Category Archives: Picture of the day

7th July picture of the day…

07 Wednesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Musings, Nepal, Photography, Picture of the day

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Well, that was a fraught evening! Dawn was so het up about the England – Denmark football match tonight I thought she was going to do herself an injury before it ended! Thankfully, England won, although now I’ll have to go through all this again on Sunday with the final, only this time with the whole of Dawn’s family (three generations in fact). Drink may have to be taken…

Joking aside, it’s great to see the England team doing so well after so many false starts, hype and disappointments. From an outsiders eye all I can say is that finally they look like and play like a team. They’ve done so well to get this far and it would be lovely to see this young group of players get the trophy.

Sports aside, I’ve had a busy day finessing an article before getting my copy and pictures off to RAIL magazine. With that done I managed to get a few more old slides scanned before giving priority to houshold bits and bobs including shopping for tonights food so that Dee could ‘relax’ in front of the TV and watch the footy. Not spending all my day goggle-eyed in front of a computer screen’s been lovely, even if the weather’s been mixed. The most difficult decision right now is what to wear. Either you under-dress and get soaked by heavy showers or you over-dress and end up with the same result in sweat as it ain’t flat around here and carrying shopping a few hundred metres uphill soon opens your pores. Still, first world problems eh? I think back to some of the Nepalese porters I met who’d be carrying 75kg loads in wicker baskets 1000s of metres uphill whilst wearing flip-flops and realise I’ve sweet FA to complain about.

So, today’s picture is one that reflects what you won’t find me doing as I walk back uphill to home from the supermarket – even if it does feel this way sometime! I took this picture in a village in the Gorkha district of Nepal in April 1998. Be grateful that you can always order a taxi…

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

6th July picture of the day…

06 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Bali, Indonesia, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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It’s been a quiet few days here in Bigland towers. The pair of us have been busy working from home which has been fine as the weather’s been spectacularly wet with torrential showers accompanied by claps of thunder and grey, apocalyptic skies. On Monday I didn’t even manage to get out for my daily constitutional because every time there was a window of opportunity the heavens opened so I put it off. There’s not even been time for blogging as I’ve just kept my head down trying to catch up on writing for a living and scanning old slides in order that I’ve another set ‘in the bank’ ready for editing when I have some down-time away from the office.

Mind you, it’s the semi-final of the football tomorrow night, which means I’ll be finishing early to transfer to cooking duty so that Dawn can watch the match!

The latest batch of old slides that I’ve been scanning are from two very different batches. This morning I finished scanning the last of a series of travel pictures taken in Bali, Indonesia way back in 2003. In fact, they were the final batch of travel slides I ever catalogued and had in albums. I did go to the Maldives in early 2004 but those pictures remained in boxes until I finally edited and scanned them last year. Unfortunatley, the albums haven’t been scanned in order, so I’ve still a few from the 1990s and early 2000s to occupy my time with yet. Right now I’m working on something different, an album of personal and social issues pictures taken between 1994 and 1997. Talk about a trip down memory lane! These are from the days when I still worked in London as a Housing Officer and boy, has the world changed a bit since then…

Right now – especially with the weather being what it is – I’ll leave you with something less heavy and more colourful. I took this shot of a procession of the Gods in Ubud, Bali on the 19th September 2003. Here a group of men are carrying an effigy of the God Dewa Bramha down the main street of Ubud, with many other Gods following behind.

These events are incredibly colourful as the statues are part of a huge parade which includes musicians, women carrying offerings on their heads, men dressed as warriors and young men and women dressed up in traditional finery. You can find the rest of these pictures by following this link to my Zenfolio website.

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Thank you!

30th June picture of the day…

30 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by in History, Musings, Oxfordshire, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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I’ve had another productive day at home catching up on various jobs, emails, seminars and picture editing – and still found enough time to get a couple of walks under my belt to clock up my minimum number (12.5k) daily step total, so I really can’t complain. The weather’s played ball too being mostly bright and sunny even if it’s not exactly been cracking the flags.

Whilst I was ‘type swiping’ this morning at lunchtime I joined the latest ‘munch and learn’ seminar from the Rail Innovation Group. I enjoy these sessions and log-on when I can. Today’s was a presentation by Johan Berhin, Designer & Founder of Green Furniture Concept, a company based in Sweden who’ve recently produced new green seating for some of Network Rail’s major stations in London that have replaced some of the sturdy (but uncomfortable and not very attractive) metal seats. I’ll be producing a blog about this next week as it was a great session with a lots of interesting facts and facets about how seating doesn’t just improve passenger satisfaction it also generates extra business for retail outlets on stations. Expect these seats to appear at Leeds soon…

Apart from this I’ve also been busy getting my next RAIL article on HS2 together, although It’s taking slightly longer than I’d thought as there’s an interesting environmental aspect to the Calvert site I need to talk to someone ‘in the know’ about. Even so, it’s already been fun to write.

