As usual I shot loads of images when I visited Castel Carreg Cennen, so here for your delight and delectation are an additional selection.

Enjoy!

Click a thumbnail for a larger view in a pop-up window.

Carreg Cennen is one of those castles whose formidable fortifications are the stuff of childhood fantasy for many of us.

Standing atop its 300 foot limestone crag, the castle dominates the local landscape.

Fortifications have been in place at Castel Carreg Cennen from pre-Roman times to the present, although there don’t appear to be any remains pre-dating the late 13th and 14th century castle we see today.

The castle consists of a square inner ward surrounded by natural cliffs and rock-cut ditches. The more easily approached north and east sides are further protected by the walls of an outer ward, and the gatehouse is protected by an elaborate barbican that houses a long stone ramp with several deep pits that were covered by movable bridges.

Steep steps descend from the south-east corner of the courtyard to a vaulted passage on the edge of the cliff that leads to a natural cave beneath the castle; the cave may well have been used as a cold store, but it’s interesting to let your mind run riot in the dark, damp depths...

During the Wars of the Roses the castle was owned by the Duchy of Lancaster. Following the Yorkist victory at the battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461, Carreg Cennen became a refuge for large numbers of Lancastrians.

A Yorkist force was sent to force Carreg Cennen’s surrender, and when the Lancastrians vacated the castle a team of 500 men moved in to demolish the fortress.

The artist J. M. Turner immortalised Carreg Cennen in a painting. Although the castle is at its most imposing when viewed from the base of the 300 foot cliff on the other side, this photograph shows how I always remember it.

A colleague was telling my the other day how her infant daughter had arrived at the school door clutching some sorry looking sticky-buds and demanding they be taken home and given a drink.

I couldn’t help but smile, since the tale refreshed a childhood memory of nature walks in the woodland adjoining my primary school and my own sprig of sticky-buds standing in a glass jam jar; ah yes, and the delectable Miss Frances. Not that my fantasies turned to my class teacher in those early days of course!

I suppose I’m a bit surprised that schools still go out and do nature trail activities especially when it comes to gathering plant life, which is so frowned upon these days. It rather pleased me that such activities still go on. Naturally I’m not suggesting we all go out and pick wild flowers, but it didn’t seem to do too much harm to the environment when I was a kid.

Back to the sticky-buds...

As I parked my car in the far corner of the rear car park yesterday morning I stopped a few moments to admire the early sunshine on the open grassland at the back of our Allt-yr-yn campus. There are several Horse Chestnut trees growing on the downward slope and all are in full bloom now; bright patches of pink or white flowers.

Taking my Fuji E900 from the glove-box I went to get a closer look. Unfortunately the recent wind and rain has taken its toll on the blossom and close to the flowers are a tad ragged, but I think still beautiful.

We used to study our sticky-buds in the classroom, drawing them in their various stages from full bud to full flower. And not just Horse Chestnut either, I seem to remember Sweet Chestnut, Ash and Elm standing in jam jars too.

Happy days of childhood innocence...

I’ve blogged a few times about the birds that visit my garden and mentioned the family of blackbirds who have chosen to nest in my bay tree.

Between them my little feathered friends afford me many hours of pleasure, but yesterday gave me a new high.

The blackbirds have become frighteningly friendly; frighteningly because not everyone is as welcoming to garden visitors as me.

So anyway, there I was sitting in the afternoon sunshine talking to the cock blackbird and watching said bird going through its usual routine rooting about for grubs and the like when it decided to play hide-and-seek with me.

I’ve been doing a little pond maintenance recently and have removed a couple of aquatic plant pots. Being a lazy bugger I’d left them underneath one of my Japanese Acers and there was this dumb bird standing in one of them.

It bobbed up and down, completely disappearing behind the rim of the pot before standing tall like a jack-in-the-box; well this was just too good to miss...

Spam mails; don't you just hate them? My inbox seems to fill up with all kinds of crap every day.

Normally I just mark the offending mailings as junk and think no more about them, but one of this morning's batch really caught my eye and I thought I'd share it with you.

The sender's address was Microsoft Award [mass_lottery_2007@yahoo.co.uk], which is a bit of a giveaway to start with.

