Mersey dawn

When I arrived off the overnight ferry from Belfast Monday last week, I had some time to kill before heading on to the Environmental Health conference in Nottingham. So I turned right and drove up to New Brighton to catch the sunrise over the Mersey. I’ve got lots of nice moody shots of orange clouds, but I rather like this one with the lone fisherman and the pilot boat heading upstream.

Update 31/10/2015 – This picture has just won first place in the weekly photo competition on www.geograph.org.uk. Chester Cathedral III – the Nave won second place.

Sunflower at dawn

A Loire dawn

At seven o’clock this morning, I was standing in bare feet in the bedewed grass, listening to the village church clock strike the hour. It was just before dawn and the sky was hinting at the glory of the day to come.

As I listened, the bell struck a further pattern of three bells thrice, and then tolled irregularly and continually for a minute or so, presumably to call the first mass of the weekend.

The mist in the valley hints at a hot one today, and we’re off to Chenonceau this morning before it gets into the 30s, so we can simply laze this afternoon.

After a few minutes, the sun came up.

And all the dogs in the village began to bark.

Spring morning view

This is the view that we woke to this morning; Beinn Bhàn with the rising sun moving ever further north. And, at last, leaves are beginning to burst on some of the trees.

Christmas dawn

After yesterday’s latest addition to the succession of Atlantic storms which have battered Argyll, it’s rather pleasant to wake up to a relatively calm morning and the sight of dawn colours behind Beinn Bhàn, the “white mountain” at the foot of the glen.

Argyll dawn with a warning

Dawn this morning gave a  brief view of spectacular skies, reminiscent of the old saw, “Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”.