Photos at Midday

I know that for the best light you should really take photos early in the morning or in the evening, but at this time of year at these latitudes there can even be some fairly rich light at midday.

I just wandered over to the beach for some fresh air. There wasn’t much going on or much to take photos of, but I took a few anyway and the rich golden light looked quite nice.

Lazy Beach Days

Golden Beach Light

As the title of this website states, we are supposed to be living a Simple Life of Luxury here in West Wales. I think we are achieving that. To add to the luxury we are currently fitting a new en-suite shower room to the house. We’ve been planning to do this since building the house in 2003, but time and finances have only just allowed it.

The room at the back of the house, that we call the ‘Beach Room’ has always been seen of as a spare room come outdoor room. The floor is tiled, it has large double french doors and the idea was that I – or anyone else for that matter – could come straight in from the beach in my wetsuit and straight into the shower. Luxury indeed!

Much of the plumbing and electrics were already in place, but to achieve this we (read my Dad!) have had to block up an internal door, create a doorway in another wall, put up a partition wall and then install the shower, basin and toilet. The walls need tiling and all the finishing touches need adding and then it will be ready to go.

We do use the room as a spare room, so visitors will have their own private en-suite. However, most of the time the room has until now been used as a bit of a dumping ground. Hopefully this will change, and with the en-suite shower room it will make a perfect little gym! Actually, I doubt we’ll go that far, but my turbo-trainer will be in there most of the time and I will of course use it when I get back from bike rides and surf sessions.

I’m looking forward to it being finished already.

Our busy weekend continued with a day on the beach (after re-visiting the moth traps set the night before).

Morgan and I had a play in the sea, which gave me a chance to get my waterproof camera properly wet. It coped well and considering its size and durability I’m still pretty impressed with the photos that it takes. I used it to take all of the photos on the beach on Saturday as it is the ideal camera for such locations. I certainly wouldn’t want to be swapping lenses and playing around with my SLR whilst soaking wet and covered in sand. Somehow I don’t think it would like it.

Here I come!

Getting deeper

Glug Glug!

As well as playing in the water we did some ‘beach art’ too. Some of it was for Morgan’s homework, and then we started messing around balancing pebbles and such like.

Beach Art

Pebble Art

Pebble Stack

I also wanted to get some silhouetted shots of Morgan playing on the beach and quite like this one. In fact I might get it printed onto a large canvas so that we can hang it on the wall in the living room.

Playing on the beach

Stand off!

Horses at Ynyslas

Beach Scene

After collecting Morgan from school yesterday we popped in to see a friend but a Morgan was nodding off to sleep I decided to take him for a little stroll on the beach for some fresh air to revitalise him!

I had my little compact Pentax Optio W60 waterproof camera with me so I took a few shots whilst we were there. It wasn’t a particularly exciting day weather wise but with a little bit of fiddling I was able to get some decent shots.

Which is your favourite?

I got up early this morning and whilst messing around with my camera before my little photo assignment at the Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon tomorrow I snapped this photo. Flowers make such good subjects, amazing colours, lovely textures and (as long as it isn’t windy) they don’t move either.

Pretty in Pink

Looks as though it should be a lovely weekend here in Borth and with all the holiday-makers back at home and the students not yet arrived, it should be pretty quiet on the beach. I’d like to get out there an make the most of it, maybe some snorkelling or canoeing, but there’s lots of work to be done in the garden too, especially if I want some flowers like the one above.

Time for a rant….

First of all, dog owners that don’t clean up after their dogs, it’s disgusting, especially in public places and around here on the beach. There are kids playing in the dunes, digging in the sand and generally crawling around on the beach. The last thing they want to come across is a big pile of dog poo! Same for me, the little area of grass that I use to rig up on when going windsurfing at the top of the dunes is always covered in dog poo. It’s not nice at all!… Clear up after your dogs!

Even worse though are those idiot dog owners who do take some bags with them, pick up the poo and then leave the bags complete with poo in a nice little pile on the beach somewhere.. What’s the point of that? I know what, rather than just leaving dog poo on the beach I’ll put it in a nice plastic, non-biodegradable bag so that it hangs around on the beach for 10 times as long.. Very clever!

Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Maybe its time to start reporting people. Who’s with me on this?

I always say that the best camera is the one you have with you, and since buying a little Pentax Optio W60 a few weeks ago this has proved to be true. It may not have quite the optics of my Canon SLR or the features and flexibility, but the fact that I can pop it in my pocket and take it with me wherever I go means that I can actually take photos more often.

I’m forever walking across to the beach to check on the wind or surf conditions and I did this on Tuesday evening with the camera in my pocket and as the surf wasn’t great I sat there for a couple of minutes and took some photos. The camera performed perfectly and the results were brilliant considering I was just taking snapshots with a little waterproof compact camera.

I’m also getting used to the fact that the camera doesn’t have a viewfinder just and LCD screen on the back. Having used an SLR for years it was difficult at first to get used to holding the camera away from my face to take photos but it does have its advantages. For a start I don’t have to lie in the floor to take shots from a low angle and if anything this means I tend to experiment with shots from different angles.

All in all, I’m loving the new camera.