Microsoft Award

Congratulations! congratulations! congratulations!

Microsoft Award Team
20 Craven Park , Harlesden
London NW10, United Kingdom .
Ref: BTD/968/06
Batch: 409978E

Dear Lucky winner,

The prestigious Microsoft has set out, and successfully organized a Sweepstakes marking in the being of every year anniversary we rolled out over 900,000.000.00 (Nine Hundred Million Great Britain Pounds) for our Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 008795727498 with serial numbers BTD/9080648302/06 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) which subsequently won you £1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds) as one of the jackpot winners in this draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of £1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds).

This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program. Please you are advised to complete The form and send it immediately to our Promotion manager through Email or fax for prompt collection of your prize.

To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary agent:
Overseas Claims Unit United Kingdom

FIDUCIARY AGENT
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Head Winning Claims Dept.
Name: Mr.stephen lee
Tel: +44 -703-182-0350
Fax: +44-870-478-4792
Email:microsoft_lottery_info@yahoo.co.uk

VERIFICATION AND FUNDS RELEASE FORM

1. FULL NAME: _______________
2. ADDRESS: __________________
3. SEX: ______________________
4. AGE: ______________________
5. MARITAL STATUS: ___________
6. OCCUPATION: _______________
7. 7.INDICATE PREFERRED MODE OF PRIZE COLLECTION:
( A ) COURIER DELIVERY
( B ) PICK UP
( C ) BANK TRANSFER: ____________________
8. E-MAIL ADDRESS: ___________
9. PHONE/FAX NUMBERS: ________
10. EMAIL TICKET NUMBER: _____
11. SERIAL NUMBER: ___________
12. LUCKY NUMBERS: ___________
13. AMOUNT WON: ______________
14. STATE: ___________________
15. COUNTRY: _________________
16. NEXT OF KIN: ____________

Accept my heartily congratulations once again!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Jennifer Cole.
(Online Co-coordinator)
Head Customercare Service
Microsoft Promotion Team.

Just how desperate is that? Frankly if anyone is dumb enough to fall for a scam as badly constructed as this one, they deserve all they get. Still it gave me a morning chuckle; some crooks obviously need all the help they can get...

Well I’m aware I haven’t been around much this last week and I know you haven’t really missed me, but here I am back again like the proverbial bad penny.

Hasn’t the weather been wonderful? We’ve certainly had some stunning days here in South Wales, so I hope it’s been as good wherever you are.

As ever when the weather’s nice I try to get out and about a bit with a camera; yet again I was drawn to the banks of my local river, the River Usk.

All the photos in this blog entry were taken with my little Fuji E900 pocket camera. An impressive little beast and a great addition to my kit; I got mine at half-price and would recommend it to anyone, even if you have to stump up the full amount.

What is it about summery days, rivers and boats? Somehow they just seem to go together don’t they? Even when they sink!

Incidentally no-one actually identified last week’s Something for the Weekend correctly, although one person did get very close. This week’s will be much easier and I’ll post it up tomorrow morning.

Enjoy the rest of Friday; I’m off to stooge around the odd blog or two.

Do you always use the Auto setting on your digital camera? Many of us do, but it isn’t always the best option available to us.

When you press the button to take a picture the last thing you expect is that the image captured will come out too bright or too dark. Digital cameras have come a long way in a short time and many offer such advanced metering and exposure systems that it can come as a bit of a shock to find they aren't completely foolproof. Sometimes when things go wrong the reason is quite straightforward: it doesn’t matter how good the metering system on your camera is, the camera doesn’t know what the subject of your picture is. This means the camera has to make assumptions with regard to metering and exposure and it can’t always get it right.

Most modern cameras don’t look at the whole image when they predict exposure metering, but use multi-segment metering that measures the brightness of as many as 256 different parts of the frame. The results are compared with a database of thousands of typical scenes stored in the processor and the camera selects what it considers the most appropriate settings. There will be times when the image you desire is non-standard; you may want a slightly brighter or darker overall image for instance, or wish to highlight a face that is back-lit perhaps.

We can help our camera to get things right by making use of a technique called AE Compensation (AE stands for Automatic Exposure). To do this we need to adjust the EV setting to make the resulting image either brighter or darker.