Plus, as a filler for the day I did manage to get a few more old slides from the archive scanned, which has provided the latest picture of the day. My old slide folder currently contains pictures from 1993 – 2003, but there was one small group that stood alone as they’re from the UK rather than India, Bali, Holland or Denmark – although there is an Asian connection to today’s picture of the day as it’s of the Maharajah’s well at Stoke Row in Oxfordshire, which I took on the 21st July 2003.

Lynn and I had taken a weekend break from London by taking the bikes on the train from Paddington to Cholsey in order to stay with a friend in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. The next day we worked off our hangovers with a long cycle ride through the rolling countryside and happened upon this rather unusual feature. Inscribed around the lip of the onion done is the inscription ” Given by his Highness The Maharajah of Benares 1864″. What on earth is a well donated by an Indian Maharajah doing in Oxfordshire you may well ask? After all, this is the first known established Charity in Great Britain of an Indian nobleman? The answer lies in the fact that a story of a little boy was being beaten by his mother for drinking the last of the water in their house during a drought was was narrated by Edward Anderdon Reade, acting governor general of the United Provinces, to the Maharajah of Benares (now Varanasi) at the latter’s palace over dinner. Moved by the story the Maharajah agreed to fund the sinking of a well in the village. It was the first of several in the region. All were funded by royals and other benefactors from India, inspired by the Maharajah of Benares’s example. The well itself is 368 feet deep and cost £353. In contrast, the caretaker’s cottage (seen in the background) cost £74 14s 6d.

Amazing what crosses your path by chance when you’re out cycling, isn’t it?

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Thank you!

25th June picture of the day…

25 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by in Food, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day

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Phew! No trains and no buses involved in my life today. Instead I’ve had a busy day at home editing all the pictures I’ve taken over the past few days as well as catching up all the paperwork I’ve neglected whilst I’ve been away, which means I’ve been stuck in front of a computer screen for most of the day. That’s not been a hardship as the weather’s been less than seasonal with low cloud, desultory showers and a steady wind that’s kept temperatures low. Welcome to a typical British summer! The upside of all this is that I’ve received commissions for new articles and have some really interesting visits planned that I can’t talk about until they’ve happened.

I won’t have all the pictures I’ve taken edited for a while but the ones I’ll be adding to my Zenfolio website can be found by following this link. Of course, I’ve still hundreds of archive slides to add but right now they’re taking a backseat for the contemporary stuff. Well, they’ve waited 25-30 years so another few weeks won’t matter!

I’ve no plans to be away for the next week so I’m hoping I can catch up with the picture backlog by the end of next week but I’ve an article to write for RAIL magazine first. After that I’ll be on the rails again.

I have to admit, one of the things I’ve really enjoyed about being back home after my time away (apart from spending time with Dawn – obviously!) has being able to spend time in the kitchen cooking. It’s something I really enjoy and it’s a form of therapy, you forget everything else to concentrate on the preperation and the act of bringing all the ingredients together to make a wonderful meal. Dawn requested a Chicken Vindail curry from Rick Stein’s India cookbook as it’s become one of her favourites. I enjoy making it because the smell of all the spices is wonderful! It also goes really well with chapattis cooked on a griddle. So, tonight’s picture of the day is going to be something different. This is what I was up to this evening…

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Thank you!

21st June picture of the day…

21 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by in Picture of the day, Rail Live 2021

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Well, that was it folks, today was the Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year, and it’s all downhill from here when it comes to light evenings as (after a couple of days) the nights will begin to start to draw in even though this is also the first day of summer! Doesn’t really seem fair, does it?

