Today I wandered across to Brayford Pool, the large lake in the centre of Lincoln which also serves as marina and university waterside, to feed the ducks and swans - and the pigeons and gulls which also tag onto any feeding session, of course!

Brayford Pool is home to the usual range of urban birds: swans, the odd goose (not present today), coots and moorhen, mallards, gulls, pigeons (of course) and its own special oddity - muscovy ducks.

Muscovy ducks aren't native to the UK, and I don't know where Lincoln's have come from, but there's a thriving colony of relatively tame birds living alongside the Brayford Pool - and they soon turn up when there's food on offer, competing with the pigeons for any seed spilled on the land.

Today one duck showed no interest, which is unusual, and it wasn't until she was disturbed by some children that I discovered that she had a brood of 8 ducklings.

She kindly brought them in my direction (so she could pop down to the water's edge for a drink, rather than for my benefit) and then took them for a little stroll (waddle?).

These photos were the result - taken using my mobile phone (why do I never have my camera when I need it?), they aren't up to even my normal low standard, but what the heck!



(A little note on naming: Some people call female ducks "ducks" and the males "drakes". Others call the females "hens" - and I'm one of those people. If I say "duck", I'm referring to ducks regardless of gender...)

Various photos taken en route to or from Switzerland or whilst there during my 2008 trips to that country.

This collection is very much a work in progress, and photos will be added as and when I get round to it!

In January 2008 my Nan celebrated her 90th birthday, so the family held a surprise party for her.

Here are some of the photos taken by family members using my cameras...

A long weekend off work just before Christmas allowed me to make a quick trip to Belgium.

Travelling by Eurostar from St. Pancras International over the newly opened high speed line, I based myself in Brussels and used various cheap train tickets to visit places of interest in Belgium and across nearby borders.

A busy weekend trip to Switzerland saw me taking part in two railtours, visiting a BLS depot and one of their works, and also taking a trip along the route of the Glacier Express on my way back from Interlaken to Zürich airport.

Please note that photos taken in the BLS works and depots are NOT available for commercial use, and also that the cab rides were officially arranged.


Update, May 2009: I've recently started getting a lot of visits to the photos I took at the SBB Historic "Bahn-Treff" model railway in Interlaken. Thank you for your interest, but I think that I should tell you that if you're thinking of visiting, you're now too late - Bahn Treff unfortunately closed in late 2008

On 28th February 2007, EWS loco 66.231 derailed outside High Street signal box at Lincoln, with its train standing through Lincoln's platform 7 and across Pelham Street Junction at the east end of the station, thus effectively blocking access to and from Lincoln station.

This collections shows a few photos I took of the derailed loco and the re-railing operation.

All photos were taken either from public areas of Lincoln station, or from the public road at High Street crossing.

I took a daytrip to Calais this week, as Seafrance offer silly prices for foot passenger day returns.

To get to Dover in time for a ferry at 9 a.m. means leaving Lincoln the night before, and (being me) I therefore spent a couple of hour wandering around London before catching the first train to Dover.

Whilst in London I found myself in St. James' Park near Buckingham Palace and took some photos of the spotlit trees, nearly getting arrested in the process!

On 20th August 2006, the city of Dresden staged a vintage vehicle parade as part of the Dresden 800 celebrations. Known as the "Oldtimer Parade", vehicles ranging from buses and trams to fire engines and army lorries circuited the city.

These photos have been moved from "Summer Holiday 2006" to reduce the size of that collection; the general photos are in both collections.

***UPDATE 31.12.06****
I've moved most of the photos of the "Oldtimer Parade" on 20th August into a separate collection of their own to make it easier to view the rest of my holiday photos in this collection.

Some photos are duplicated in that collection and this as I wanted to keep a few photos of that day in this collection, just to give a "feel" of the day.


Original blurb  

My summer holiday this year was a trip to Dresden in Germany for the "Oldtimer Parade" there on 20th August (see separate collection), a few days pottering around the Dresden region and then down to Linz, on the Danube in Austria, for a few days travelling around from there.

These photos are a selection of those I took on my travels; basic captions have now been added, but I have yet to find time to add full descriptions and these will be added as and when I get chance.

The "full size" images have been resized down to 1024*768; if anyone wants a copy of the original 3488*2616 files, please contact me at ross(at)rosspix(dot)me(dot)uk

[PLEASE NOTE: Basic captions have been added, but I have still not yet had chance to add full descriptions to any of the photos in this collection.]


In March I visited the Netherlands for a week, taking the opportunity to ride a few branch lines and to visit various museums including the National Railway Museum (Het Spoorwegmuseum) in Utrecht.

