High Drama

A rather lovely and highly melodramatic rose, still covered in raindrops after a brief shower. I always find it tricky to get nice pictures of roses, and this took an awful lot of attempts, but I'm fairly pleased with how it came out! Worthy of a tragic romance...

Lost in Thought

Another picture from the trip to Castle Howard. I promise I'll stop going on about it now, but I really did like the statuary there. This is another one from the Temple of the Four Winds.

Weeping Angels

Todays photo has a rather Dr Who feel to it... at least, if you're obsessive enough to look quite hard for a connection. It's of a statue at Castle Howard in York, on a rainy August day.

I recently went up to York to visit a good friend who lives in the city. Three of us went for a day trip to Castle Howard, a very beautiful stately home featured in both the film and TV versions of Brideshead Revisited (not an entirely happy connection for me; I studied the book for my A-Level coursework an alarmingly long time ago) although it has to be said that the creators of their website were rather premature in choosing the tagline "it's a beautiful day", unless their definition of a 'beautiful day' differs radically from my own and involves thunderstorms. Perhaps they come from a drought-stricken land.

We had a lovely time anyway, and the castle and grounds looked rather picturesque wreathed in mist. However, having brought a picnic we struggled slightly to find somewhere to eat it, as there didn't seem to be an indoor picnic area. We were on our way to the Temple of the Four Winds when the rain apparently realised that it hadn't been trying hard enough, and the heavens opened. Along with a few other tourists, we ran for the only nearby shelter - the Temple itself - completely ignoring the "Warning: don't climb on these steps, in case you fall over and try to sue us" signs.

So we decided to have our picnic there and then, around the back of the Temple, looking out over the damp and rolling scenery beyond. It felt incredibly secluded, although the mood of tranquility was broken somewhat by my friend's anxiety that we would be caught in our illicit luncheon by a member of staff and 'get in trouble'. I was forced to eat the last falafel standing up, as she whipped the picnic rug out from beneath me. But we didn't leave until I'd taken a few photos of the lovely statues which guard the Temple on all sides.

Sunshine After The Rain

I went on a trip to the local Botanical Gardens with my mother one day and we had the most peculiar weather. All in all it rained - heavily - on four separate occassions, but always at a relatively convenient moment; on our first trip to the tea rooms for lunch (delicious soup... tomato and chorizo, I believe, which I loved), then when we were standing right by the large greenhouses, then twice when we were back at the tea rooms, enjoying another couple of well-earned cups of tea. These gorgeous flowers (my mum told me their name and I promptly forgot. She would be very disappointed in me) grew all around the greenhouses, and when the sun suddenly emerged from behind the clouds, like an increasingly confident streaker at a public sports match, they looked fantastic, all damp and fresh from the rain.