To Bollington and Beyond!

I'm loving this whole holiday thing!

I've been out and about again, travelling up to Bollington in Cheshire to stay with my sister and her family. Bollington is a great place; tucked into the edge of the Peak District, only a short drive from Manchester but seemingly a million miles away, it's a charming small town with a huge array of options for days out... not least of which is Jodrell Bank, talking of arrays!

I didn't visit the Jod on this trip, though I shall get back there soon if I can!

My nephews and niece are all real water babies and are often found in it or on it in one way or another! Luckily for them they have access to the canal... perfect for them to canoe / kayak / generally bob about on, perfect me to stroll along and take my camera for a walk! Leaving the poor guys at home to do their revision, I wandered along for a couple of hours to see what I could see.



It's such a peaceful place and was perfect for recharging my still rather worn out spirits!

Still on the lookout for a kingfisher moment, still not getting one, but I did get a quite nice encounter with the equally stunning heron!



Next on the list of things to do for the week was a fantastic day out on The Roaches with my good friend Andy.



High pressure gave us a superb day to explore the crags and high spots, but did also unfortunately make it rather hazy... not so good for interesting skies or distant views!



Still, it was a stunning place to be in and we had a fab day out... though I don't think Andy will be quite so keen to return to Lud's Church anytime soon!!! Long story, but the upshot was we saw it at least 3 times that afternoon! It's well worth a visit, but our poor old legs (ok, sorry Andy, my poor old legs!!), had really had enough after the first visit. Still, all good reason to get another ice cream from the handily placed van up at the car park!

A nice ice cream was also had at Tatton Park the next day! The sun was roasting again and the deer on the park had obviously decided that rather than join the queue for the ice cream van, they'd cool off quicker with a dip in the lake!!!



The deer are free to wander the park and munch grass wherever they like within the confines of the cattle grids.



They are lovely to see and it was even more magical to see them splashing about in the water to cool off! Lovely!!

The holiday continued with a road trip down to the Southampton area. Here we are on the road...



quite literally 'on the road'!!! Well, it was a long journey! Had to pass the time somehow!

A brief pitstop at Warwick Services and a video happy birthday sing song for Richard. Not wanting to look a complete nutter in the car park singing by myself, I tried to rope in the others. Oh well. At least Jim bravely came to help out his poor old bonkers aunty Becca!

It was appreciated Jim, thanks ;-) Richard appreciated it too, though I don't know that I can stretch it so far as to say he enjoyed it!!! Singing isn't my strong point. Hey ho.

Anyway, back on the road we went straight down to the Submarine Museum at Portsmouth. It's not a huge place but it really is worth a visit. By bizarre coincidence, my friend who had his birthday song that day was formerly a submariner and spent his training days here at HMS Dolphin! By even more coincidence, the museum has the propeller from his boat on display (HMS Resolution)!!

It's actually quite a beautiful thing when you look at it close up...



though I clearly wouldn't have wanted to see it at all had I been in the water! It is quite something to see though, even now after it had spent 30 years in the sea... very impressive!



HMS Alliance was also very, very impressive! The museum are hoping to raise enough funds to restore it, as it is really suffering with age and exposure to elements. Hopefully the fundraising will work in time and Alliance be brought back to her former glory.

It was fascinating to tour inside HMS Alliance. It has to be said, deep respect for all the chaps who ever worked on her and for all submariners worldwide!!!

Having spent a few very interesting hours at the museum, we headed back towards Southampton to pitch the tents.



It's been a LONG time since I've been camping and I was a bit dubious about it, but it was great! I'm going to buy me a tent now and do some more!! Not quite so sure I'll be singing along at the camp fire again any time soon, but it was a cracking good laugh!



Thanks Helen, and John, Jim,



George



and, a huge thanks to Rosie for sharing her tent with her old aunty B!


Oh, and also thanks to Jim for letting us use his hammock...



it was very, very comfy, nice one Jim!

Rebecca, X
http://www.rtphotographics.co.uk/
rebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk

Ambling about at Aberlady!!

Just about 20 miles east of Edinburgh, and signposted off the A1, is a real hidden gem. Aberlady local nature reserve was actually the first in Britain, designated in 1952 and now also a site of special scientific interest (SSSI).



It is managed by East Lothian Council and, I am very proud to say, my friend John! I'm not so proud to say that in all the time I lived in Scotland I never once went along to the reserve. It was, admittedly, a long way from where I used to stay but that's no excuse. I have now made up for past failings however, and paid a visit to the reserve on Tuesday before I continued south back across the border and into England.