Following the week in the Netherlands, I popped down to Luxembourg to spend a day stewarding on Mercia Charters' railtour there.

Before returning to the UK I made use of a "Saar-Lor-Lux" day ticket to have a look around the area, so there are a few photos from France too.

All photos have been resized, with the "full size" images being 1600 x 1200 and around 1.5Mb in size.

In early March 2006 I paid a short visit to the Czech Republic. I stayed in Praha but made use of the excellent value Sitove Jizdenky (Network Tickets) sold by Czech Railways (GBP25 for a week's unlimited travel around the Czech Republic in 1st class!) to visit various places around the country.

All photos have been resized to 800*600 (or thereabouts) and the "full size" images are roughly 300K in size. I haven't yet had chance to add a detailed commentary but I'll try to do so soon.

Oh, and as ever, some photos are good, some are crap, some are in-between. You pays your money and you takes your choice! ;o)

This collection houses photos which don't really fit anywhere else.

There may or may not be anything here, depending on whether or not I have anything interesting to post.

My Christmas present was a FujiFilm S9500 camera, a real beast of a digital camera, and a New Year's weekend visit to Paris was the perfect excuse to start to learn how to use it.

Saturday 31st saw me visiting the Palace of Versailles, Sunday 1st wandering around some of the banlieu (suburbs) sans camera, and on Monday 2nd I visited the Musee du Moyen Age (Museum of the Middle Ages) and clambered the 284 steps up the Arc du Triomphe.

I don't have time to add full commentaries to each photo yet, but I'll try to do it when I get chance. The image names give a cryptic clue as to the photo contents!

These photos are all resized to 1280x960 and average 900Kb. The full-size images are significantly larger - the S9500 is a 9 Megapixel camera  .

Please bear in mind that this is a first use of a new camera, one which allows me to take bad photos very well - so some of the photos will demonstrate how not to do it!

Most Sundays I wander over to the Brayford Pool, the lake-cum-marina in the centre of Lincoln, to feed the ducks and the swans and whatever else turns up.

Here are some photos taken on two of those trips.


Oh, and a gentle thought for my readers: if you go to feed the birds, please don't throw them white bread. It's no good for them - fills them up, but they get very little nutrition from it.
Instead, invest a few pounds in proper bird food from your local pet shop (or even your local "pound shop" - Poundland in Lincoln almost always has bags of bird food available).

You still get the pleasure of feeding the birds, with the rosy glow of knowing that you're doing them some good at the same time.  

I spent August holiday weekend 2005 in Belgium, and on the 28th I was fortunate enough to be in Ieper (Ypres to French speakers, to the Tommies 'Wipers') to watch the Last Post ceremony.

Except during the occupation years (in WWII), the people of Ieper/Ypres have, to comemorate the sacrifice of those who died fighting in the Ypres salient in the Great War, played the Last Post at sunset (and now at 8 p.m.) every night for over 70 years.
That alone makes it a moving experience.

More information is available through the links below.

On Sunday 22nd May 2005 I was in Germany and, having nothing better to do, I wandered across to Krefeld to see if I could find their steam train.

"Schluff" is operated by the local council's transport organisation, SWK (Stadtwerke Krefeld), and runs every Sunday in the summer between Huelser Berg and Sankt Toenis, the former being the terminus of the 060 bus and the latter the terminus of the 041 tram. Fares are cheap, a single from Huelser Burg to Sankt Toenis being less than 4 Euro.  

PLEASE NOTE: THE FULL-SIZE IMAGES HAVE NOT BEEN RESIZED BEFORE POSTING AND ARE APPROXIMATELY 1.5MB EACH.

A few photos taken during a visit to Vilnius, in Lithuania, in February 2005.

It was cold there - the daytime *high* was -5°C! Very nice, though, all the same.

Photos taken at Praha hl.n, Ceske Budejovice and Plzen hl.n stations on 28th and 29th July 2004 during my summer holiday.

IMPORTANT: please note that the full size images have NOT been resized for uploading and are each well over 1Mb in size.

This collection will eventually showcase some of the nearly 1000 photos I took during my recent wanderings around Europe - after flying into Prague I spent time in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and France.

Eventually is the word, though - it will take me quite a while to sort through the photos I took and discard the majority of them as being complete dross.

Yesterday, Saturday 13th March, I went for a ride from Lincoln by bus to Newark, then onward to Grantham and back to Lincoln. I was hoping to take a large number of photos to show the different landscapes the various buses passed through, but unfortunately the weather made it impracticable.

I did manage to take a number of photos from the front seat upstairs on the bus from Lincoln to Newark, although the windows weren't exactly clean (and the side window had been scratched, as you can see on some photos).