things change

Mike’s blog – for his amusement

Alternative home page

  • Out the window

    Like in the sixties film Blow-Up, if you look carefully you can see something that wasn’t apparent when the picture was taken. (Don’t get excited – it’s not very exciting!)

  • London’s beach

    The Thames was so low this morning one could almost imagine a pebble beach!
    On a glorious day, I saw some large bubbles, hundreds of selfies being taken, the magnificent Shard, swings in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, the wobbly bridge, lots of school parties, and I said yes to an “Excuse me sir, could you please take my picture with my phone?”


    Not much sign of ‘art’ in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall.

  • Just an image from a walk

  • Dorking – a short stroll

    On setting out, there was the following piece of wisdom at my local train station. Curiously (or not), my previous post which was posted just an hour earlier, referenced the spelling of the past tense of focus (focussed or focused), though the stationmaster didn’t have to consider this when writing her message.

  • Shadows on a sunny morning

    On this bright, sunny morning I spotted my shadow on the wall and dashed upstairs to get the camera to capture it! The camera didn’t do a great job of focusing¹ on the darkness, but you get the idea.

    [¹ Is it focussing or focusing?]

    No comments on Shadows on a sunny morning

  • A walk along the River Wey

    It should have been a lovely Autumn walk along the River Wey, but today the sun was in short supply and I was a little disappointed. My walk started at Byfleet, passed over the M25 to the river, and then parallel to the motorway for a while, so initially it’s very noisy for a country walk. I doubled back after an hour and a half, continuing a bit further along the river and under a monster of a bridge carrying the motorway over the river.

    1 comment on A walk along the River Wey

  • Sunday things

    Earlier in the week I made one of my regular trips to Southampton. I’ve got into the habit of travelling by train – surely the most civilised form of transport. Apart from those rare times that I get involved in a conversation with a fellow passenger, I probably get 3 to 4 hours of quality reading over the two journeys. On this trip I was finishing off Graham Swift’s novel, Tomorrow, which I enjoyed, before moving on to Patrick Flanery’s novel, I Am No One.
    Today, Sunday, has been drab, so as well as more reading, I tinkered with CSS on my blog to see if I could put some text between the homepage banner and the post thumbnails – yes I can!

    (more…)

    No comments on Sunday things

  • Fireworks, in the distance

    Taken from a considerable distance on my little camera, and with a shutter speed of 6 seconds, these pictures are as good as could be expected.

    No comments on Fireworks, in the distance

  • Autumn in London parks

    What a gloriously sunny and warm day it was in London, yesterday! The tourists were walking the parks and many were sunning themselves on the numerous benches. As for the pigeons, they just bathed in the warmth, on the grass.

    Construction of the annual Hyde Park Winter Wonderland attraction was well underway.

    And after ambling through St James’s Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and a bit of Kensington Gardens, I think I deserved that bus ride to the station.

    3 comments on Autumn in London parks

  • At 11 years our car is old, but these are over 100!

    Between a walk to the village shops and the little ones coming for a visit, I was able to capture a few images of the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run as it passed by. It’s the longest-running motoring event in the world, the first run being in 1896. To qualify, the cars must have been built before 1905 and this year there were more than 400.

    But not every one of these old vehicles makes it to Brighton!

    No comments on At 11 years our car is old, but these are over 100!