Some photo-essays on subjects which caught my attention while shambling around the world. If you wanted to use any photographs for your own or commercial purposes, by all means, go ahead, but please just ask me first, I have never said no before :)
I decided to head out to Heathrow on one of the long rides. Bad mistake, it was pouring with rain and well, not fun
You can see the planes coming into land.
Their lights are bright as heck
They come in very low
But taking photographs of them is a pain…not impressed, not going out there again, its gruesome.
As you may know, I belong to two gastronomic clubs (nach!) this one is from work and we went to the Tiroler Hut for dinner.
Some construction going on outside the restaurant…i need something like this for the restaurant…
Martin, me old Austrian buddy…leading us down to the epicurean fields…
With Subash, that’s the place
Heading down…
Its a low ceilinged place, very nice. 
Chequered table cloth. But just look at the food on offer!
Guess what I went for!
Starters, some most excellent snails
And a pile of just wonderful sausages…mmmm…..
And a stein of the wonderful stuff.
The knuckle of pork
And the pile of sausages and meat and and and…
What was left of the knuckle
What was left of the sausages
Pear in the bottle
Now that’s what we were…
and some video’s of the night’s entertainment, just brilliant..
As you may know, I belong to two gastronomic clubs (nach!) this one is from work and we went to the Tiroler Hut for dinner.
Some construction going on outside the restaurant…i need something like this for the restaurant…
Martin, me old Austrian buddy…leading us down to the epicurean fields…
With Subash, that’s the place
Heading down…
Its a low ceilinged place, very nice.
Chequered table cloth. But just look at the food on offer!
Guess what I went for!
Starters, some most excellent snails
And a pile of just wonderful sausages…mmmm…..
And a stein of the wonderful stuff.
The knuckle of pork
And the pile of sausages and meat and and and…
What was left of the knuckle
What was left of the sausages
Pear in the bottle
Now that’s what we were…
and some video’s of the night’s entertainment, just brilliant..
Here I am, riding out in the night, well, evening more like it, well, its quarter to nine but still quite a bit of light. And the moon is out
The busy roads of Greenford
And then popping down a little wood
Not a good photo, eh?
Here’s another night ride pic from another day.
This was in Wembley….
So I am riding in St. Albans
And here’s the cathedral
Pretty awesome, eh? 
It is a strange looking building, long, low and squashed. 
I wheel the bike down the left hand side
Looking up at the rather strange mishmash of architectural styles and building work
The difference in windows gave me pause for reflection. How strange.
Some of the windows are delicately carved, much more modern. The ones on the right are more Gothic in nature
A lovely lovely tree, looks like its made by a green spider..
That is one lovely looking door
And then somebody went and built this monstrosity next to it. You know you don't HAVE to bugger around with stuff? 
This part is the strangest, you can see four different building styles and materials. 
See the close-up? 
I move along
It really looks crappy
Here we are, along the nave
Quite an interesting sight
The church has had presence here since 209AD (or thereabouts). Those cloisters in white date back to the 10th century
Looking down the buttresses. 
That is the gate house, more on that in the next essay
I was so excited to see the ice-cream van but there was nobody there 
Looking back at the cathedral
The entrance has three doors…
Some of the work is pretty good
But some of the work are repairs and that too not done very well. 
Good stonework
Here is the main door
Curious, the left hand side looks like queen Elizabeth, but why does she have a moustache and why is the right hand side face drooling? 
the etched glass is done very crudely, not impressed at all
Anti pigeon netting surrounds some of the alcoves
the But doesn't help
Another chap with angel wings, presumably its one of the benefactors? 
An eagle and what looks like a horse…
More stone faces
I roll the bike forward to the corner
And look back
Looking up at the bell tower
Ancient burial grounds, these..
This was an interesting structure, with a sunken lawn. 
As it so happens, each stone slab is actually a memorial to somebody, quite interesting. 
I’ve never seen a structure like this before
Moving up….
Close-up of the tower, its not really good looking tower…
Very very blunt work
Stained glass windows
Lead windows
This is better…
Moving up beyond the nave to the top of the church
Looking back at the cathedral…
And riding past the cathedral, it really looks like a mongrel of a building. 
Heading down to the bottom…check out the history of this building here. It never really had a good innings, pretty much was banged up most of its life over the past 1800 years, had horrible repairs done and its still not fixed. poor thing.
