner). This has the benefit of being able to enjoy browsing your slides, and the photo only takes about 1/8 sec (or whatever).

The results are ok rather than brilliant, but I can keep my file size down as it's not worth using your best camera settings. I did use a low contrast setting in the camera because otherwise they came out too extreme and you can't post process.

This is a photo from La Clusaz in 2005, on a day when the ski lift popped up through the cloud to provide a rather nice view.

The crispy start to the new year provided the thickest ice for a decade, and we reassembled a Romsey gang in the New Forest to have some fun as we had done in 2002. We had a good morning out shunting the sledge across the frozen pond, here are Sophie and Izzy doing a tandem crossing.

Mark, Phil and Dave may recognise our old sledge which must be pushing 35 years old by now...

Click on the photo for some more photos of the day

Well, geekdom has got the better of me as I've splashed out on a new weather station. After years in the wilderness of 'not recording weather data' this one sends it all into a logger in the house where I can download to a PC where a wonderful bit of software (called Cumulus..!!) will draw up graphs and collate monthly averages.

Wonderful stuff and all for £80. needless to say, I've had an exciting first month of weather to record - the minimum recorded was -8.7C on 6th Jan...just in case you were wondering....

1st Dec 2008 - Quite a rare event, I understand...This won't occur again for 30 years..!! But never managed to find out which was the Venus and which was Jupiter, just getting the hang of the moon bit..

Ok, so this should be pretty easy as it's got a marked route and you can hire the gear and you don't have to prove you know what you're doing. The reality was pretty gripping stuff, 1000ft high, with sustained sections of climbing on vertical and near vertical rock.

True there are lots of holds with iron bars to hold onto and footholds bolted in, but it's the positions that send adrenaline coursing through your veins...you'd simply never get into these positions on rock without the ironwork unless you're climbing 'Extreme' routes.

Nice to get away from the Nanny state too... we asked the guy who lent us the gear what happened if we took a fall (and you can easily fall 20-30ft before your harness arrests) and he said 'I take a gun and BANG'....

This was our finale before leaving Switzerland, and the photos are here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/2861393473/in/set-72157607310625383/

Not exactly on foot from Austria to the Bernese Oberland - but by motorway in fact.

A wet drive through the northern edge of the Dolomites and over the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck on the first day, and then a wonderful drive in clear skies through Liechtenstein and onto Interlaken.

Then we went up Schynigge Platte and stayed the night where the view of the Jungfau Group is wonderful.

The whole set is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157607310625383/

Aug 2008 - This summers trip was to Austria to see Dee's long standing family friends on Ossiacher See in southern Austria. We were treated to a welcoming Austrian hospitality at the lakeside chalet and had a great time.

We had a week here and during which time I managed to slice my palm diving off the platfrom and was able to try out the Austrian A&E department (very good too). I also had a lovely walk in the Karawanken mountains which border with Slovenia.

For the full set of photos click here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157607251867988/detail/