Mind you, it feels like anything but summer up here today. The skies have been grey and the temperature anything but seasonal! Thankfully I’m heading South to warmer climes for the next few days as I’ll be based in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire whilst I visit the High-Speed 2 railway construction works. Despite what you hear in the media with the same tired and trite spin from certain quaters, the project is really cracking on at the moment. Some papers have been spinning about the ‘spiralling cost’ of HS2. The reality is far more mundane. Any large infrastructure project like this has a contingency built into its budget that’s to be used to cover eventalities like materials increases or unexpected costs (like Covid). Hs2 is no exception, except that the contingency runs to many £bns. So, the latest extra costs are easily absorbed by the existing budget – only the newspapers always forget to mention that bit…

I’ll be running rolling blogs for the next few days as I travel to/from and around Buckinghamshire, so expect quite a few pictures too. Plus, you can always follow my activities on Twitter @PaulMBigland

The rest of my day’s been kept busy editing the pictures from last weeks ‘Rail Live’ event. I’ve now got the majority of them on my Zenfolio website in this gallery should you wish to have a browse of what went on. It was an excellent event in glorious weather (especially on day 1). The atmosphere was brilliant too as everybody was so relieved to be able to return to some sort of normal as this was the first major trade event since the first lockdown in March 2020.

As I’ve an early start tomorrow there’s no long blog from me tonight, so I’ll leave you with a topical picture of the day – from ‘Rail Live’ Here’s the British Transport Police team that deals with working at height to remove protesters who cause disruption to the public transport network.

The irony? These protesters are nearly always the supposed ‘environmentalists’ of Extinction Rebellion or Hs2Rebellion. It’s why I’ve long held the view that the UK ‘green’ movement isn’t fit for purpose and this is a good example why. ‘Greens’ disrupting green public transport by climbing on or glueing themselves to trains? Madness, but this is a classic example of the cognitive dissonance these people display. Thankfully, their campaign against HS2 has collapsed, so the BTP team shouldn’t have as much to do in the future. Maybe one day the penny will drop with these ‘environmentalists and they’ll discover that the real threat to the environment is the Government’s road (not rail) building programme, but I won’t hold my breath…

By the way – don’t tell HS2rebellion, but there was some really interesting vegetation clearing/tree cutting kit on display from companies like Coombes Forestry, one of the companies working on HS2 that the protesters have tried to intimidate. That obviously worked well…

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

20th June picture of the day…

20 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Picture of the day

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It’s been a quiet weekend here at Bigland towers as the pair of us have been taking it easy at home – although our definition of easy may not accord with everyone else’s. What neither of us have been doing is travelling far. I spent much of Saturday playing catch-up with picture editing in order to ensure I don’t get overwhelmed as I’ve more time away next week. I’d planned to have a lie-in but I was fully awake by 06:30 so thought “sod it” and retreated into the office with a coffee to spend several hours cataloguing pictures before Dawn woke up. Whilst doing so I was kept amused by perusing the right-wing press who’re clearly having a bit of a melt-down over the Lib-Dems winning the safe Tory seat of Amersham and Chesham. They’ve gone into overdrive to try and blame the result on HS2 passing throught the constituency – anything to divert attention from the real reasons, which is that the citizenry are becoming heartily pissed-off with the kakistocracy of Boris Johnson and his chums. When even staunch Tories are saying ‘enough’s enough’ you know there’s trouble in store for the Government. It will be every interesting to see where this narrative goes if next time a safe Tory seat falls it’s nowhere near HS2!

The weather’s not been that hot and we’ve had some welcome rain, so I’ve not had to spend ages watering the garden which has saved me some time to divert to other things. Even so, neither of managed to find time to get out for a walk so we ended up driving to the Moorcock Inn in order to get some fresh air and have a drink in their beer garden. It was a lovely break, sitting and admiring the view across the valley whilst chatting with Aimee and some of her staff. Leaving all too soon we headed back down to Sowerby Bridge to brave the supermarket in order to pick up a load of shopping. It’s father’s day on Sunday so Dee’s going to be cooking a meal for the four of us over at her folk’s house in Huddersfield and we needed the ingredients for a chicken dinner with home-made (Gluten free) Apple Pie. I wasn’t on cooking duty on Saturday evening, instead Dee rustled up a cracking meal of Plaice fillets with mushy peas and red potato wedges which we scoffed before settling down to watch an escapist bit of nonsense on Amazon Prime. We chose the 2017 film “Wonder Woman” which was a bit of visual fun but hardly intellectually challenging although that’s not always a bad thing, some times you just want to be entertained. Such was our Saturday night in the Shire, not exactly the ‘rock and roll’ lifestyle but enjoyable all the same!

One of the reasons I was so keep to try and get my latest tranche of pictures edited and on display is that scanning old slides has had to take a backseat recently. I’ve several hundred already done that are just waiting to be edited. My latest picture of the day is a sample. I took this shot of fishing boats at sunset at Labuanbajo on the amazing Indonesian Island of Flores on the 5th September 1992. I was here for several days using it as a base to explore the famous Komodo Island – home of the dragons before catching a series of buses across the rugged island on appalling roads to get to the amazing volcanic coloured crater lakes of Kelimutu near Moni. Happy days – and amazing sights!

