Nothing too strenuous you understand, but a pleasant stroll on chalk downland, avoiding the rabbit holes. Lovely views, which unfortunately, are quite difficult to photograph successfully.
Not another soul in sight, but a lamentable lack of red kites; wrong time of day, so the photograph is one I took earlier. It’s the closest I could get. They seem to soar in leisurely fashion, but in fact they are moving much too fast for me to snap successfully.
Boadicea's Chariot 
These images are fantastic Araminta, not enough of them sadly. The one of the gate I like in particular. Good lighting on all of them too.
Lovely. I too have been for a walk in those parts in recent weeks. Kites galore, and I agree quite difficult to get a fix on with a lens.
Today’s walk was in a quarry and along a golf course. I saw cowslips, violets and bluebells. Must get a camera and join the female clickers. I also heard a mistle thrush and a woodpecker, among other birds.
Val: how very kind of you. I always feel mine are very amateurish compared to yours, so your comment is much appreciated!
Thank you, Nym: the bluebells here are just about appearing so I must make sure I take some photographs this year.
I’m very bad at taking my camera with me, so I miss loads of interesting stuff, but must do better!
Another week or so before they are fully out, I should think.
Yes I like the gate. The poor tree, not sure what species it is, has been hacked about a bit.
Madefororleans: thank you.
I agree about the tree, whatever it is, and I’m sure someone can tell us, doesn’t look very healthy! It’s in the car park so it could have been a victim of “elf and safety”. 😉
Nice pics, Araminta, nothing amateurish about them, I’d say.
Thank you Bravo!
I’m relatively new to this photography business but aren’t digital cameras wonderful? Mine was a present from my daughters and a fairly basic model, but it does take some good photographs occasionally without much effort on the part of its owner!
Araminta, the trick is to shoot a dozen or so and then keep the best one 🙂
Bravo: you haven’t seen the other sixty five! 😉
Araminta I tend to keep my camera on continual shoot, this way you get action picks as well.
Aha, Rick, that may be the solution for the kite pics.
I will have to try that, thank you. 🙂
I like the one with the gate and the tree in blossom on the left, and the one two before that best.
I thought the bluebells were supposed to be late this year? We have them here in London, but I was hoping for a Bluebell walk 8th May in Surrey…
Araminta, my best guess is a hornbeam.
Hi Isobel: thank you. It’s difficult to convey the feel of the place but I hope I have to some degree.
Bluebells: well here, they are just showing but I think Nym is right, it will be at least a week or more before they are really spectacular. It does vary enormously.
Made: actually, could it be a whitebeam? Are they similar? Having done a quick Google the whitebeam is quite common in this area.
Hey Ara; lovely pictures. YOur part of the world looks absolutely gorgeous.
Hello Claire: thank you and yes it is very gentle and very English!
How did your interview go?
Good pics, Araminta. Near where you live? It looks very pleasant.
Must try to get my wife to take some pics of this area.
Thank you, Brendano.
Yes, a short journey in the car. It’s a bit too far to walk, and hilly! We live on the edge of the Chilterns.
Nice pic’s Araminta. Is that a copyright tag bottom right? If so, that is a very good idea.
It is a copyright tag, Toc.
I’m not sure that any of my photographs are worth stealing, but it has happened. 😉
Really Araminta? Gosh.
I just visited one of my fave pages, mostly functional, and they have got a flickr link with contact sheet like strip on the sidebar. Looks interesting.
That of course was my reasoning. 🙂
Hi Isobel: it doesn’t stop people purloining my photographs but it does mean that when they publish them on other sites for their own rather dubious reasons, I can report them and request they be removed.
Right on the ball, Toc. 😉
But doesn’t that mean you have to visit their posts? 😦
Isobel: yes, and I’m sure I wouldn’t even know about it in the main, but it was rather obvious on MyT!
Ara; Thanks for asking; I got the job. Thank God – because my husband has been told
he is probably going to lose half of his!
Re the copyright issue, by the way, anything you create is automatically copyrightable to you, unless you have given the copyright to someone else, by way of a contract or something. That said, breach of copyright is notoriously difficult to prove/argue etc etc.
Thanks for your message yesterday – I will send that email later today then. I bet it’ll be the last thing you want to read! 😉
Another point is that anything published on this site is subject to copyright, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, so is anything published on my own WordPress page.
Claire – congratulations. Good for you. 🙂
Well done Claire: you are a very clever mermaid! Super news, but not so great about your husband.
Yes, I have done some research since my photos were, ahem, nicked, and you are quite right, but the Telegraph quite rightly do not want to take any chances
Thanks Brendano and Ara. Like I said, I have promised to send you emails and I will. Although my half cut ramblings are probably not what you want to hear!
Congratulations, Claire! Very good news for you, but a shame for your husband. Perhaps he can change jobs too? 🙂
I think, Ara, that one of the conditions of MyT and here is that by signing up, you automatically give copyright of your blogs and pics and whatever to whoever owns/runs the site.
Dear Claire: please feel free to “ramble”! I dare say it will be a welcome change from the Spam! 🙂
Thanks BIlby! Here’s hoping. But they don’t tend to employ many teachers around here any more; you find most of the teaching jobs are in the Beautiful Sarf 😉
It’s a moot point, Claire, or a “mute” point, as some would say, but they normally do not have any reason to exercise this right.
Aw ta Ara. World looks different tonight; sunnier and nicer somehow. We’re not crapping ourselves about losing jobs/house etc etc for a start now.
Ara; yes absolutely. I have had one of my stories nicked – I saw it on a website once, with everything just the same, apart from the name of the author. I couldn’t give a stuff though because it was a crap one!
In your case though, I can understand because it wasn’t simple plagiarism. But still, fuel to the fire and all that,so I’ll just say that I love these beautiful pictures you’ve shared with us here! They make me all wistful for this rose tinted vision of the south. I’ve hardly ever even been south of Nottingham, me. Unless it was on the way to France 😉
Evenin’, Araminta. Looks like just the place to have a holiday Cave. 🙂
OZ
Claire, can you tell what the job is, please?
Hey Pseu; yes, it is a teaching job. In my specialism, in Preston. Yay!
Sorry Ara; I have hijacked your lovely photo blog. Should have done one of my own, but didn’t seem important enought to bore everyone with! 😉
Congratulations.
Evening Oz, well yes, but its National Trust property in this immediate location so only rabbits are allowed holiday Caves. 🙂 The humans live quite close but we don’t have the same views.
It’s not a problem Claire; I do not have any objections at all to my posts being hijacked in a good cause. 🙂
Congradulations Claire!
I’m just curious if you are aware how lucky you are Araminta. I liked the old tree and the bird.
Levent: of course I am aware of it. It is not spectacular scenery, but gentle, and very English. I am very lucky to live here, but it is just one place in England; there are many beautiful places here, and I have lived in a few of them, and others that have not been so beautiful.
It is difficult to describe it, and my photographs do not do it justice, but thank you.
Araminta – Everyone in the National Trust is a bunny-hugger. Why does nobody want to hug a wolf?
Sob!
OZ
Oh OZ: I have yet to get my hands on a wolf, they are not much in evidence here; but rest assured, I would happily hug one, if only….. 🙂
OZ,
If weren’t edible to them they could be hugable to us, I guess. You , of course, are an exeption. 🙂
Levent – ta luv 😉
Pseu – sorry, I missed your comment last night, but thanks luv 😉
Hey, good news Claire. 🙂