I didn't get to see my pal, but I did leave a not very cryptic hello for him on the sightings sheet before I left! I was going to leave a note that I'd spotted a plastic bag on the reserve but thought I'd better not in the end. There is a story attached to that and John will know what I mean, but if anyone else reads the sightings sheet then they'd think I was being facetious and cross it out!!

Mr H and myself were both at university in Aberdeen together... crikey, just realised that it was last century, lol, and we shared a flat as well as a love of all things ornithological. John was far more knowledgeable than me (and obviously still is) as I only joined the University Bird Club as a way of getting across Scotland and seeing the place. I quickly caught the bug for birding though, and have many smashing memories of many smashing trips!!

My trip to Aberlady was tinged with sadness however. I was feeling really blue for having had to leave the dog in Scotland. He was never mine to keep, but to give him back hurt like hell and is still hurting now. So it was with a heavy heart that I actually set off across the wooden bridge and as the Scottish author Nigel Tranter put it, into 'Enchantment'.



As it turns out, dogs aren't allowed on the reserve between April and July anyway, so I could amble about and not keep thinking 'Hogy would have loved it here' and other such mournful thoughts. He would have loved it there, I've no doubt, but at least the knowledge that I couldn't have taken him if I'd had him made it easier to walk and look ahead to life without him. Not much easier, but a bit easier. By the time I'd returned to the car, my heart felt a bit lighter and I did start to feel a lot better... 'Enchantment' indeed!!

Covering 582 hectares (which is 1,439 acres for those of us who still work in old money), Aberlady is a stunning mix of tidal sand, mud flats, dune systems, pioneer salt marsh, and also has the wee Marl Loch



as well as the Peffer Burn and its estuarine landscape. With a backdrop of industrial Edinburgh to the west,



and the golf course to the east, Aberlady local nature reserve manages to squeeze rare and splendid isolation into a modern age of bustle and business. From the moment you cross the bridge, the noise of the road and the 21st century slowly dissipates into a new world of rustling grasses, birdsong, crickets and, eventually, the lapping of waves on the shore.

The footpath winds its way through the marshes and you are accompanied along the way by hundreds of butterflies flitting along from flower to flower and leaf to leaf.



There are 15 different species of butterfly here, and they flutter alongside the path as if you're walking into a Disney film!! To add to the slightly fairytale feel, the path then leads you through a tunnel of sea buckthorn that is cut in such a way you could be walking into a set for a Lord of the Rings movie or something!



Once through the tunnel, all sounds of the road have disappeared and you're in a truly magical place. The wildflowers are absolutely stunning, the diversity is wonderful and is clearly appreciated by the number of different birds that sing and chirrup as you walk by.

The walk up to the beach at Gullane Point is roughly one and a half miles, and if you go in the middle of the day in the middle of summer as I did, make sure you have plenty of high factor sunscreen with you!! I couldn't reach my back to put on the factor 30 and came back looking like I'd laid down in a blast furnace for half an hour!!!



Popping over the top of the dunes to the beach pops you back into the 21st century again, but there are still reminders of the past even here!



Fences stick out of dunes where the wind blown sand is reclaiming its lands, and out on the beach at low tide is an even stranger reminder of days gone by... a submarine being reclaimed by the sea!



A submarine in death as it was in its life!! I was fascinated by the different shapes and stood for a while thinking about how small it looked and how it must have been to have worked on her, when I realised that the water was creeping back in and was taking her back for another few hours until releasing her again at the next low tide. I stopped a while longer just to get a shot as low to the water as I could... I'd already got my backside wet when I squatted down for an earlier photo (which is how I noticed that the tide was coming in, lol), so I sat right down in the water for this one!



The things I do to bring you a photo!!! Getting a wet bottom in the pursuit of photography is one thing, walking back across the sands in wet trousers is another thing altogether! The beach here has a few posts and pillars scattered about,



but eventually I found a lovely big bleached driftwood log to sit on while I hung my wet trousers up on a post to dry.



It didn't take long, and I soon returned back the way that I came and back into real life again... and just as if to emphasise the end to my few hours in enchantment, a toad crossed in front of me under the buckthorn tunnel on his way to Marl Loch.



A fitting end to a few hours in fairyland!! If you happen to be in the area, look out for the bridge across to the reserve and let your dreams take you somewhere else for a while...

Nigel Tranter called it the 'Footbridge to Enchantment', it is!!

Read more about the reserve here and put a wee circle round it on your road map, it's a very special little place. http://www.aberlady.org/Nature%20reserve.html

Rebecca, x
http://www.rtphotographics.co.uk/
rebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk