Canoeing the Severn

I haven't updated this for a while as my computer had to be sent back to apple to be prepared. So this is from a while back (And apologises for the formatting - blogspot has changed and is being a pain.)

A few weeks after leaving London dad and I went to Bridgnorth and spent the day canoeing down to Arley. It was one of these 31 degree days so nice to be chilling on the river but the few bits I did leave exposed did burn despite lots of sunscreen.

We paddled/drifted for a few hours - more drifting than paddling to be honest - before we stopped for lunch, which was further away than we expected. Dad was more than ready for a break.

Eventually we found the waving man who indicated a good place to spot. Normally there is a pub to stop at for lunch but this was pre-pub reopening so we had a packed lunch. But so we didn't feel like we were missing out we took some G&Ts. Mom had packed the lunch and had popped them in the freezer. And they were still frozen. 

Luckily they dethawed pretty feel in the sun after 10 mins.

 The only issue we had was we had booked a taxi from Arley at 3 thinking that was plenty of time. But we did more drifting than paddling. So when we got a call from the taxi driver, we were still quite a way the end point so had to paddle rather more vigorously than we had been so far. I hurt for a few days after that.

Bridgnorth and camera trip

On Saturday we took a walk out to get some air and I treated mom and Dad to a breakfast in Bridgnorth. Thankfully we took the vertical railway up the hill (and walked down).

Enjoying the railway 

View over Bridgnorth and the river

Long way up.

We had a nice breakfast at a very little cafe which also sold lots of craft things.

Breakfast

 And after looking around a few shops and getting some things for New Year Eve, walked down the the lower Town.

View on the way down.

Today after being up early for a Skype call with a collaborator who never showed (on a Sunday morning as well - sometimes I really don't like my job!), Dad and I went for a walk to St.Mary's Church to play with our cameras. It was a little bit cold!

Frost 

Ice.

St. Marys Church is a lovely little church which has graves over 200+ years old in the graveyard, though I think the church is older.

Shadow on the doorway

St. Marys

 I spent some time getting used to my new lens which has a nice depth of focus (so I can select limited things to be in focus - it's great for portraits).

Ivy 

More ivy 

And some leaves for a change

Frost

There are a number of very old headstones in the graveyard.

Tilting

1823

(Unintentional) moss art

After the church, we walked down to King Georges Park. I used to go there a lot when I was younger riding my bike and scrambling in the woods. Now they have put up fences everywhere. Still we took some more photos, chatted to a lovely little lady and I managed to get jumped on by a muddy dog. :-/ 

Willow

Setting sun

 We spent some time just photographing ducks and seagulls. There were a lot of them!

Looking for dinner.

 Dad was very jealous of my seagulls shot.

"Ducks" in a row

Staring contest

 Dad was just changing his lens to get a photo of the seagulls on the fence when a gaggle of geese noisily made their entrance and scared all the other birds of temporally. He was not impressed.

The geese have arrived

Once the sun set, it got really cold so we headed back where mom had us tea and coffee ready! :-)