Pointy Cow

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tree

It is wonderfully freeing to be allowed to invent our own personal truth. Clearly, the ancient Japanese visited the windswept uplands of NW England ...and thus was the art of bonsai born. I wonder if they also brought the hippopotamus bones to our local caves.

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B&W

Probably no one has noticed, but, as well as a cow phase, I have also been having a minor black and white phase...
The two phases can sometimes be combined to make a true masterpiece!

Maybe I shouldn't have given up the day job after all... oh well, too late now! :-) Moooo.

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chateau

After working too hard on our paper on Sunday morning, in the afternoon James went for a run, and at last I had an hour to take a walk around some of the grounds of the chateau in which we are staying at Gif-sur-Yvette.

Here's the chateau itself.
And here's the pond at the bottom of the garden.
Lots of mushroomy things grow under the trees.
The autumn colours are quite nice - this might be some sort of chestnuttish tree?
Some of its leaves are almost black!

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Travels

But where?!

It is a place where people have been known to lose their heads

And not just on the roads

Where bicycles are very important. (Although you actually see more of them being ridden in London).

Where the building that should be the opera house is actually the stock exchange

Where they have taken the Boris Bicycle concept several stages further...?

And where the picktur blogger is permanently drunk due to the local beverage coming in too large bottles; please scuse typos.

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"Quit your jobs"

Seen from the platform at Pangbourne railway station, the graffiti on the fence in the background is probably aimed at the Thames Valley London commuters. But be careful of you do quit your jobs - you might end up like these two!

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falling water

As well as ocean swell, there are other after effects of storms. One is the amount of water falling in the water falls. I actually didn't know we live near a waterfall until this week. It is Scaleber Foss, and only 1.3 miles from our house (although up a stupidly steep hill). I learned later that it is a top photography spot, so it is lucky that James encouraged me to take my camera along just in case there was something to see.

This photo was taken at the same place, looking downstream,

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Autumn colours

Another storm yesterday, and the autumn colours are not going to last much longer. Better blog them while I still can.

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ocean #3

The calm after the storm...

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ocean #2

The fun thing about the ocean, is that the waves can come quite a while after the weather. So, while the storm had blown over the day before, the sea was just getting going.

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