Yes I know, AE, EV; how many other abbreviations am I going to throw at you? Well maybe one or two, but let’s try and kill the jargon now.

AE = Automatic Exposure and is the setting your camera will predict for any given scene.
EV = Exposure Value, where a null (zero) EV is the AE setting, +1EV is double the exposure and -1EV is half the exposure). The amount you can alter the exposure by is variable, usually in steps of 0.3 EV.

Now forget all about Exposure Values and just remember this:
A positive (+) AE-C makes the picture brighter
A negative (-) AE-C makes the picture darker

Roughly speaking a +1.0 EV setting will make the image twice as bright, a +2.0 EV four times as bright (the reverse for minus EV settings). So you can think of Automatic Exposure Compensation (AE-C) as a variable 'brighter/darker' feature, + for brighter, - for darker. Simple really isn't it?

How do we turn AE-C on? Look for a button on your camera that has a small '+/-' logo, or explore the camera’s record menu.

Here’s what happens to an image when we use AE-C by adjusting the EV settings:

Chillies in a bowl - correctly exposed.

Chillies in a bowl: EV-0.33

Chillies in a bowl: EV-0.67

Chillies in a bowl: EV-1

Chillies in a bowl: EV+0.33

Chillies in a bowl: EV+0.67

Chillies in a bowl: EV+1

Clicking any of the above images will open a larger version in a pop-up window.

When might we use AE-C?

Here are a few typical situations where AE-C will help you take the kind of pictures you want:

Backlighting: Where your subject (say a person) is fairly dark against a much brighter background. The camera exposes for the background and your main subject comes out too dark. Solution: plus (+) exposure compensation.

Small subject: A very similar problem to backlighting. If the main subject is quite small in the frame, and is much brighter or much darker than the rest of the scene, there is a risk of under or overexposure. Solution: So if you're shooting a white cat on a black rug you may need a plus (+) compensation, and if you're shooting a black cat on a white rug you'll need a minus (-) setting.

Large expanse of sky: If the sky is very bright and fills more than half the frame the camera can again be fooled into underexposing, making anything else in the frame come out too dark. This happens more with hazy, overcast skies than deep blue skies. Solution: plus (+) exposure compensation.

High key scenes: Cameras generally presume all scenes have a fairly wide range of tones from dark to bright, but if the scene is dominated by pale tones the auto exposure system may produce an underexposed result (with whites looking grey). Solution: plus (+) exposure compensation.

Low key scene: If your scene contains mostly darker tones (shadows) the camera can be fooled into overexposing, producing a result that looks slightly washed out. Solution: minus (-) exposure compensation.

Quick Tips

[1] Generally underexposure (too dark) is better than overexposure (too bright) – you cannot fix overexposure in post processing, whereas you can usually go some way towards rescuing dark shots.
[2] If your camera has a spot metering option you can use it to avoid the problems of small subjects or backlighting by only measuring the brightness of the main subject, not the rest of the frame. This does take practice though!
[3] Some problems can also be avoided by the use of AE lock. We'll look at AE lock next time.
[4] Backlighting problems can also be overcome by the use of fill flash.

I had a day off yesterday and decided to spend it soaking up some local history. As already mentioned elsewhere in this blog Monmouthshire is a castle-rich environment, so there’s always somewhere interesting to visit as far as I’m concerned.

Yesterday’s outing took me towards the northern boundary of the county as I worked my way around the three castles that once protected the main route into South Wales.

I began my day at White Castle, Llantillio Crosseny.

White Castle, a stone built castle, gets its name from the white render that once covered its outer walls.

This little known castle is a huge construction and must have been extremely impressive in its heyday.

White Castle is one of the few castles I’ve ever seen that is double-moated, so as a stronghold it would have been fairly impregnable in the days before gunpowder.

My second port of call was to Skenfrith Castle, which along with White Castle and Grosmont Castle formed the triangle of power.

Skenfrith is approximately 6 miles to the east of White Castle and stands on a flat plain beside the bank of the River Monnow.

Recent excavations revealed a medieval wharf, indicating the castle was probably supplied by barge. The water level in the river currently suggests the Monnow was more free-flowing then than now.

