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Paul Bigland

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Paul Bigland

Tag Archives: Surrey

Happy Easter folks!

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by Paul Bigland in Photojournalism, Surrey, Travel

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Photography, Surrey, Travel

Greetings from soggy Surrey! Yesterday was a bit of a washout as the rain meant my camera stayed in its bag all day. Instead I had a relaxed day with my wife’s family doing nothing much at all – although I did manage to re-edit a few archive pictures, just to keep my hand in. I still have several hundred old pictures that used to be on my former Photopic site that I’ve not had chance to add to my new Zenfolio website. That said, I’m lucky, 99% of my pictures were backed-up on hard-drives so when Fotopic suddenly pulled the plug I didn’t lose out – unlike many people who hadn’t kept their pictures safe elsewhere. I still curse the people who destroyed the vast Photopic website. It was a rich social and historical archive with a worldwide base that’s been lost because they had no idea of its historical value. Here’s one of the pictures I was editing. Class 42 number 42-2718 (Luxembourg number 5519) at Eisenach, Germany in the early hours of a February morning in 2007.

FDG05167. 5519. Eisenach. Germany. 11.2.07

Today we’ve been up early, preparing the evening meal before we join a group of friends for an amble around Tilford which (inevitably) will end up in a pub somewhere. I’ve been helping Dawn prepare this leg of lamb which will be slow roasted whilst we’re out..

20180331_085338

I hope you and yours have an enjoyable Easter. I should be back later with a few more pictures…

SUNDAY UPDATE.

Despite the gloomy weather yesterday’s walk had a good turnout, especially amongst the younger members of the Tilford troop who had a wonderful day rushing headlong through all the massive puddles we encountered en-route. The fun they had in such innocent pleasures took me back to my own childhood. The rain stayed away right until we stopped for a break at a local pub (The Duke of Cambridge) then the drizzle arrived briefly, but cleared before we moved on to the final leg which took us back into the village. Here’s a few pictures from the walk.

DG294158

Strolling along the banks of a very full River Wey

DG294263

The depth of some of the puddles meant a snorkel would’ve been more useful than wellies…

DG294224

A game for all the family…

Enjoying a post walk drink at the Barley Mow, Tilford.

Whilst we’d been out walking, the lamb had been cooking slowly for several hours. When we got home and checked the oven, this is what we found…

20180331_161357

Cooked to perfection…

Dawn had prepared a two different desserts to finish off the evening. The Lemon Meringue pie proved especially popular and didn’t last long!

20180331_203906_015

 

 

In the back of Beyond? No, this is Surrey!

03 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Paul Bigland in Communications, Travel, Uncategorized

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Communications, Surrey, Travel

I don’t often have a moan, but today’s an exception. The Platt family and I have decamped to Tilford in Surrey for a few days (for reasons I’ll explain in a blog another time). Leafy Surrey, part of the stockbroker belt, within easy reach of London and part of the affluent South-East is somewhere you’d expect to have excellent wifi and mobile phone coverage, wouldn’t you? The opposite is true. It’s universally crap.

The house where we’re staying is in a mobile phone blackspot. I’m on O2 and can get a signal much of the time. My wife and her parents are on EE and their phones are useless. They can’t get anything. It’s the same story a few miles up the road at my wife’s brothers, only there I can’t get a phone signal either!

As for wifi, what a joke. I’m currently sat in the Barley Mow pub in Tilford, trying to upload pictures to my website, but I might as well be in the Outer Hebrides. The wifi can’t cope. I only came here because I couldn’t upload them at the family home (the signal kept dropping out). It’s not just Tilford either. I’d tried to upload pictures using the wifi in a pub in Farnham earlier. I managed one picture at a time before I lost the connection.

No wonder Britain is becoming a bit of an international joke for the quality of its infrastructure. If I can’t get a decent ‘phone & wifi connection in Surrey for Chrissake! The irony is that back in West Yorkshire I have an excellent communications network and my Virgin wifi is blinding. The upshot is that I couldn’t live here and do my job. Things are better than here in the Far North of Scotland. I’ve travelled by train from Inverness to Wick on a wifi fitted train. I can’t do that here in Surrey either!

Someone, somewhere needs to get a grip…

Taking a break in Tilford

08 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by Paul Bigland in Air Travel, Surrey, Tilford

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Surrey, Travel, Travel. Tilford

We’re spending the weekend with my partners brother and his family down in Tilford in Surrey. It’s one of those very pretty English villages loved by crime writers and airline adverts. There’s cricket on the green outside the local pub. How many hostelries are there when you can you sit outside facing the crease, supping a pint whilst keeping a wary eye out for the occasional errant cricket ball that careens off the pub like a cannonball? Another side of the green is bordered by a meandering stream where the kids go to splash & swim whilst their parents sit with picnics & prosecco. The old single track, stone arched bridge across it is guarded by a huge world war 2 concrete pillbox which would make a great location for ‘Dads Army’ – or a local branch HQ for UKIP. On the far side of the green is a lovely village hall which was designed by Sir Edward Lutyens (his ambitions didn’t stop with village halls as he later went on to design that jewel in the Empire’s crown & capital of the Raj: New Delhi). It’s all, terribly, terribly English!

Quintessentially English, cricket on the village green outside the local pub

Quintessentially English, cricket on the village green outside the local pub

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