I’m still determined to get all these old slides scanned this year, although at this rate that could be a bit of a challenge. Time will tell…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

15th June picture of the day…

15 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Essex, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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I’d only intended to take one day away from blogging after getting home from the best part of a week away, but there were so many things to catch up on (including family life) that – well – something had to give! Plus, my time at home is getting interrupted more as the country starts to open up, despite the much leaked ‘hiccup’ in relaxing the final Covid restrictions which mean June has now become July.

I haven’t been ignoring work. Far from it, but I have so many pictures to collate, edit and get onto my website that it’s going to take some time. I’ve made a pretty good start as several hundred rail, shipping and travel pictures have already been added to my Zenfolio website, but there’s almost as many still to do. You can find what I’ve added so far by following this link which will take you to the recently updated section, showing you which galleries have been updated.

There’s only a short blog from me tonight as I have to be up at (very) silly o’ clock in the morning as I’m travelling down to the Midlands to spend the next tow days at the ‘Rail Live’ event. It’s the first major rail trade event to happen since lockdown hit us all back in 2020 and I’m really looking forward to it. So many friends and colleagues will be there, all enjoying the first chance we’ve had to meet up for far, far too long. I’ll be rolling blogging from ‘Rail Live’ over the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for those.

Right now I’ll leave you with the picture of the day which is from my recent travels. One of the things I really enjoyed was that the trip wasn’t purely about railways. It was also about exploring places I’d either never visted before or hadn’t really got to know in any depth other than by passing through. One such place was Wivenhoe in Essex, on the railway to Clactio-on-Sea. This shot was taken at the old ‘dry’ dock (which is now anything but) on the river Colne. Now the dock’s lined with rather posh properties.

I really enjoyed the feel of the village and maet some lovely people there. That fact that it felt like it was rather out of a film set was reinforced when I spotted a blue plaque on one of the properties nearby that explained Wivenhoe was for many years (in fact, from 1958 until her death aged 92 in 1998) of the actress Joan Hickson, who became famous for playing Agatha Christie’s ‘Miss Marple’!

Right, time for bed!

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Thank you!

Ist June picture of the day…

01 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Flora and Fauna, Picture of the day, Travel, Yorkshire

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And what a brilliant day it was! Dawn had suggested we drive over to the East Coast today and visit somewhere where I’d never been – Flamborough Head, near Bridlington. The area has some excellent cliff walks as well as teeming with marine and bird life – as I was to find out. The drive took us around two and a half hours due to some busy roads and heavy traffic on the M62 although the weather was wall to wall sunshine and we got to pass through some areas of the country I’m unfamiliar with, so it wasn’t all bad. Dee drove and I navigated to help share some of the strain. It was only when we arrived at Flamborough we realised there was one thing we hadn’t planned on. Fog. Sea fog! The area was covered in it! The lighthouse kept disappearing, one minute it was there, then you turned your back, looked back over your shoulder and it was gone. So much so I suddenly understood why Trinity House had built the thing in the first place! It was so thick you couldn’t see any of the bays and we debated on moving inland but knowing how the fog can suddenly clear we decided to go for a walk along the cliffs anyway, which proved to be a wise decision as within half an hour we were stolling in unbroken sunshine as the fog retreated northwards and out to sea, leaving us free to enjoy unhindered views of the cliffs, the thousands of seabirds that inhabited them and the dozens of seals that basked on the beaches or played in the inlets.

The area deserves a travel blog of its own which I’ll write up soon. Having explored we moved on to see another attarction, the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs, just a few miles futher North. It was a fantastic place where the cliffs are the nesting site for around half a million seabirds which gather here between March and October. They include Puffins, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Gannets, Guillemots and Shags. The sight of these birds nesting precariously on narrow ledges it quite spectacular. Mind you, it’s not just that which takes your breath away – the pungent smell of guano does too! It’s easy to find where the greatest concentration of nesting birds are – just follow your nose! The RSPB have built wooden viewing platforms on the cliffs which are ideal places to get pictures (if you have the right camera equipment).

I’ve got a busy few days ahead of me so I probably won’t get all the pictures I took online until next week at the earliest, so I’ll leave you with this one of nesting Kittiwakes. Whilst they’re a member of the Gull family they’re the only one in decline, which is believed to be because their natural food (Sand Eels) are also shrinking in numbers.

I could happily spend hours here with a camera trying to get shots of some of the birds behaviours so I’ll certainly be returning one day.

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Thank you!

