Thursday, August 11, 2011

Malvern Hills,etc.

I thought that I would like to have a go at doing a watercolour painting of Guildford High Street. It was a question of waiting for a sunny day so that I could go and take a photo to use as the basis for my picture. Eventually a sunny day arrived and off I went.
This is the photo that I will use. The lighting is not ideal but being an "artist" I can change it around to suit.
 

I also popped across from the High Street, through the Tunsgate to the castle and took this photo of the grounds. Soon after a coffee and Danish pastry were consumed.
I discovered just prior to this trip to Guildford that my Samsung compact camera had failed. The lens would not open properly when I switched it on. Luckily I discovered this before I set off and I was also lucky that there was still about 10 days left on the warranty. I sent the camera off to Samsung for repair.
 

I wanted to watch some more cricket and I looked on-line for upcoming matches. It turned out that there was a two day T20 tournament for southern county teams taking place at Normandy Cricket Club. These were womens matches and I knew that about 60% of the England world beating International team would be playing for their various counties. I was able to attend on the 2nd day of the tounament. I had not been to the Normandy ground before but it was only a 20 minute drive away. The weather was good and the ground is surrounded by trees. Here is the scene.
 

On the previous day both the Kent Spitfires and the Sussex Sharks had won their matches and were now playing each other. When I arrived at the ground just after 10am the Kent Spitfires were batting and Charlotte Edwards was striking the ball all around the ground. Here is Holly Colvin chasing one of the balls.
 

The Kent Spitfires won the match but this was just the prelude to the final match in the afternoon between the same two teams. It seemed that Sussex had been playing tactically in the morning by not using Sarah Taylor as opening bat or using Holly Colvin to bowl. In the final this all changed and as a result Kent did not manage to post a very high score during their innings. When Sussex came in to bat the runs soon mounted but eventually the game started to look in the balance. Holly Colvin came on to bat and even though she is a spin bowler, she put on an impressive batting display to take Sussex through this round. Here she is making a stroke.
 

Last weekend I went to visit my daughter who lives in Great Malvern. On the Saturday we went for a walk on the Malvern Hills. You could see and just about hear the nearby Big Chill music festival.
 

Here am I enjoying the fresh air and scenery.
 

We had this view whilst eating our packed lunch. The sun was out and we were sheltered from the wind. It was a very quiet and peaceful scene.
 

I eventually got my compact camera back from Samsung. They had fitted a new lens. I thought that I would take it out for a test run when walking the dog.
Here are a couple of houses that have both been recently fitted with solar panels. It is interesting to see how they compare in appearance. I wonder if the actual supply and installation cost will ever be recovered.
 

A bit further along on my walk I took this photo of a bridge over the canal. I waited for a couple of minutes for the GPS on the camera to work out where we were but in the end I just took the photo. The camera often takes several minutes before the GPS gets a position fix. This is not a great aspect of the Samsung camera.
 

When I got home I went into the garden and switched the camera on and it eventually got a fix.

Peewit

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