NRM

I've been visiting Yorkshire regularly for about twenty years. What started as an annual visit to Headingley for the test match has now developed to the occasional out of cricket season trip to see a bit more of the county and to sample a few new pubs.

One thing I've always fancied doing was visiting the National Railway Museum in York. Everyone I know who has been there says it's a great day out whether you're interested in trains or not. For one reason or another it's taken this long for us to get there but this year we took the train from Menston into Leeds and from there to York.

The museum is indeed a great attraction and it's free to get into! After a very long walk around and a decent lunch surrounded by retired choo-choos we left vowing to not leave it another twenty years before we return.

Yoghurt Weaving in Hebden Bridge

On one of our days in Yorkshire we paid a visit to the scenic town of Hebden Bridge. We were told that it's a popular tourist destination and that it's a favourite haunt of hippies and artists. Now, coming as I do from Devon we have the hippie mecca of Totnes, known as two square miles surrounded by reality. Hebden Bridge turned out to be something of a disappointment on the cheesecloth front but very good for nick-nack boutiques!

Up the Junction

Well it's been a while since my last post and it's a while since I picked up the Minox Dsc. I'm on a couple of weeks leave from work and have just had a few days in Yorkshire staying with an old college friend. He lives in a town a few miles from Leeds in a very scenic part of the country. Luckily the area is blessed with excellent beer and many great pubs, the best of which is The Junction in Otley. This is an unpretentious no food sort of place which is normally packed with all ages and types. They have live music, but unfortunately I didn't get to see my favourite crazy dancing Cajun performer this time round. He does a sort of David Byrne style running on the spot dance while singing his cajun/zydeco ditties but performed here a couple of weeks before my holiday.
Anyway, a few pints of Timothy Taylor in The Junction is a great way to spend an evening and is a fine end to a day spent exploring new places in Yorkshire. Here's a snap of the pub, nothing much to look at photographically or architecturally but there are more Yorkshire pics to come!

Crabbers

Another picture from our Brixham trip. There was intensive crab catching going on in the harbour area while we were there. There was also a pirate themed event and what seemed to be the whole of devon and Cornwall constabulary including the dog section chasing after some miscreant. Ah, the English Riviera. Who needs Nice or Monaco when you've got Torbay?!

Grockles

On Thursday I took a day's holiday and as Linda's brother was down for a visit we decided to do the tourist thing and took the boat from Exmouth to Torquay and Brixham. I took the Minox and I have a few photos to upload. As ever the exposure of the camera was all over the place but I've got a few useable ones.

The trip itself was an all day affair and the boat was packed with northerners on their holidays! It was either brave or stupid to inflict this on myself on a day off as this is the general scene at work during the school holidays!

Rather than get off in Torquay (for obvious reasons if you've been there recently) we decided to stay onboard and visit Brixham which is a busy working fishing port and also happens to have a very good camera shop!

Here's a shot taken from the back of the boat!

Mystics...

Saturday was our annual match against our splinter side ' The Mystics and Magicians ' It's a family affair and lots of supporters turn up to watch, several of them curiously arriving just before tea! The match was a good one with our team winning fairly comfortably in the end. I didn't get much time for using the Minox as when I wasn't fielding I had to go and umpire-something I really dislike doing especially when I had to give one of my team mates out to the plumbest lbw I've ever seen! batsmen never think they're out lbw but when it's hitting half way up middle stump it doesn't really matter how far forward you've got, you've got to go! (sorry for any non-cricketers reading this, we have our own language a bit like esperanto-it's easy to learn but not many bother to do so!)

Anyway, here's a snap of the field next to the pitch at Dunsford where we play our home games. Converted in Photoshop and shadows lightened for detail...

Run Chase

Another from the Lustleigh game. For once we had a decent crowd watching the game and they even seemed to be getting quite caught up in proceedings as we inched towards an unlikely victory. The Minox is quite good for these grab shots as long as you remember to set the focus in advance!

Lustleigh

This weekend was our annual trophy match against our oldest opposition: the Dartmoor village of Lustleigh. Lustleigh is a beautiful devon village complete with picture postcard church,pub and cricket pitch. The opposition are friendly but competitive and our afternoons there are always enjoyable.

