I processed a batch of photos yesterday, and uploaded them to Flickr.  Without realising it, four of them in a row were just titled for the letters and numbers that appeared in the photo:

HELLO

GRIT SALT

G

From the same grit bin, just the G:

68

I loved the colours in the peeling paint on this door:

Donkeys May Bite

The next one was a sign, so it almost counts too:

Unusual new design of donkey.

We had a walk over to West Exe Park today, where Tiverton Town Band were playing a concert.  It’s not often you see a bandstand being used for its intended purpose these days.

Photos follow, but a brass band really needs video first:

Setting Up

The Horns

The Audience

Emo fence has been crying.

This fence is just down Canal Hill from home – it looks unhappy.  It would probably be happier if it was facing the canal, rather than looking out onto the road.

I’m mainly posting this for the sake of trying out WordPress’ built-in image and media handling.  It all seems quite impressive, but I’m pretty happy with using Flickr for the most part.  Still, it would be nice to have all our photos and videos here on our own site, rather than uploading them to Flickr and YouTube, and then embedding them into posts here later.

I had a couple of days off this week, so I walked with Sam as she was going to work, then walked back home. We walked around by the River Exe on Thursday morning, to kill a little time before Sam needed to be at work. Someone had disposed of a rusted old moped by parking it in the river.

I can never resist photographing rusty things.

A couple more:

We needed to do a bit of shopping in the market, so we drove into town rather than walking. Since we still wanted a walk, we headed in to West Exe after brunch at Mad Hatters.

We found a fairly sizable park we didn’t know about, with a bright colourful playground…

Even the ground was colorful.

Next to that was something I haven’t seen for years – an open-air paddling pool. Apart from a couple of sweet wrappers and leaves, it was even quite clean.

Further on, there was a bandstand.

A pine cone on the bandstand steps seemed a good time to go all arty and monochrome.

Locks just weren’t enough to protect whatever was behind this door.

Back towards the town centre, I couldn’t resist another shot of Devon’s great electric systems.

In town, at the top of Angel Hill, there was a window with a doorbell. There was a door further along the wall, but it was several steps away.

Along St Peter Street…

Warning light on some scaffolding:

A Volkswagen Campervan in a cool colour scheme:

Finally, we were warned about glass.

Quite a short walk in total, but we’ll walk more today. We had shopping to do, and kittens to cuddle.

Another day, another walk. Not as long as yesterday’s BigWalk, but not bad. We started by heading into the town centre again, taking a cut along a narrow sloped path that brings us from the bottom of Canal Hill to the multi-storey car park.

I love the telegraph poles and electrical system here in Devon. It all seems very unplanned.

At the bottom of Canal Hill, I took a time-lapse video of the roundabout – one minute of the roundabout in a three-second video:

Along the narrow path, one section of rusty metal fence was tied into an interesting shape.

Near the multi-storey car park, I liked the texture of the crash barrier. I think I may have had some strange looks from passing motorists, standing at the side of the road, intently photographing a crash barrier. Maybe they thought I was from the Department of Transport carrying out some intricate investigative work on the crash barriers, but it’s more likely they thought I was just an idiot.

They may have had a point.

The car park wall:

We stopped at Marks & Spencers for water, and sat down for a while on Phoenix Lane, and watched the pigeons courting. The courtship was a success, so we watched the pigeons having sex.

Yes. I did video it. It doesn’t last long.

We decided to walk along the old railway line, to Tidcombe Lane, and then back along the canal. After all the excitement of pigeons getting it on, I was back to my usual form. Here’s a tedious photo of my own shadow:

Then a little rusty metal bridge over the stream at the start of the old railway walkway:

There’s probably some history to this bridge – it seems a bit over-engineered for a small footpath over a stream.

There was a dragonfly along the walkway a bit further on. I took quite a few shots, but only one turned out well. It’s difficult to get any camera to focus well on something so small, especially when it keeps moving. A compact camera is worse, too.

The walkway used to be the railway line between the main line and Tiverton. The Tivvy Bumper ran a regular service taking people between the main line and Tiverton. It now rests in the Tiverton Museum.

We’re back to bridges that seem a bit over-engineered – this used to be over the railway line, now it’s just over a footpath:

This bridge also has a set of steps that lets you get from the old railway line up to the road (Tidcombe Lane). We used that to get up to the road, then walked up the road to meet the canal. We passed under Tidcombe Bridge.

The reflections made a pretty pattern on the bridge, but it wasn’t so interesting still, so I shot a little video:

I managed to grab a shot of a Damsel Fly, which doesn’t happen often.

I also happened across a moorhen who was very happy to have found an apple, and was apple-bobbing.

It seemed like fun, but I didn’t join in.

As we got to the Canal Basin, the horse-drawn barge was preparing to leave. The horse was waiting ready.

