Bird Splat

 

 

We are Ten

Yes its ten years since I started blogging with Spud's Daily Photo though I admit I have been blogging six months longer with a couple of other blogs I have. I currently write two the Church Explorer and this one. The other two are ones I do anything with less now. I felt it might be a good idea to my ten favourite photos from the blogs I wrote. After looking I noticed that the early ones were just one picture because I started by writing a 365 blog, one for each day of a year. This may well happen again as I am considering doing this for 2023.

 

2012

The first photo I published was to get feel of how blogger worked, tit was  Buscot Weir which was a stitch photo, it was Ok but I f I really remember one from 2012 it was this one the Town Crier 

I took it on my first smartphone it was also the first photo of of my blog proper and it started of a 365 photo 

2013

There are a lot of blank spaces through out the year because back then I used to link some of the photos from Flickr, when they decided to limit the photos I had to loose thousands which I downloaded and saved on another Google account a little while later I deleted my Yahoo account along with Flickr. My photos from back then leave something to be desired I like to think I have improved a little. I also had some hard drive trouble and fear a lot of photos were lost

 

But this one sticks out with the swan stood in the floods by the Thames at Goring lock

2014

There were a lot of photo's I could have used but this year was memorable from the point that it marked the end of Didcot Powerstations Cooling towers

I got up with my two sons to witness this at 1am and by 2am were were stood in the cold on a roadside out by Harwell. At 3:58am the towers started to fall and this was the moment I took the photo. The first one was falling and if you look between the other two you can see an orange glow of the explosives going off. It took less than a second for them all to fall.

2015

 

Looking though the blogs that year I can say I did post some rubbish but one sticks out

 

 This one, the Dinosaur in the atrium at Diamond Light Source 

2016

I've been shying away from showing any skywatch photos as it is another blog I intend to write for ten years but I should show one

A night burn over in Jubilee Field at Cholsey

2017

 

I think the one for this year should be

 

This one of the triangulation pillar on Lowbury Hill which is also the background for this blog

2018

I think the one photo that really sticks out is this one

The sun setting with rays shooting towards the heavens

2019

 

There were a few photos I could have picked but one time sticks out and it was on  an early morning in August

The sun rose on the towers at Didcot Powerstation for the last time, four minuets later they were gone and a dust cloud was all you could see

2020

This was not a good year for any of us as Covid 19 raised it's ugly head and our country went into lockdown

This one sums up the year, Station Road in Cholsey devoid of any cars or people, we were all to frightened to go out or go near each other

2021

I think there were a few I could pick but I liked this one

The Robin sat on the fence opposite our kitchen

2022

 

While writing this blog we heard the news that her Majesty the queen had passed away. I must admit it took any joy I had in writing it away. I have no doubt there are quite a few photos I could use for this year, but I will end it with this one

Its taken a couple of hours after they announced the death or Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

A light went out in our lives.

St Mary Bishopstone

 

This week the church Explorer visits St Mary Bishopstone a wonderful church on a hillside.

Cloudy Sunset

 

Mid August I noticed the sky had a sunset reflection on the clouds

Looking out towards the east it looked like the sun was setting there

  South the colouring was on the horizon

 West all you could see of the sunset was a line below the clouds.

RIP  Queen Elizabeth II

 

Taking a Break

 

 

 Taking a break for a few days

St James Cowley

 

This week the Church Explorer returns to St James Cowley where he looks around this rather nice old church in Oxford

August Sunset

 

Beginning of August I happened to be putting out the rubbish bins and could not help see the clouds and this sunset. It looked quite dramatic so no good looking get a few photos

 

Looking right our of our property across the allotments, the sun had set leaving a glow

 

Turning right a little over next doors shed the grey clouds

 

Upstairs out the bathroom window looking easterly the sun reflected off the cloud

 

The other was across the house the glow of the sunset

 

Zooming out again the glow extending across the horizon 

 

The moon was up there making its presents known 

The glow lingering opposite the sunset

Happy Skywatch
 

I need some more tea

 

 

A few places in Wallingford

 

Not really prepared anything this week mainly because it is a Bank Holiday today and have not done anything. I did remember I took my bike to have it checked over as my Son has been riding it to work and on Friday I was informed it was ready to collect. Once I picked it up I rode it around to him to take home and went back to pick my car up

The shop is in here it's called Rides on Air

The more impressive side is here where you can view bikes though the barred window, sad state of affairs when they have to place steel bars on the windows

Not far from where I was stood you can see this shop Wildwood, I must pop in sometime

After dropping of my sons ride home I walked back to my car passing this place a low cost supermarket called Lidl It is a very popular one though I have only ever been in to look around once

Not far from where the carpark was I passed this place, Boughtons Mill which has been converted into flats. The grain lift is the wooden cladded room sticking out. It used to be in operation when I was a kid and a stream runs under the place and I remember going in there buying corn for my dads doves. The place was covered in flour and there was a water wheel tat worked. Not sure if it is still in there but the stream is still there but little water runs through it. The shop used to be on the far right. I always feel it is a shame it was never kept as a going concern, now adays it would be very welcome around here.

Take Care  

St James Bourton

 

This week the church explorer visit St James Bourton on the far edge of Oxfordshire. A rather nice little Victorian church