Film 25

Two photos from my one and only skiing trip which was to Tignes.

I enjoyed the skiing and the apres skiing but could never quite get into the sport.  I don't like resorts and don't like being surrounded by people on holiday so I channelled my energies into other interests.

The mountains are at their most beautiful when alone.

Film 24

More from Belize.  A sunset and a boy that I photographed on one of the Cays.  I'd have a smile like his if I lived there too.

Film 23

One of my early forays into black and white photography.  My first niece (now about to finish her training as a doctor) and a couple of shots of the Lloyd's building.

Film 22

A mixed bag in this post.

Somewhere in Scotland taken during a mountain biking trip.

A piranha which was originally a present from my grandmother when I was about 7 years old and which I still have.

The Royal Palace in Madrid

My grandmother.

A cactus

and a shot of the botanical gardens in Madrid.

Film 21

More from Belize!

Film 20

One more from Belize.

Film 19

A walking holiday in the Polish Tatras sometime in the mid 90s.

All I remember is that is was a cold June, I got snowed into a mountain hut with some welders from Gdansk and I climbed Mt Rysy.

I've always wanted to go back to Poland.

Film 18

I've no idea when or where this film was shot.  Possibly the Cairngorms or Wales?  Who knows. This particular outing seems to have been erased from my memory banks.

Film 17.

Not much to say about these two.  The first is my eldest niece (who is now training to be a doctor) and the second is Canary Wharf seen from Greenwich Park.  Both would have been taken between 92 and 94 when I was living in Blackheath.

Film16

A boys' trip to Amsterdam involving, surprisingly enough, heavy drinking and some sightseeing.  Having run out of money and being unable to afford our hotel bill, we decamped rather swiftly and headed to Delft where, after several more beers, I slept on the street and awoke to find the car and my friends gone -  actually just round the corner but they couldn't wake me up.

It amused the locals though.

Film 15

A week end by the South Coast.  One of several I took with a group of friends in the nineties.

We usually stayed at the same pub, The Cashmoor Inn, where we became famous for drinking Burning Beavers and causing a fair amount of damage to the pub (not as much as we spent though).

I like the landscape though.  One of my better shots.

Film 14

An unusual one this.  A shot of my MGF parked outside my flat in Islington, where I lived for 8 years as a bachelor.

My MGF was my pride and joy but one day I received a speeding ticket taken at 2.30am on the M20 in Essex.  The only trouble was I hadn't been anywhere near Essex for a considerable length of time.  Some little scallywag had cloned my license plate and stuck it on an almost identical MGF (but without the luggage rack).

Luckily Essex policy believed my pleas of innocence (I wasn't the only 'victim' of this scam) but for the next 6 months I received more speeding fines and parking tickets on a regular basis.  I am pleased to say I was let off all of them.

Film 13

So it is back to the Pyrenees with this film.  Nothing more to say about them really, other than I'd like to go back one day.

Film 12

At some point in the mid nineties I ventured off to Morocco for a two week holiday to the Atlas mountains in what turned out to be en eventful trip.

I stayed with a Canadian photographer for a week in a Berber village, had breakfast with a Berber villager whilst hiking through their valley, had a fraught experience buying hashish in the Djna el Fnaa in Marrakesh before suffering from mild frostbite in my big toe after walking up Jebel Toubkal and then becoming trapped in a mountain hut with a group of Italian and German ski mountaineers to whom I and two other British climbers had been rather (very) rude the previous day!

After a day drinking Irish whiskey and popping codeine tablets we took advantage of a break in the weather to run downhill and escape a coming storm (as well as the europeans who had decided to spend the day singing folk songs) and I then headed off to the very pleasant seaside fishing port of Essouria where I finished off the last of my hashish on the beach.

My journey home also turned into a disaster but that's another story.

The following photos were taken during that holiday.

Film 11

Me looking cold on Ben Nevis in December.  Can't remember exactly which year but I think it was 1993.

Film 10

It has been quite a while since my last post.  Film 10 is probably a couple of films that got mixed together over the years.

These shots are from the "hillwalking years" in the nineties.

The first two are from a short break in Dartmoor - can't remember much about it, in fact I can't remember anything about it.

This next shot was from my one and only visit to Torridon in the west of Scotland.  Taken whilst walking up Beinn Eighe.

 I can't even remember where the following photo was taken - the Lakes?

And lastly three friends walking up Ben Nevis in winter.  Purple was clearly the new black in those days.