The central keep has an unusual base in as much as it has been surrounded by earth, giving it the false appearance that it was constructed on a mound. In fact the keep has a basement level below ground, the earth having been heaped above this level.

If you imagine an equilateral triangle with White Castle and Skenfrith forming the base, then Grosmont can be imagined as the upper angle.

Grosmont, approximately 4.5 miles from Skenfrith and 4 miles from White Castle, is probably my favourite Monmouthshire castle.

I’m not sure I can accurately tell you why I like Grosmont so much, I just find it fascinating.

The three castles were granted to Edmund ‘Crouchback’, earl of Lancaster in 1267 and although at that time all three were maintained only Grosmont was used as a home.
In the 14th century the Lancasters remodelled the inner ward to make accommodation more fitting for a noble household.

By the 16th century all three castles had been abandoned.

For more information about these and other castles in Britain, why not visit CastleXplorer...

As usual, clicking any of these images will afford a larger view in a pop-up window.

If like me you find yourself drawn to ponds, lakes and rivers at this time of year and you always pack a camera I expect you’ll be tempted to photograph the local swan population.

Swans are without doubt majestic birds, but they are notoriously difficult to capture on film; not because they evade the view-finder, but because of the mass of white feathers that tend to cause burn-out, or hot-spots.

This image for instance is quite cute, but I you look at the bird’s back you’ll notice there is little or no detail in the feathers. This is the effect of burn-out; over exposure in a localised area.

So how can you avoid this loss of detail? The simplest method is to save your photographic skills for those times when the bird is in shade, or when there is a cloud obscuring the sun.

Alternatively, concentrate on close-ups and you’ll find getting some nice feather detail much easier.

The real solution is to use some high-tech metering and adjust the exposure in your camera manually to cope with the conditions; most of us don’t have access to quality spot-meters and invercones though and have to rely on the in-camera metering system, which is so easily fooled by the density of the background and intensity of the swan’s feathers.

Photographing wildlife can be a lot of fun, so don’t be put off by the possibility of poor results and try, try and try again to perfect your own method of avoiding hot-spot situations.

Clicking an image will allow a larger view in a pop-up window.

Is anyone else out there experiencing image loss in blog.co.uk when viewed with Internet Explorer 7?

For some bizarre reason I can't quite put my finger on, I started having image problems with Blogland and IE7 yesterday.

Basically it's this: any images on a blog that I have previously visited appear as placeholders with the little red cross (broken image) and this includes avatars. Very weird...

Before I delve deeply, I just wondered if anyone else has/has had the same problem?

Before buying my present property some thirteen years ago, one of the houses I considered for a possible purchase was a small farmhouse on the outskirts of the village.

This house had once stood at the road-side, but the road had been diverted some years earlier as part of a modernisation scheme that included development of the M4. Easy access was still available and part of my attraction to the property was its pseudo-isolation and large plot.

Negative features included the bathroom and toilet facilities; there was an outside loo and a bathroom had been added in a wooden lean-to at the rear of the property. The house had also stood empty for a while and smelt damp.

No-one bought the house and it now stands in ruins...

The last incumbent did leave one or two small reminders of human habitation...

Just thought I'd share a few flora and fauna images I took while visiting Clevedon last Friday. This isn't the sort of thing I normally shoot, but I was attracted by the colours and shapes and like a lot of other folk I find tree rats quite endearing...

Clicking an image allows a larger view in a pop-up window.

I walking home yesterday afternoon having been out for a stroll and just happened to have a camera in my hand when I was passed twice by a couple of youngsters driving back and forth through the village; I'd estimate they were exceding the 30mph speed limit by a factor of two.

Hot Car, or Hot Head? You decide.

The womenfolk decided a little retail therapy was in order and decided we’d spend yesterday at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol; for those who don’t know it, Cribbs Causeway is one of those purpose built shopping malls that us chaps are so frightened of.

I reasoned that it being Good Friday and there being a lot of people not in work, the place would be somewhat busy and really didn’t want to go. The forecast was pretty good too, so the idea of being stuck among the shopping throng was even less appealing; I hatched a cunning plan!

