Monday 26 August 2013

Ashden woodland trip 2013

Just back from another camping trip to the woods, this time joined by friends from work and their families... A few intrepid campers started the outing on Saturday, and it was lashing it down with rain, so we opted to walk to a pub for dinner. Thankfully the rain paused for a few hours after that, so we did get to light a fire, drink beer and Jesse even entertained us with the guitar for a while!

DSC_6961 woodland camp fire

The following morning (when the weather had dramatically improved!), our numbers were swelled by the rest of the group, and we went on a tour of the woods, looking for signs of wild boar activity and other wildlife...
DSC_6963 woodland walk

Once back at the camp, it was time for lunch, and Sarah had brought along a Toyola charcoal stove. Toyola is one of our past winners at Ashden, given an award for production of efficient stoves in Ghana and a novel way of helping people to pay for them. It certainly did the job here, and we cooked some sausages in a pan on it!
DSC_6966 Lighting an efficient chacoal stove

DSC_6967 Toyola efficient charcoal stove from Africa

It wasn't all about eating though, there were some woodland crafts going on too - here's Carla using a side axe while making a wooden mallet:
DSC_6970 Using a side axe

Time for a quick group photo...
DSC_6972 woodland group photo

Chainsawing is a bit antisocial, from a noise point of view, so we waited until most of the day visitors had gone before getting out some spare safety gear (PPE) that I'd brought, and having a go at cutting up some logs... So that was five people getting their first go on a chainsaw - when you live in a city, there's not always much opportunity to try this, but they all did very well!
DSC_6976 chainsawing logs

DSC_6980 chainsawing logs

The fine weather held right through until today, so we had one more chance to sit round the fire into the evening before the end of the trip...
DSC_6983 woodland camp fire

Looking forward to the next time!

Mike

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August in the woods: logs and bugs

Thankfully it's been much sunnier this summer than last year, and there have been some good opportunities to photograph insects in the wayleave. I was particularly pleased with this shot of a male Souther Hawker dragonfly:

DSC_6948 Southern Hawker dragonfly

I got some more of another type of dragonfly too, but not sure what type it is:
DSC_6926 dragonfly

DSC_6922 dragonfly

DSC_6916 dragonfly

Butterflies are also back in reasonable numbers, such as this Meadow Brown:
DSC_6920 Meadow Brown butterfly

and this White Admiral (which was near our camp, rather than in the wayleave):
DSC_6937 White Admiral butterfly

We've made use of the dry weather to finish moving logs back from further parts of the woods to near the camp:
DSC_6949 logs in trailer

DSC_6954 log stack

We also squeezed a few chunky holly logs into the car to fill up the last little space in the firewood store at home:
DSC_6957 cut and split logs

Finally, here's a few views of sunshine in the woods, which was quite rare last year!
DSC_6943 Woodland path

DSC_6876 Woodland

DSC_6873 Woodland

We've also have a few camping weekends, photos to come shortly from the most recent one...

Mike

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Friday 16 August 2013

Airbourne 2013 - Eastbourne Air Show

We had a great day yesterday at Eastbourne Air Show, otherwise known as Airbourne.

The Red Arrows were the highlight of course, so here's the best of the photos I got (just using a Canon compact as well!):

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Yes, this picture IS the right way up!
Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

Red Arrows - Airbourne 2013

A Belgian F16 Fighting Falcon did an impressive show as well:
F16 - Airbourne 2013

F16 - Airbourne 2013

F16 - Airbourne 2013

This picture was taken as it did an incredibly slow fly-by, very close to stall speed - impressive control from the pilot!
F16 - Airbourne 2013

He let off a few flares as well, seeing as there weren't any fireworks...
F16 - Airbourne 2013

There was of course a Spitfire, doing some impressive acrobatics:
Spitfire - Airbourne 2013

Spitfire - Airbourne 2013

And also the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, with a Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane:
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight - Airbourne 2013

Battle of Britain Memorial Flight - Airbourne 2013

A more quirky, but still impressive, show was put on by two Breitling 'wing walkers', which involved two people doing acrobatics while fastened to the top wing of two 70-year-old bi-planes!
Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

Breitling Wing Walkers - Airbourne 2013

And beneath all of this, a lifeboat was waiting - fortunately their services were not required!
Lifeboat - Airbourne 2013

Lastly, we also saw a JetLev...
JetLev jet pack- Airbourne 2013

The video shows how it works, it's a water-powered jet pack!


Looking forward to going to Airbourne again next year...

Mike

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