Pebble bank

Sandy Beach

Storm Beach

Ynyslas Beach

Evening Light

Sunny reflections

Fun in the sun

I can’t believe this weather. Yet another beautiful sunny day yesterday. In a way we had hoped for some wind as it was the Boardwise Windsurf Demo weekend in Aberdyfi, but as there wasn’t a breath we decided against driving all the way around just to look at some expensive boards that we can’t afford. If there was wind and we could have used and abused them free of charge then that would have been a different matter!

Instead we decided to save some fuel and head across to Aberdyfi in the canoe instead. Steve was here so I let him borrow my racing ski. After a little bit of attention with some duct tape it was ready to go and I warned him that it was a little unstable, but super effiecient.

I was taking Morgan with me so had the much less effiecient but more comfortable inflatable canoe (that we bought from Lidl a few years ago).

We drove to the estuary at Ynyslas, pumped up the canoe and were ready to go. Morgan had his little wetsuit and float coat on. I put my wetsuit on just in case I had to go in after Morgan and Steve put his on because he was very likely to fall off the racing ski! As we were about to enter the water the warden came running up to us to make sure we knew what we were doing. She was very polite about it though and not at all condescending, so we reassured her and before long we were on our way across the waters of the estuary. It soon got pretty hot paddling though. Steve was OK as he kept falling in, Morgan was OK as he was just sat there enjoying the view, but I was paddling away against the current in the blazing sun!

Steve did OK, I expected him to fall off quite a bit and he did, but we all soon made it across the estuary. It was pretty busy all the way acorss really. Jet ski’s and waterskiers on the Ynyslas side, groups of Outward bound canoeists and then lots of boats on the Aberdyfi side. Despite the lack of wind the Windsurf slalom races were still being held, although it didn’t look too exciting without any wind.

Once on the beach at Aberdyfi we had a look at a few of the boards and could see people out playing on the Stand Up Paddle boards (SUPs) at Graveyards. I did want to see if they had any of lats years ex-Demo SUPs for sale as I’m thinking of selling my kitesurf boards and buying one, but there wasn’t really anyone around to talk to and Morgan was a little bored of the boards and just wanted to play in the sea. We did see a tiny little 1m windsurf rig though that was just the right size for him. This has made me want to get a SUP even more now as they have fitting for deck plate so he could use on along with a tiny rig to learn to windsurf.

We then got back into the boats and headed for the shade of the jetty where we got the crab fishing line out and went crab fishing for a while.It didn’t take too long to catch a crab before we headed back across the estuary to Ynyslas where we found Anna waiting on the sands with a much needed picnic.

We played on the beach for a while before heading home. I didn’t envy Steve having to drive all the way to Birmingham though!

If the weather continues like this, we’re going to have a gorgeous summer and I can see plenty more days playing around on the water. Morgan seemed to have fun, and he still doesn’t realise how lucky he is to have all of this on his doorstep.

Anna with the picnic

Collecting water!

Playing on the beach

Busy day in the estuary

More fun in the sun

I know it makes a change, but we’ve just had a lovely sunny bank Holiday weekend… One to make a note of as it usually rains on bank holidays! What’s more, we had visitors and had the day off so managed to enjoy the weather as well.

My parents arrived early Sunday afternoon, with my niece Kia and nephew Shaun, so we had a full house. After a BBQ in the garden which went well, we headed across to the beach for a walk. Morgan was on his bike as he wanted to show off his bike-riding skills! After a bit of bike-riding we ended up on the sands and before we knew it the children were getting wet and very sandy!

Monday dawned bright and sunny too so once again, after eggs and bacon for breakfast, it was off to the beach, this time with a wheel-barrow loaded up with stuff ready for a full day there. There was even a little bit of surf so I had a quick surf session before taking Shaun and Kia out in the inflatable canoe. Shaun was a little reluctant to go too far, but Kia seemed to enjoy it, even if I did make sure she got a soaking in the waves!

We played on the beach and in the dunes for a bit more, but by lunchtime it had clouded over so we headed back for lunch and then played in the garden. I set up a hammock between two trees which the children liked and we did a bit of gardening too.

Unfortunately Anna and I are back to work today (Tuesday), but my parents are here for a couple more days so Morgan will be kept fully entertainedf and will have Kia and Shaun to play with too. Shame Anna and I can’t join them.

I thought getting fit was supposed to be good for you, but it only seems to hurt!

Running on the roads hurts my knees, running on the sand hurts my Achilles tendons.

I went for a nice run yesterday along the beach. Nothing too strenuous as I was trying to keep my heart rate down so my pace was a really slow 9 minutes per mile and I only ran 5 miles. The tide was low so the GPS generated map (left) made it look as though I was swimming rather than running, (in which case 9 mins/mile would have been good!) All felt good though and I enjoyed the run itself, but as soon as I stopped I developed a pain in my groin… Seems as though I now have some sort of groin strain which has now prevented me from going windsurfing today, depsite the fact that there has been a perfect wind all day and the sun has been shining.

On top of this, the running has caused chaffing in places you don’t want to know about and I even have a mild case of runners nipple! I think I shall have a few days off before doing some nice easy short runs again.

I haven’t lost any weight either as it makes me hungry and there’s nothing better than a BIG bar of chocolate after a physical workout!

It isn’t all bad though as I’ve been enjoying it and I think the fresh air each day does me good, and those endorphins must be having an effect on my overall sense of well-being.