I captained our side the 'Erratics' and we restricted Lustleigh to a low score of 126. Over tea we were confident we could score these with ease. Unfortunately by the time we were 35 for 5 things looked less cheery! We recovered well and got within 15 of the winning score but it wasn't to be. This is apparently Peter O'Toole's favourite cricket ground and I'm sure when he played here he had a drink or two in The Cleve afterwards, as we always do.

The half painted bridge

Here's a shot from the back of the train today. I was asked to take a trip to Gunnislake which is about 40 minutes from Plymouth and just over the border into Cornwall. As you can see from the picture the weather shows that the English summer is back to its best!

The bridge you can see in this photo is only half painted and has been so for years. It's like that because half of it is in one local authority's land and the other half belongs to another. One council decided to paint their half and the other didn't (or couldn't) It has therefore been left half rusty and half painted.

The other amusing story connected with today was that I was only working on this train due to the discovery of a wasps nest at Gunnislake station. The chap who should have been on the train apparently is highly allergic to the little beasties so I had to tear myself away from the messroom television for my little trip to Cornwall!

tagon

Those of you who know Exmouth will know the 'Octagon' which has been there as long as I can remember and probably a lot longer than that! Millions of overpriced cans of pop and Ice creams must have been sold here over the years - wish I owned the business! Anyway, I've included this pic to show the accuracy of my Minox viewfinder - it's two letters out!

number 20

I quite liked this number plate on a rather faded but still grand house - a black and white conversion with a little extra contrast. Am beginning to quite enjoy the little Minox now. Haven't tried any flash photos yet and haven't mentioned the additional flash unit that comes with the camera. Something for another day maybe!

Would you like a flake in that?

A day off! So we caught the train to Exmouth for a walk by the sea and around these parts it is seen as very bad form not to have an ice cream when you go to the seaside. Mine was a clotted cream vanilla and I had already eaten it by the time I thought about photographing it with the Minox. A photo of the young lady who runs he establishment will have to suffice. More pics to be added from this little trip over the next few posts...

Sunshine

After a rare unsunny day yesterday the Summer seems to have returned. That's very nice but unfortunately it's the start of the weekend and I have to go to work and there's bound to be lots of lagered up idiots on my trains this evening! Will leave the Minox at home today but here's a pic for the day to prove that the sun is shining!

out the window

Here's one of the landscapes I took the other day which turned out very brown and muddy. I've decided the only way to rescue it is to save it as a black and white image, which is fine and could be the way forward as I've always leant that way with my photography. More to come...

Colour crazy

Still struggling with the colours from this crazy little camera. I took what I thought were some nice landscapes out of the train window today when we were stuck at a signal. They all came out very brown, like a British leyland colour chart from 1977!!

Anyway, a bit later on we had to do a shunt to the sidings at Exmouth junction so todays picture is simply some track and assorted detritus. I promise to try and take some more interesting photos when I get a day or two off work but for the meantime I'm beginning to realise that any sort of shot 'contre jour' is a complete no-no for this little beastie!

So have taken this little chap to work with me the last few days. I love the design and the size of the camera but frankly the results aren't up to much. The colours are off and the lens doesn't perform like a Minox should. Basically for results just about any mobile phone camera will beat it. Having said that it's great fun and i do like leaving the display/flash at home and then only being able to check and reviw my photos when i get home. It's quite liberating not being able to 'chimp'all the time!
Anyway, the first pic from the minox on this blog is one I took out the window of my train. If anyone from Health and safety is reading this the train wasn't moving!

Just to let you know what we're talking about here are two pictures of the new Minox DSC. The firstshows it in comparison to my 1950s Minox III - I know which one I prefer!

So it's arrived

Just got home from an early shift to find a parcel from Germany waiting for me! The Minox DSC Silver has just been released and looks like a fun update of the original Walter Zapp Minox cameras. I can see the build quality is not up to the standard of those old minoxes but hey, this didn't cost much and no doubt was made in the far east.

Anyway, my plan with this blog is to have some minox fun and to use the little camera as much as i can over the next few months. I'll post photos when I can. As for now, the camera's on charge and I'm off to bed!