The Four Ages Of Sand

Public Sector Cuts

This from Alan R:

Hi Iain
 
By now we are all aware of the dire economic mess the country is in.
 
We are all aware that drastic measures are called for.
 
We are all braced for the worst.
 
But in Watchet Somerset it would appear that cuts to the police force are already in place!!
 
Alan
 

The flowers are a nice touch though, aren't they? 

Kelburn Castle: Art or Vandalism?

Look what they've done to Kelburn Castle!

Now there's a debate about whether it should be removed or not.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1312450 

 © Copyright Chris Townsend and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

(My vote: keep it)

Image source: http://holypants.com/articles/14/grafitti-covered-kelburn-castle

Image source: http://www.fotothing.com/Mappi/photo/81339c98402d4fe6aa13839632c3a572/

More on the story here: http://www.scotclans.com/bletherskite/?p=2441

I went all the way to Venezuela to find a car on a roof...

...and Alan found one down the road in Windsor:

The village of Mesa Boliva

I went to another picturesque village high up in the Andes today in a desperate hunt for 9 more butterflies to complete my Century. (see next post for results)

Mesa Bolivia has the usual brightly painted buildings and quaint shops:

And some weird and wonderful buildings too:

It's quite shocking to see how so many people have to live outside the main centre though. This was a common sight wherever we went:

 

The Andean village of Chiguara, North West Venezuela

Venezuelan architecture out of the car window

I love the buildings out here. Lots of them are picturesque as you'd expect

and some are not as you'd expect

However my hosts will only let me get out of the car to take photographs in the mountain villages. In the main towns and cities they say it's too dangerous, so I have to shoot from the passenger seat, which is really buggering up my National Geographic pretentions

 

Interesting buildings 35

Penrith: what a great building for a launderette. Also, a bit spooky, with those red bars on the windows...

Yes it's taken me 6 months to post it, but now I'm all Blackberried up, these things will be INSTANT in future:

 

Interesting buildings 34

This is why I prefer to get mine from Amazon!

Thanks to Alan R for this one.

Interesting Buildings 33

This great shot from Stuart has reminded me that I've been neglecting the Interesting Buildings category. Watch this space.

Interesting Buildings 32: Stratford Upon Avon

I took Uni M to Shakespeare's house in Stratford Upon Avon last week:

   

Lovely buildings everywhere of course. Here's the library:

 

We recentlu looked into theof putting an extention  to the house or possibly a cabin in the garden but it turns out that plannig regulations in England are extremely restrictive. Unless of course you want to build a kebab house into a 15th Century building; that's no prob:

 

Or how about a nice Pizza Hut, sensitively blended into the Elizabethan architecture?