For the little bit before they get to the horse, it’s a people-drawn barge:

We had lunch at the Canal Tea Gardens, then headed home. Quite a bit shorter than yesterday’s trip, but an enjoyable walk.

We went out for a nice long (for us, anyway) walk yesterday, starting with our usual Saturday brunch at Mad Hatters, Tiverton. After ordering, we went to sit out in the garden, and wondered if we should have gone for the duck – it was very fresh.

It was drinking from the water bowl left out for dogs.

Mmm. Coffee. And Doppio. A good start to the day.

Rather than walking around the town centre as we usually do, we then headed down Angel Hill, and over the bridge, into West Exe, and up Leat Street. For some reason, I always get the urge to photograph the houses on Leat Street – they’ve very traditional terraced houses, deep and narrow, and opening straight out onto the street, but these are covered in satellite dishes. There’s no cable coverage in Tiverton, and reception isn’t good in some places, so satellite TV is popular.

I played with the colouring on this shot in Adobe Lightroom (these are all processed in Lightroom), and added a vignette effect.

We turned to head towards Morrisons, but crossed the road to see the swans with their cygnets on the town Leat.

A couple of gulls were very vocal about wanting their picture taken, so I obliged.

Again, the vignette (the darkening towards the corners) is added afterwards in Lightroom. All these shots were taken with my Canon G9, which doesn’t have any (noticeable) vignetting, but I got used to the effect with my Nikon 55-200 VR lens, and I quite like a bit of vignetting on some shots now.

This duck was sleeping:

One of the cygnets seemed to enjoy eating grass from the bank.

Want to see it in action? I took a little video of it too:

Here’s another of the swan and two cygnets swimming:

We found a path, and we had no idea where it went, so we decided to follow it to find out. I found a yellow hoop.

So I jumped in it.

Just after that, a well worn path disappeared up to the side of the path we were following

I had to know what it lead to, so I climbed up it. Well, what do you know? I didn’t expect that.

It lead to a digital mammography unit.

We found a small area of concrete with a drain mounted in it, with interesting patterns all around the drain.

Well, ok, maybe interesting is the wrong word there.

We found ourselves cutting through the grounds of the High School, which had gargoyles on the walls in several places.

As we left the school grounds, we found a little lost kitteh.

We cut through the Moorhayes estate next, and right near the start watched a buzzard being mobbed by a couple of crows. No photos, I’m afraid, as it was happening a bit too fast. Buzzards are really crap birds of prey. There are loads of them around Devon, and they spend most of their time being beaten up by crows and seagulls. One day we’re going to find one having the shit kicked out of it by a young blue tit, I’m sure.

So, no pictures of all that excitement, but I did get a picture of some concrete steps. Fun, eh?

Oh, and grass.

And a buttercup.

I’m usually in the habit of pushing the contrast and saturation up to make really ‘punchy’ images. When I processed this lot, I experimented with actually reducing the saturation in quite a few of them. It seems to work well here. Taking away the bright yellow gives a more delicate result.

Yeah, there was quite a lot of grass.

And some chimney pots that put me in mind of Madonna’s conical phase.

I liked the little ‘shooting star’ graffiti on the sign here, but when I went to take the photo, the rest of the wall wanted to be included too, so I obliged.

The colours are pushed somewhat, but the yellow at the bottom is quite bright in reality.

We stopped at the small Tesco store for drinks and ice-creams. As we got towards the far end of Moorhayes, I could hear falling water, and went to investigate. Unexpected waterfall!

Wherever you go in Tiverton, you never seem to be more than ten feet from a river. They’re everywhere. This little river follows near the main road through Moorhayes, then turns sharply right to follow the main road again, then suddenly turns left at a right-angle, and disappears under the road. It follows the edge of the business park after that, before wandering off into the countryside.

A few dead leaves and a fly.

I’m always careful to take photos of only the most pretty things.

Along the main road, here’s the same river:

Here’s where it turns sharply and cuts under the road:

The hedge further along had some pretty and bright honeysuckle, along with the occasional nettle.

The Michelin Man had done a poo by the side of the road.

By this time, we figured we’d earned a drink, so we stopped off at the Tiverton Hotel (a Best Western).

I had a pint of Bass, Sam had a glass of wine.

I took a couple of shots of my little Sheaffer Touchdown Tuckaway (Tucky) while there.

We then crossed the main road to Old Road, and cut up through Lewis Avenue, ending up back on Canal Hill next to the police station. We stopped off at the canal to visit the Ducks Ditty for another drink.

Again, I had a beer, Sam had a glass of wine.

Further along the canal, bees were enjoying the flowers in their own special ways. Check out the bee’s knees:

This one looked like Starbug from Red Dwarf:

When we got home, a sparrow was making a lot of noise on the corner of our building, and wasn’t going to be deterred by us being there.

It was a good walk. Around five miles, which is quite a lot for us. Lots of photos, though, and I’m quite happy with how many of them have turned out. The Canon G9 is doing good things for my photography.

