Join me on my trips

Spent the night at the Premier Inn in Folkstone. The town seems have been given over to Highways as the whole town is being dug up. Through the tunnel, surely Mrs Thatchers greatest achievement, and a long way down to Mortagne du Perche, a Logis hotel, the Tribunal. A very comfortable place next to the beautiful church. The back garden. My hotel.the chef is Vincent Bisset. A town of marvellous rooves. Eglise Notre Dame. The band setting Ill go after dinner.

Tom was having a double op today at the Horton. We arrived at 7.15am. Luckily it is easy to park so you can come and go. So I nipped into Banbury. It has 4 huge banks, so that was a surprise. Charity shops with 50% off. Plenty of Turkish barbers, vape shops selling disposables  which I thought had been banned, closed down Thomas Cook, empty shops, cafes and one luxury jewellery shop selling Rolex. All in all a pretty depressing place. This is the market square. The op took a couple of hours and we finally left 12 hours after we arrived. Sometimes the heat and humidity makes me quite nauseas so I went up to the cafe for an iced coffee with all the cyclists. Dentist in Cirencester, then noticed this outside the church. And a virtually car free street with the old department store now a number of shops.

Down in Devon for a week's watercolour course with Robin. Left at 5 am and this photo was taken at 6.04 just as I got on the M5 then an hour later still not far on. Got in at 9.15. There are 12 of us, 6 men and 6 women with all but 2 coming from Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire or local which is most unusual and has made for a very friendly group. We have friends in common,  or places we know. This lovely hydrangea has few flowers but vibrant bracts. Scenes of the Otter valley. Not much water. Some pictures as I struggle to achieve some sort of decent picture. Translucency is the name of the game this time based on Cezanne. Then went to investigate Beer a little seaside town to the east near Axmouth where I was staying with Elizabeth my cousin. Here the cliffs are white whereas in Sidmouth they are red. This is a fishing village but narrow high hedged road to get to i...