I Spent The Morning,

playing with a few photographs from our cruise,

 

we were in Livorno, Italy, when I saw this statue, the Baroque Monument of the Four Moors (or Monumento dei Quattro Mori), unfortunaly this is as close as I could get to it, I only had a wide angle lens with me, but thankfully being a medium format camera I could heavily crop the images I took, 

I wanted to focus on faces,

hands and chains, 

I am not sure if the plain blue sky adds or takes away, would this shot be better with a cloudy sky?

no sooner said than done,

I printed a couple up on A3 seized paper, one a matt finish the other luster, and they both looked fine, so next year I will add them to the new for 2027 gallery on my photography web page, after that and dropping Diana off at her work I was out, 

past the snail mail box in the park, 

to Beckenham Junction station, it was a easy trip, train to Victoria, then a tube to Green Park and a second tube to Covent Garden, all so easy, except yet again the Piccadilly line was closed, but a bit of good news someone said stay on the train to St. Pancras and then back to Covent Garden, they were wrong!

and here I am at St. Pancras, 

next to Kings Cross, I was running out of time, so a black cab it was, it was a bit galling after the meter past £15.00 to go past Green Park, the station I was in a short time ago, 

£18.00 later I was at Covent Garden station and walked to here, the Birchwood, 6, Langley Street, WC2H 9JA. I was meeting 3 fellow travellers on my upcoming Namibia trip, we introduced ourselves Andy, his wife Helen and Helen J, 

we ordered some food so we could chat and get to know each other,

during the meal Greenwich was brought up, Andy and Helen mentioned they remembered seeing the Cutty Sark but not much else about the town, I mentioned that many years ago Steve and Kai, Diana and myself walked from Greenwich to the O2, at the time in 2017 we were still living in Thailand and had come to the UK for a holiday, the reason I mention our trip is on the walk there is a wall mural, featuring Stan, 

not myself I hasten to add but it is still a Stan, the work is by Amanda Hinge and titled Thames Tale, our trip is here, meal finished, we crossed the square, 

to Stanfords, almost another Stan, they are cropping up everywhere!

after a welcome bubbly, downstairs for a 2 part chat, 

firstly Will Gray, who is the organiser of the Namibia trip gave a short chat about his new book, 

Photography Weekends Britain, it is a new publication from Bradt, from the blurb: 

"Photography Weekends Britain is the first photography-location guidebook to cover England, Wales and Scotland in a single title – and the first to package photogenic destinations into practical short breaks. This unique guidebook, by award-winning travel writer and photographer William Gray, celebrates the beauty and diversity of Britain’s landscapes, cities and wildlife, while providing inspiration and essential planning tips for photographers".

and yes I bought a copy, I need all the help I can get!

for the second half of the evening it was prize giving time, to announce the winners of the photography competition that Bradt Travel Guides launched with the RPS as part of the publicity for Will's book, a number of the competitors and winners were in the audience, the photographs WOW! I have so much to learn, after a book signing and a chat I was on my way home, 

I mentioned so much to learn, and this is where I did a bit of leaning, having decided that my camera with its 416 page instruction manual was a bit above my paygrade, I paid for a couple of one on one lessons here, the Fujifilm House of Photography, just down the road, of course every time I arrived for a lesson the Piccadilly line was not running, just my luck, so a walk to Leicester Square tube station and eventually home, but I stopped off on the way, I had a cunning plan, at the entrance to the park there is a family of fox cubs, knowing this I keep a few peanuts in my pocket and gave them a few, what with being mugged by the crows in the daytime and the foxes at night our peanut consumption is so high we are ordering them by the 25 kilo bags,

this is a family of three, that I give peanuts to one or more of them almost every day, they are on the window next to where I sit as I write the blog every morning,

and here is the thing, I am sure they recognise me, many times when I go out they sweep down from nowhere, 

after a few peanuts, back to arriving home Diana arrived 15 minutes or so after me, so a coffee and a chat as we continued to watch, 

I, Claudius, a great BBC series from 1967, over 10 hours long in all, we watched it until just after midnight, before we were off to bed.