favourite rose bush

Here is the rose bush I like best in the whole college garden (and there are many) - they're quite pretty, and what's more: they smell divine.



For gorgeous flower photos from everywhere visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise and Laerte.

way back from work

When I don't work in the river every day I generally make my way home via lovely Holywell Street in Oxford. I hope I look a bit less tortured on my bike than this chap right when I took the photo:



Click back to the Monochrome Maniacs, brought together by Aileni for lots of b&w shots.

Summer

Today we celebrated the third warm day of the year - hooray!

Time therefore to change into summer clothes and get out those summery feelings. A vital accessory for that in England is the beach hut which provides the obligatory privacy for such business:



Visit Scenic Sunday for more scenery treats, or Robin's Summer Stock Sunday if you're after some beach fun. Or both :)

Book(s)

An eBook-afficionado has hidden behind a door for some quiet 5 minutes in her virtual library:



Is this the future? Sony has become a sponsor of this years' Hay Festival and is displaying its e-reader in a special corner. Seeing that e-readers give people access to a huge amount of totally free books whilst (arguably) providing a more agreeable reading experience than the computer this is an interesting move. Quite a few self-publishing sites have sprung up on the internet and widespread use of e-readers might weaken the role of publishers altogether.

A good collection of books can be found at TNchicks PhotoHunt.

heracleum in the sky

Cow parsnip is ubiquitous at the moment. I like its looks - but it is irritating to the skin (and looks very similar to the much more poisonous hemlock). Here it teamed up with a cloud for a sight that pleased my eye:




click back to Skywatch Friday for more skies.

A room of ones own

These two were very set on their own private pools:



Very close to the puddles is an absolutely stunning pond - but perhaps the Mallards thought the water lilies are taking up far too much space:



And back to Watery Wednesdays, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy, for exciting water photos from all parts of the world.

Today's flower....

...has a pale green friend. If you can name either of them, please let me know!





For gorgeous flower photos from everywhere visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise and Laerte.

Seaside

A warm May bank holiday some years ago in Aldeburgh. I don't remember what these two were looking at, but for me the image embodies a particular type of English seaside holiday...and makes me yearn for fish and chips:



Click back to the Monochrome Maniacs, brought together by Aileni for lots of b&w shots.

Scenic Sunday

I have never posted anything for Scenic Sunday before, but tidying up my photos I've come across Limantour Beach as it looks on a nice spring evening (and got a bit melancholic). It's yet another sunset on yet another beach, but hey, I like the beach a lot:

Plastic

Plastic, I don't really like the stuff much, but what would we do without it -

It's ubiquitous in my work. I don't know how we would conduct the experiment we currently run if there was no plastic - e.g. here is my colleague in his plastic waders, cutting the plastic tubing that delivers the solutions to be dripped into the plastic flumes in the river. Each day I come with my plastic bottles to collect water samples from the flumes to investigate the microbes. The DNA which I extract is of course stored in plastic tubes.





TNchicks PhotoHunt has a great collection of different plastic photos.

jolly good

Here's the Oxfordshire Jolly Good Weather Cloud, spotted this afternoon:



click back to Skywatch Friday for more skies.

watery -

I feel a bit washed out and watered down by all the rain and river in the last couple of weeks - hence this week's water photo is nothing but a reflection of my work place. I think it lacks enthusiasm...or maybe that's just how I feel:



Generally, it's really quite pretty there:


Back to Watery Wednesdays, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy, for lovely water photos from all parts of the world.

foul weather

The weather has been terrible...and I've had plenty numb toes the last couple of days from standing around in the river, collecting samples and generally making sure all was working.

The sheep up on the hill above the river have their own way of warming each other up:



but I really quite need the sun to come out once in a while. Early yesterday evening, it did just that, and everything felt much better:



This morning all was back to evil showers, though.

more on bluebell season

I can't resist putting up just one more bluebell photo:



For gorgeous flower photos from everywhere visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise and Laerte.

lunch hour

A New York builder takes a break from his work at Ground Zero. I think his hard hat looks quite fetching on his neighbour, a banker type in bronze. Yes, the pidgeon seems to know that the banker is about to get his sandwich pack out -




Click back to the Monochrome Maniacs, brought together by Aileni for lots of b&w shots.

Stormy Oxfordshire

This is pretty much as dramatic as the sky gets in Oxfordshire:



Yes, I know, not very dramatic. But it rained soon thereafter.

click back to Skywatch Friday for a good dose of skies from everywhere.

room with view

The ONLY thing missing in my house is a room like this:



Visit Watery Wednesdays, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy, for lots and lots of great water photos.

Not the desert

This is not a desert, it's just Dartmoor in spring...




You're overlooking the moor from the ridge of Lee Moor Clay Pit which is at it's southern end. Dartmoor tends to depress me in an instant - and this probably shows in the picture. I know many people love this man-made landscape, but I prefer trees - I can't help it.


Visit the other Monochrome Maniacs, brought together by Aileni for lots of b&w shots.

blossom

For some reason the orchard blossom seems almost over, even though May has just begun. My favourite trees in the college orchard are the quince trees. They are somewhat forgotten and tucked away in one corner which is overshadowed by an evil big Leylandia (that got planted for which reason?).
They have beautiful big blossoms, and usually not very many of them. The one below was still closed a week and a half ago:



By now it is probably gone...but I hope some bumble bees came along in the meantime so that we have some quinces this autumn.

For gorgeous flower photos from everywhere visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise and Laerte.

Glyndebourne skies

A few years ago, before I became a scientist, I sometimes worked here:



This is the sky over Glyndebourne in May (and before the Opera season starts - hence all lawns are deserted). When I think of nice English spring weather then these genteel clouds spring to (my) mind first.

For skies from everywhere click back to Skywatch Friday.

More on Road Signs

One thing that has surprised me in the US is the specificity of some of the road signs. The one below for example gave me much food for thought :)



More street scenes can be found at This way Thurs-way .

Preparations

As H1N1 (the current Swine Flu variant) starts it's journey through the UK we're hectically trying to get ready in time to measure its effect on sewage effluents and rivers:



This might not look like science to you...but the hi-tech part starts in the lab :)

For less snap-shotty water photos visit Watery Wednesdays, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy.

monochrome reflection

A little blossoming branch reflected in a pond:



Here's the bigger version



Visit the Monochrome Maniacs, brought to life by Aileni, for b&w goodness.

Walking

A toddler, walking over the plaza in a small Andean village. If you look closely you can see he is barefoot. He seemed to be on his own.



Visit Saturday's PhotoHunt for many more takes on walking.