Havent made a post for along time - it's about time I changed that....

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Parsons Green to Clapham

Looking forward to finishing work this week and actually having some time to myself and doing some photography. It's been the coldest start to the winter in London for 30 years, and it seems to get dark by 2pm......

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It's time to start again

After a long break, due to a very hectic schedule after the last few months (getting married, moving house, setting up a new company - minor things like that!), I hope to start blogging again from today.

Gary

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Our Wedding Day

So, the photographer had to go to the other side of the camera. Thanks to Steve Forrest for taking the photos...

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The Blog is back

After a long break, the Blog is back. Watch this space...... Gary

Rain in Beira Baixa

Well, I left behind the cold air and snow in London, as I came on my latest trip to Portugal. But, for the last three days in Idanha, it hasn't stopped raining. Torrents of water cascading off the hillsides. Gutters and drains overflowing with water. Thunder and lightning and 20 second power outages. More than one month's rain in 72 hours. At least it isn't cold, at about 15 degrees C. More rain is forecast for tomorrow......

No posts....

Haven't being able to post any Blogs recently - have had a very hectic week, but hope to resolve that soon...
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A warm Lisbon evening

18 degrees, warm and sunny most of the day - a bit of a contrast to London 24 hours later...

And it doesn't get dark until 6pm. Lisbon is somewhat further west than London, so this is to be expected but if we didn't interfere with the clocks in October, we'd have a lot more winter evening light too. And Portuguese society seems to cope just fine with daybreak being at 8am+ in winter. Children aren't mowed down on the way to school in some mass carnage
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A beautiful, misty winter's day in Idanha

I lovely cold and crisp winter's morning in Idanha.
This was a goodbye shot before we set off on the motorway for Lisbon...

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Winter in the Beira Baixa

Happy New Year. Today was a day of cold temperatures (about 2 degrees), no sun, mist and later heavy rain. Managed to takes good photos of distant landscapes. Will upload some tomorrow.....
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Life in rural Portugal

Things move very slowly here. Everyone (nearly) knows everyone. Most families are together here at the moment (even if the children had moved away to college, etc) for Christmas and the New Year. Compared to my life in London, the pace in Beira Baixa is sedate, which suits me after a hectic few months back home...

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Early morning in Idanha-a-Nova

As you can see, very busy.....

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Portuguese society #1

No time for photography today, as I am travelling from Porto to Beira Baixa. Time for some thoughts about Portuguese culture.....

The fascinating and perhaps most surprising observation about Portugal is its national psyche. Forget any notions of Hispanic passion or Latino love of life. Certainly, the Portuguese enjoy life - the just don't show it too often. Fado music - like most folk music spurned by the young, of course - concisely sums up the national mood. The idiom is one of tranquillity and understatement. Ostentation is rare. Conservatism commonplace. Sara, my Portuguese partner, is regularly exasperated by the Portuguese bureaucracy but also sometimes too by the Portuguese character.
With a hitherto farming-based economy and gripped by a 20 year torpor of the Salazar legacy, in the 1990's Portugal began to change, particularly with the help of EU money. Generally the road infrastructure is excellent. Main roads and motorways are superb but their regular emptiness partially reflects the stuttering economic progress. Porto and Lisbon are dynamic cities with a burgeoning IT industry and the usual trappings of urban European life - high quality boutiques, coffee bars, nice hotels, even the Carphone Warhouse and sushi bars. But the middle class remains quite small. Education is variable, as is health care. Whilst quality of life for many Portuguese families is good - partially as a result of low property costs - disposable incomes are often low and there is a lack of money in the economy. Not for no good reason is Portugal the cheapest country to travel to in western Europe. I do see signs of change and growth. Socrates, the forward-thinking socialist Prime Minister seems determined to take on the moribund and creaking (and very large) public sector and develop growth away from the popular tourist region of the Algarve. There is evidence of change. New housing, retailing, new Ikeas some to be everywhere. As an informed outsider, I often think there is vast potential to develop Portugal's rural economy. There are only two real national parks, haltingly managed with unrealised potential. The countryside could be developed sustainably for nature tourism, accommodation, cycling, rambling, even for hunting (which the indigenous population loves). They have a fantastic wine industry. Wine tourism could really take off with some entrepreneurism.

I do love Portugal, its land and its people and feel its time will come. However, there are some things I find frustrating. For example, smoking is still a problem and quite a shock for the northern European traveller. Portugal has lovely pastelarias selling a delightful range of pastries and strong, fresh coffee. But these often cramped places, typically with stand-up bars, usually allow customers to smoke with impunity, often blowing their disgusting fumes over the serving area. Of course, the same could formerly be said of Belgium and France but the smoke-free legislation is spreading. Spain already has it, England was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century when it brought in smoke-free legislation in July 2007, so hopefully my second home won't be too far behind (1st January 2008 apparently).

Some things happen slowly in Portugal. Utilities and telecommunications remind me of Britain under Labour in the 70's. Internet access, especially broadband. is sporadic and largely absent in some areas - it strikes me that this is something crucial to address for the country's future. Home web access and PC use is close the bottom of the league for western Europe. There must be an untapped potential for e-commerce and the knowledge economy, given the saturation use of mobile phones by Portuguese youth.
To be continued......

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The Airport Experience (part 2)

Ok, so for once it was very smooth at Stansted. No big queues, checked in with Ryanair very quickly, the camera bag wasn't pulled for extra inspection on the x-ray belt, though the jobsworth on the checkpoint before the x-ray machine couldn't resist insisting on weighing my camera bag as it 'looked heavy'. My trusty Billingham 335 bag was just 7.4kg. Suck on it! It's the inconsistency that antagonises me most. At other stop-points, people were being let through with bulky 'hand baggage', which frankly looked like hold baggage to me......
Anyway, arrived early and had a very efficient trip through Portuguese security, as usual. Looking forward to a nice meal and some good photography tomorrow........

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The British airport experience

So, I am off to Stansted shortly for another of my regular trips to Porto. Let's see what BAA pull this time - will it be massive queues at security? Or will they fulfill their pledge to improve customer? I gave a hollow laugh recently when I read they were going to reduce retail space to improve the speed of passage through security by giving more lanes. We'll see...... Of course, as usual when I get to Portugal, everything will be incredibly smooth, as it always is in Europe.

And when you return to the UK, it all grinds to a halt again......... and try and get a train from Stansted after midnight! There's a massive car park though - which you have to pay for, of course! Sustainability?

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Covent Garden

One of my most photographed places in London. Always a source of joy and inspiration...

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The Douro river in Porto

I am off to Portugal tomorrow, for a week. More travels and more photos. I'll be blogging on the move, so watch this space...

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Tower Bridge from St. Katherine's Doc

A classic shot. Unfortunately, everyone has found this location now!
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The Tate Modern

One great thing about London is the variety of culture. The Tate Modern is one of the few examples of where the Brits have got things right - we actually managed to make good use of public space and our industrial legacy for a change - something that seems to be the norm in other European countries!
The Tate Modern is constructed from the shell of an old power station in London's South Bank area. In January 2004, there was an incredible exhibition based on lenses, lamps and glass spheres.

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London Life in Photographs - a start

So the whole world seems to have succumbed to blogs - so here we go....

My first blog. That's it.