A Dark Day at Lake Vyrnwy

I went to Lake Vyrnwy today. I tried to take pictures of some birds there from the bird hide but the day was so very dark that I really needed a tripod because of the slow shutter speeds. I didn't have one but managed to salvage one bird pic. It's a Chaffinch.
We've had lots and lots of rain here recently and I photographed the water coming from the dam (which was built in about 1880 I think). It's still raining as I type this four hours later actually and more is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. It was by general opinion a 'miserable' day with rain, wind and a chilly 5c (41f), but as I may have mentioned previously I have a bit of a soft spot for the so called 'poor' weather - although when you don't see the sun sometimes for weeks on end it can get a smidge depressing!

The Last Days of Autumn

We're being battered by some pretty dark and stormy weather at the moment. There's a mixture of blue skies, dark skies, drizzle, heavy rain, occasional (very) glimpses of the sun - and all accompanied by a seemingly permanently howling gale (gusts up to 80mph reported). This has been going on for about a week now with no let up apparently for at least several days more - but at least it's mild with max temps around about 13c (55f).
But I for one love the stormy weather, it's traditional British autumn weather, so here are a few pictures taken over the last couple of days by myself - during breaks in the rain!

Look Around

On making the short journey today from my mother's house to the local park (200 yds?) with my dogs and two of my children I took these photo's of some of the rickety old buildings in my town. I don't normally take much notice of them as I'm used to them and never give them a second look really. But I think that in future I'll have a bit of a look around and take some more. It's surprising what's about!

School Run

I took these having dropped my daughter off at school yesterday morning - always handy to have the camera in the car!

The railway line is the Welshpool to Llanfair light railway (steam).

River Severn and Offa's Dyke

These photo's I took on Saturday about one mile from my home. The river is the Severn and the 'mound' (in the second photo down) is Offa's Dyke.

It was an unseasonably warm autumn day with the temp around 16c (61f) rather than the average for this time of year of about 12c (54f).

For those who don't know, Offa's Dyke was a ditch/earth mound that was built by King Offa of the ancient English kingdom of Mercia. It was built around about 785 AD and was designed to keep the marauding Welsh out of Offa's kingdom.

Apparently it was originally about 90 ft wide and about 25 ft deep/high and used to stretch about a couple of hundred miles long but now only something like eighty miles of it is left. As you can see from my photo what's left is little more than a grass mound but in some areas it's a bit more impressive.