I Am Only Making One Post Today,

for two reasons, firstly it was Diana's day off, and secondly I took lots of photographs!

secondly as soon as post this I will be off to visit Duncan, back to Tuesday, we decided on a leisurely drive in the country to visit Waverley Abbey, the satnav quoted 40 miles, and a travel time of 1 hour 30 minutes, we set off at 10.30, two and a half hours later we still had 17 miles to go! the traffic was absolutely terrible, but we eventually arrived, amazingly the grounds of the abbey are free to walk around and the car park is free too! I had brought the twin camera set up, one for normal photographs and one to take infrared photos,

what a glorious day,

in the distance a banqueting hall that is available for hire,

we were leaving the entrance behind us,

walking along the pathway,

Diana looking back at the hall,

in the distance a bridge, looking as old as the abbey ruins,

naturally a pose,

from both of us,

next a few more of the hall,

and in the far distance the car park,

what stories this bridge could tell!

a last look at the hall, if you are scared of cattle, the next bit is not the place you want to be, there are 2 cattle gates, one into and one out of the cattle field, although it has to be said the cows there are so used to people, one wanted to follow Diana home!

the legend says it all,

as soon as I was near the abbey,

I started snapping away,

the sky was perfectly clear, which was so nice,

walking around the abbey in the sun,

a quick pose,

before I carried on,

walking past one of the buildings,

I am not going to play with any of the images today,

I will leave that to next week,

all of these are as they come out of the normal camera,

a Lumix G8, it is Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens camera, the review was made when I bought it back in 2016/7,

the second is exactly the same but I had it converted to take infrared photographs, so I will be playing with those when I have time in a few days,

I continued walking around the abbey,

as it happens it was quite nice to be in some shade believe it or not,

I had a look through one of the windows,

it looks like a face on the central column, but it is barely discernible,

around the corner,

a few paces back,

and few more,

note self, do not shoot into the sun!

a tad better,

I started back to where Diana was sitting,

stopping every now and then,

as I neared more parts of the abbey that survived,

the shadows starting to get long,

it was past midday by some,

I caught up with Diana who was siting by the tree, on the way back through the stiles,

Diana best new friend came up to say hello,

we walked back to the car park, and then across the road, to look a the River Wey,

as it raced under this bridge,

from this weir and sluice gate above it,

in the pool above it,

a weeping willow, by now we were both hungry and thirsty, 

so on the advice of a nice chap that was walking towards me we drove a couple of miles,

to a country pub on the river, 

the Mill at Elestead, 

and inside there really was a turning full size water wheel,

the legend,

by the wheel, it was a tad difficult to take photographs as there was a glass screen around the wheel,

we ordered our food,

 

and went to a table in the garden to wait for our food to arrive, having taken our coffees and Diana's cake with us,

we did not have to wait long, a shredded chicken bar-b-q burger for Diana,

a tuna and sliced spring onion mayonnaise sandwich for myself, both with chips,

it was just so nice sitting in the sun, our bill came to £30.00,

before driving home,

we had a walk to the other side of the building,

where the water from the wheel exited,

and made its way down stream,

Diana was taking a few photographs as well,

for the family album, if those are kept anymore!

a quick pose by the car, that as usual performed effortlessly, despite the hours spent queueing traffic this morning, in truth I was not looking forward to car queues on the return journey,

but there it is,

over the bridge and we were away,

as it happens despite the road works there was hardly any traffic, even past the road works, but as we neared Croydon as this morning so many traffic warnings, so we added a few miles to our journey by driving past the Croydon exit and took the one at Bromley, arriving home in the late afternoon, for the technical including the extra miles trying to avoid holdups on the way there and home, 

we drove 116 miles, 

at a average speed of 28mph considering most of the journey was on the motorway that give some idea of how long we sat in traffic jams! 

and averaged a terrible 49.4 mpg, way down for the 60s and 70s to the gallon we normally get when travelling, but there it is, there were some major holdups on the way down, and having the aircon on all day I guess did not help! after all of that it was feet up for a Midsomer Murder followed by a rather nice episode about the Everglades, narrated by Troy Landry, titled Troy Landry: Dragons from Hell, apparently there have been a number of strange disappearances near Lake Okeechobee, Florida, of pets and animals, I have to say I was amazed at the number of non-native species that were caught in over night traps, on a different note, Diana has a 4.00 AM start tomorrow, so after that we were off to bed.