Kristin Ladström | blogg: July 2024

uk roadtrip part 8: penryn

Penryn! We got here in the afternoon after having spent the day at Land's End. The reason we ended up booking a hotel in Penryn was because I looked for "a cute town in Cornwall", and I was not disappointed:

In the middle of our walk we heard church bells starting to ring, and we could immediately tell it was an actual live bell ringing band (yes they are called bands :)) practising. I'd only seen Liam ring once, but it was mesmerising, so I asked if he wanted to go, and he said yes. :)

You see, the thing about bell ringing, is that if it's a smaller local tower, and the local band are having their usual weekly practise, they will always welcome a visting ringer to ring with them. (Kind of like swing dancing, where you can go and visit local dancing when you're travelling.) Especially if you have experience, because the local bands in small towns never have enough people at the same time who are skilled enough to ring the complicated stuff. And Liam, well ... He does have experience (he has a paper that says he's a lifetime member of some obscure ancient London bell ringing gang, and he's allowed to ring in an especially fancy church* or something like that. Not that he would nowadays because it's been so long since he was ringing actively, but still).

*I checked with Liam, it's Saint Paul's Cathedral. It is fancy, so I remembered correctly! :)

So Liam joined them for practise and I got to sit and watch them ring and I LOVE it. It is the nerdiest instrument and it's just so meditative and fascinating to watch. I've never tried it myself but I will at some point (it's just a bit of a faff to sort that out, given that a church bell tower really isn't an instrument that's very easy to come by).

And an hour or so later practise was over and we went out to resume our hunt for dinner. But slightly giddier than before. Gosh I loved how British this whole thing was - it almost beats the surprise cricket of 2018.

I like him!

We found dinner!

A cute pizza place.

The pizza was very good and the evening so warm that everyone there chose to sit outside even though it was late at that point. So nice.

And the we walked down to the harbour and had a look around before bed.

It was the best day of the whole summer. Maybe the whole year so far.

And this is when Liam has had enough of my photographing. :)

Alejandro Aranda | Pieces

första halvan av juli

Blandade julibilder kommer här! Såhär såg jag och min älskling ut dagen efter att vi kom hem från England. Trötta men så glada. Jag var redo för svensk sommar och badutflykter, men vädret var för dåligt och det blev inte så mycket med det.

Men en hel del mys och trevligt blev det i alla fall, som till exempel här på Annis födelsedag på Tullen.

Och några fina kvällar hemma, som den här som jag inte kunde låta bli att fota.

En dag tog jag en långpromenad i Änggårdsbergen. Trampade runt på lite mindre stigar och letade hittaut-kontroller, och ramlade mitt in i ett område med blåbärsris som var så stort och orört att jag kunde stå och bara mata blåbär in i käften med båda händer. Det ni!

Fikade med Johan och pratade mest våra respektive fjällplaner, högst rimligt såhär års.

På onsdagarna var det sommarbalboa, eftersom balboagänget är nördar som minsann inte tar paus bara för att det blir sommar. <3

Och sedan åkte jag till landet ett par dagar vilket var strålande. Framför allt åkte jag dit för att umgås med min bror och svägerska och brorson.

Vi började med fika på gulliga Kaffedoppet i Strömstad. En biskvi och en Yalla, det måste vara det perfekta fikat för mig?

Så fort vi kom ut till ön gick jag ned och badade.

Det var så kallt i vattnet!

Men fint.

När jag kom tillbaka hade Lisa fixat en otrolig middag med bara en massa gott.

En sån här middag med kvällssol på altanen kan jag leva på länge.

Och så fick jag ju umgås med den här lilla brorsonsrumpan <3 Otroligt att tittut kan vara så roligt så länge?

Dagen efter fikade vi på Panget på Resö och åt de här smarriga Resöbullarna. Fint att hinna med ett besök där den här sommaren också.

Sen åkte jag hem till Göteborg och några dagar senare var jag i Kinna och hälsade på min gudmor Gunilla.

När yngre folk säger att de inte vill vara med bild respekterar jag det. När äldre personer säger "nämen inte ska du ta bild på mig ..." säger jag "jo nu får du faktiskt finna dig". Man kan ju inte bidra till ålderismen i samhället genom att inte porträttera någon som är äldre, det går faktiskt inte. Vi behöver väl FLER foton på äldre personer, inte färre!

Vi åt lunch på vackra Rydals herrgård och sedan promenerade vi bort till museet och tittade på utställningarna och alla gamla maskiner.

Det var en fin dag!

Troy Ogletree | champagne season

uk roadtrip part 7: land's end

Our main reason for going to Land's End was, well - if we're going to the Southwest, why not just go all the way to Land's End? It will be fun to be able to say we've been, right?

It turned out to be the most beautiful place we went to this whole trip. I'm so glad to have seen it.

It was a sunny day with blue skies, until about ten minutes before we got to Land's End; we drove into a thin fog, which hid the sun but didn't seep the colours out of the surroundings. The light was magical and perfect.

Land's End is a weird place. There's a whole area with cafés and adventure golf and shops selling touristy knicknacks and it all feels a bit contrived and tacky. And then there's this famous sign of course - where you pay to have your own message added to the sign and then a photographer takes your picture in front of it (which I obviously didn't do, though I did sneak this photo from the side).

But as soon as you've passed through all of those buildings and made it out on the other side, there's just cliffs and views and beauty and the sea.

Liam found a thing to poke at (this photo is called "a Portrait of Liam Poking Things" and is part of a collection of many).

And then he patiently waited while I took some more photos ...

... like this one. We decided to walk over to that little white house to the right in this photo ...

... which is called the First and Last House. I like the name. Of course, it has to be both the first and the last house in England, if you don't know which direction people are coming from.

From there, we continued up the hill along the Coast Path ...

... and took some selfies. I was very happy.

I decided to walk a bit further along the path, while Liam went back to the shops for a fika. That square little stone hut on the far left seemed a good (lagom!) distance away.

Everything about this walk was fantastic. A very pleasant path, easy walking, perfect weather for it, and fantastic views the whole way.

And if the views weren't enough, there's a shipwreck too! (It's actually gigantic, much bigger than it looks in this photo.)

I did make it to the little stone hut - a lookout. It took maybe half an hour from the First and Last House, and that's including many photo stops. :)

On the other side of the ridge the Coast Path descends into Sennen Cove, but I'll have to save that for another time, at some point when I'll come back and do longer stretches of the Coast Path.