31st May picture of the day…

31 Monday May 2021

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Picture of the day, West Yorkshire

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Summer’s here! The past couple of days here in the Calder valley have been stunning with wall to wall sunshine, making up for some of the grey and grim days that have filled much of May. Even the fact it’s a bank holiday hasn’t put the mockers on the weather (for a change). Rather then joining the bank-holiday crowds heading for the coasts the pair of us have made the most of our time by staying at home and catching up on work on the house and garden which has been tiring to say the least but worth it just to be out in the sunshine and recharging the vitamin D levels. With my enforced stay in the ‘Septic Isle’ due to Covid and miserable weather I don’t think I’ve looked as pale as I did for years. Now we appear to be in for a run of good weather so my normal colour’s returning. Whilst I’ve been doing the heavy lifting on the garden terraces Dee’s been busy with sandpaper, filler and paintbrushes to restore the front door. Sitting high up on the valley side and facing South this row of cottages takes a battering from the weather, so keeping them up to scratch is a constant job.

That said, we’re having a day out tomorrow as we’re heading to somewhere I’ve never visited before. At Dawn’s suggestion we’re off to Flamborough Head near Bridlington, which sounds ideal, a rugged stetch of coastline with a lot of history, walking trails and wildlife. No doubt I’ll be blogging about it at some point but there’s going to be a a few more rolling blogs in the pipeline as from next Monday I’ll be spending several days based in Ipswich and travelling the East Anglian rail network for work. We’re having an early start in the morning so I’m cutting this blog short and leaving you with the picture of the day which I took this afternoon from our garden terrace looking over the cottages down towards Sowerby Bridge in the valley below. See what I mean about the sunshine?

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

28th May picture of the day…

28 Friday May 2021

Posted by in Malaysia, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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Well, that’s it – We’re now both now ‘double-dosed’ – having received the second of my Covid jabs yesterday and Dawn today. Compared to the first dose this one hasn’t been too bad. I don’t feel any major side effects – apart from the fact my 5G reception’s amazing and I’ve developed a curious interest in ‘news’ programmes on Russia Today!

The same as last time I received my jab at Boots the chemist in Huddersfield, where part of the 1st floor’s been converted for the purpose. It was a slick operation but not as quick as last time because they had more people wanting the jab, which can only be a good thing. That said, most of the folks I overheard talking were like me and in for their second dose. I can only hope that the succesful rollout of the inoculation programme will allow us to return to normal, even if normal won’t be what it was. The big question now is how the rest of the world fares as I suspect it won’t be until next year that we’re finally out of the woods.

Dawn’s reaction to her second jab seems much like mine – feeling ‘Meh’, and with a few neck cramps, but that’s it. Infinately preferable to the alternative anyways! Neither of us had anything planned for today as we didn’t know how we’d react so we’ve had a quiet (if productive) day. Whilst I’ve spent the day scanning the last slides from my 1991-92 world trip Dawn’s been busy baking. The smells drifting up from the kitchen as a Victoria sponge cake’s cooking have been wonderful!

The pair of us are having a quiet night in so all that remains is for me to choose the picture of the day. I’ve a large backlog of slides scanned that need editing, so I thought I’d use the very last one I have from my trip before I flew back from Kuala Lumpur to London with Aeroflot. Reading through my old diaries there’s sooo many stories that I could relate – but they’ll be saved for when I have more time to spend writing.

My last day was ‘interesting’ as I only had 6 Malaysian Ringgitt left. I’d maxxed out my credit card on buying my flight back to the UK and that was the only cash I had left. I had enough to buy a bunch of Rambutans (a fruit similar to a Lychee) and the fare for the bus to the airport. Oh, and my camera was playing up too. The mirror kept locking up so I never knew if it would work or not. But, I managed to get this final shot on the 8th October 1992. I was people watching outside the Central market and spotted this blind musician busking along with his daughter/grand-daughter. I may have been on my uppers but nothing like this. Never forget, there’s always someone worse off than you…

Having spent the past few months looking back 30 years I’ve often wondered what happened to the people in my pictures? From the other travellers I met and spent time with to random street scenes like this. This young girl would probably be a middle-gaed mother by now, probably with Grandchildren of her own. I wonder what the stories of their lives were after I froze them as moments in time three decades ago? They’ll live forever like this in pictures, but what happened afterwards?

Hopefully I’ll have the rest of the old scans edied and added to this gallery in the next week or so. After that I move on to albums from the next phase of my life. Having returned from travelling in 1992 my life took a very different turn – and travelling became an even bigger part of it…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/Thank you!