Gloucestershire Lake District

Wainlodes

Combe Hill canal

Near Haw Bridge

Deerhurst

From  Deerhurst churchyard 

Bishops Norton

Cardington

My eye was caught by this story of yet another revival of the Airship although marketing have decreed it be called the "Airlander". In particular, I noticed they were being kept in giant hangers at Cardington near Bedford. I was passing the place recently and made a detour

Albania under Communism 1987

It was dark and raining. Behind us, the brightly lit Yugoslav border post, ahead a track heading towards a faint light that we hoped was Albania. About half way, the border guards materialised out of the bushes. I could tell that's what their job was by the grey uniforms, caps with a red star, dark glasses and guns on their backs. They did smile though.

 That was 1987, when communism and the "cold war" were real. In 2008, I found the photo album again….

 

This sign greeted us in the customs shed. We were also asked to declare any religious or pornographic literature

 One of the guides told us that we may have heard that we wouldn't be able to wander around freely but assured us this was untrue. Next morning in Shkodra, I tried this out. People easily identified me as a foreigner because of me clothes and when I got out my camera they were sure. They were still very shy and very few actually came up to talk to anyone in the group.

The party was everywhere...

..as were the leaders.

This was the grave of Enver Hoxa who died in 1985 having ruled the country since the end of the Second World War. I hear his body has been removed to a humbler resting place now.

Transport was basic with few cars

They were proud there was no unemployment in Albania. Here, someone has a job weighing people and discretely writing down the kilogrammes on a piece of paper.

Keeping the streets clean

A foreign currency shop in Tirane. Local people gathered in the evening to marvel at the goods on display.

A greengrocers shop near the centre of the capital, Tirane

Outside the cities we caught a glimpse of the largely unmechanised agriculture.

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In the museum in Kruja, a statue to Skenderbeg, a national hero from way before the communist era. He fought the Turks.

Street scene in Durres, the major port.

Tirane street scenes

Looking towards the University

Albania became an officially atheist state in the 1960s. Note the derelict mosque in the background

A medieval bridge

 A giant mosaic on a museum in Tirane

Barrow Hill

It's a distinctive small hill near Ashleworth in Gloucestershire. (I've later discovered that "Barrow Hill" is quite a common name) Click photos to enlarge.

From Tirley during the recent flooding

The North Face

Looking North-West

Ot Moor

I first found out about Ot Moor from an Ordnance Survey map of Oxford around 40 years ago. It was unusual in that it had no contour lines.and was crossed by a number of bridle paths so I could legally ride my bike. Somehow, I never seemed to get there.

The Romans had chosen Ot Moor for part of their Dorchester-on-Thames to Bicester road project and in 1980, the government decided it would be a good precedent and planned for the M40 to cross it. The "Friends of the Earth" disagreed, bought a vital piece of land and sold it off in small parcels to 3500 supporters making the process of compulsory purchase by the government an administrative nightmare. The government retreated and changed the law to prevent future stunts of this type.

On Saturday, I got there!  I was on the way to a dance, the sun was out and I diverted to Oddington and walked to the centre of Ot Moor where a bridleway cross roads is celebrated

Like many flat places, it's wet with lots of slow moving watercourses  that wander around rather than do the conventional spring-stream-river-sea thing.

Bridleway crossing the water

Some parts are just flooded

It was the sky that offered most to the photographer

 I've always tried my luck photographing sunsets and my Panasonic Lumix TZ20 even has a "Scene mode" for sunsets (but not sunrises). Sure enough, this yielded a spectacular "sky on fire" picture but as I compared the image on the LCD with what I could see in front of me, I was dissatisfied - the contrasting blue streaks in the sky were washed out. So I used the exposure override to stop down and got a more true to life result than the program wanted

What the camera wanted ISO100 F5.1 1/30

ISO100 F5.1 1/60 is more realistic

Reflection of the sky in a flooded field

The moor itself is uninhabited but its surrounded by villages such as Charlton on Otmoor