This is Pixie:

We wanted to take part in a sponsored dog walk for The Blue Cross, especially since it was along the canal that passes a few minutes walk from home. Only one problem: we don’t have a dog.

Since we volunteer at the local Blue Cross centre, though, they said they’d bring us a dog we could borrow for the walk. When we turned up, we were greeted by that happy little puppy, Pixie.

Pixie had an exciting time, meeting quite a few other dogs. We think she pulled twice. She had the new experience of meeting a horse – the shire horse that pulls the barge along the canal – which she seemed quite happy with.

Typical for me – there was a brightly painted barge full of people, and a shire horse, and all I took a photo of was the knot keeping the boat still while the passengers stretched their legs and the horse had a drink.

The fields of rape beside the canal were in their full yellow glow.

Oh, and we found a stash of canal boats – it’s not often we see boats other than the horse-drawn barge along our part of the canal, but there are a few parked further along.

Of course, I kept stopping to take pictures, so Sam kept vanishing into the distance with Pixie, leaving me to hurry to catch them up.

We didn’t manage a great distance. It was a very hot day, and Pixie was only six months old. We did have a good time, though, and Pixie had fun too. We even both jogged a few times. It’s funny what a happy puppy can do to you.

We’ve lived here in Devon for over a year and I’m still bowled over by the beauty of the place. Moving from a fairly nondescript suburban housing development where the view was just more of the same houses to, well, this:

It’s incredible. I’ve spent a great deal of time staring at this view open-mouthed. I still can’t believe we live here.

The great thing about being here in Tiverton, not far from an attraction known as “Devonshire’s Centre”, is that we can travel to either of the coasts in the time it used to take us to get to work on a wet morning. And when the weather’s good and we have the time, we love to get out there and make the most of it. Here are some of my thoughts on our recent visits to just a few of Devon’s fabulous coastal spots.

The North Coast – Lynton and Lynmouth to Barnstaple

The north coast is rugged. Seriously rugged. It’s walking boots and things with “The North Face” stamped all over them, and Real Ale and an excuse to blow a fortune at Millets. As the sign welcoming you to the area will tell you, it’s where Exmoor meets the sea which it does so in an explosion of breathtaking scenery.

Lynton and Lynmouth are villages separated by a gorge. Normal people who visit Lynton at the right time of year would travel between the towns using the clifftop railway. But some people either aren’t that sensible or arrive out of season when the thing is out of commission and find themselves very delicately negotiating the route down on foot and, fuelled perhaps by fish and chips in Lynmouth, charging back up again but pausing every five minutes to beg for oxygen, sherpas and St Bernards bearing brandy.

The rugged landscape continues along to the west of Lynton and emerges several gut-churning miles in Combe Martin. From there it’s just a few minutes along some more impressive scenery to Ilfracombe, one of the larger coastal towns in North Devon. I haven’t really got much to say about Ilfracombe, as it seemed the entire town was closed. Maybe another visit between April and September will see it with more life.

There was certainly no shortage of life in Barnstaple, the next town along, when we visited yesterday. Barnstaple is the shopping destination for North Devon holidaymakers and Michael’s parents certainly seemed to enjoy wandering around its variety of shops with us despite the bitter cold wind.

The South Coast – Exmouth and Sidmouth

The south coast is altogether more tranquil than the rugged North. Although there is no shortage of hills and beautiful scenery anywhere in Devon, the towns along the south coast suggest a more relaxed pace. It’s cream teas and craft fairs and sitting on a bench by the sea and watching the world go by. Exmouth is our most frequent destination along the south coast as it’s only about 20 minutes from Exeter. In comparison to the towns on the north coast, Exmouth was positively buzzing with activity when we visited last Sunday – a car boot sale at the Hall and an Antiques Fair at the Pavilion. A perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Sidmouth is utterly gorgeous in just about every way. It’s the ultimate Devon seaside town. Streets of interesting little shops, cafes and hotels, a sandy beach, and as a backdrop, the magnificent Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. You can be admiring little seaside souvenirs in the shops, and then just up the road be admiring imposing red cliffs and preparing yourself to tackle Jacob’s Ladder.

There is so much of both coasts that we haven’t explored yet – out further west to the north are Croyde, Westward Ho! and Clovelly; and to south further west are Dartmouth, Salcombe, Plymouth and going on into our neighbouring county that we’re really looking forward to exploring at some point – Cornwall.

We we are very lucky to be living in such wonderful surroundings.

Enough of playing with old photos – time for some new ones. Here are two words you see a great deal around Devon – “Tea Gardens” – and they’re always enjoyable places to sit back, relax, and enjoy a cuppa (when the weather’s nice).

This particular Tea Garden is at one of our regular stops – Mad Hatter’s Restaurant in Tiverton. Best coffee in town.