Having never visited Clevedon and it being so close to Bristol, I proposed dropping the ladies at Cribbs and leaving them to it for a few hours while I went to have a look at Clevedon’s grade one listed Victorian pier.

The Clevedon Pier Company was formed in the early 1860s and in 1863 the necessary act of Parliament was obtained to allow the construction of a pier to commence. Designed by John Grover and Richard Ward, Clevedon Pier was a masterpiece of Victorian ingenuity that evolved through the difficult tidal conditions confronting the builders. Faced with exceptionally strong currents, and a water level difference of some 40ft (12m) between low and high tides, Clevedon Pier had to be built in a taller, more slender style than would normally have been the case.

Work was completed on the new pier in 1869, the resulting structure being 842ft (255m) in length and 48ft (14.5m) high. The shoreward end comprised of a 180ft (54.5m) approach constructed in stone, an ornate castellated tollhouse built in the style of a Scottish baronial hall, wrought iron gates, and a pier-masters house. The main neck of the pier was a wooden deck with seating along its full length, and a small pier-head café. The pier-head had six levels of landing stage to facilitate passengers disembarking, despite the level of the tide. Clevedon Pier opened amid much pomp and celebration on Easter Monday 1869, a cannon shot officially marking the moment.

There’s quite a nice history of the pier on the Clevedon Pier & Heritage Trust website for those interested enough to look and here are a few pictures for your delight and delectation.

A few brave souls continuing the tradition of the Good Friday Swim at Clevedon: it was 9:45am so it was still quite nippy despite the sunshine!

Taken from the Royal Clevedon Pier Hotel: currently in ruins and showing traces of fire damage.

The Promenade: planks and seating on Clevedon Pier are sponsored to help aid the pier's upkeep.

Members of Clevedon Pier Sea Angling Club hoping for a Good Friday catch.

Clicking any image will produce a larger view in a pop-up window.

There’s an historic stretch of waterway just outside Newport on the Crumlin branch of the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal.

In fact the stretch at Fourteen Locks, which was completed in 1799, is regarded as Britain’s most remarkable lock system. With its series of embanked ponds, pounds and elaborate sluices and weirs, the lock system rises 168 feet up the side of a hill in a little over half a mile.

Its unique design together with both the quality of workmanship involved in its construction and the part it played in the social and industrial development of South Wales makes Fourteen Locks nationally significant.

Unused for 74 years, the canal section fell into disrepair. Work to restore the locks is urgently needed in order to retain the historic fabric of the monument and to prevent loss of features of architectural importance. The high quality of engineering will be reflected in the traditional specialist skills needed to help restore the canal.

The overall vision for the Cefn Flight of Fourteen Locks is to reopen the historic waterway as a working and recreational navigable route.

A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund will help Newport City Council and the Monmouthshire, Brecon and Abergavenny Canals Trust, to restore the lock gates in the top two waterway structures, each of which contain a pair of locks which form part of the Cefn flight of 14 locks at Rogerstone.

So 2 locks down and another 12 to go; I hope the money for restoration can be found from somewhere, it would a terrible shame if this historic stretch of waterway wasn’t restored in my view.

Well no, not exactly. In this case it's Birds on a Hot Glass Roof...

This pair of sagulls were warming their toes on someone's sunroof - and crapping all over his paintwork too!

Grumpy Bloke commented about trash being dumped on my morning post (Tales from the riverbank).

Dumping trash, fly-tipping if you will, seems to be a national problem. It's time we all did something to stop the morons who try their best to ruin the environment for the rest of us.

Dumping is both harmful and unsightly; why would anyone want to do it?

In this area, dumpers frequently drive past public amenity sites to leave their crap at the side of the road; what the heck is that all about?

Fly-tipping is illegal, but the threat of a heavy fine doesn't seem to make the slightest difference to the tippers. Let's be honest, you'd have to have balls the size of water melons and a brain the size of a pea to do this sort of thing...

I left the house early yesterday morning to give myself time to grab a few images on my way in to work.

Normally morning’s are just a bit of a rush, but with schools on their Easter break the traffic was far less then usual so I had plenty of time to drop down to the river bank.

It occurred t me that most of the images I’ve posted here of the River Usk running through Newport have been taken when the banks have been less than full of water, the Usk being a tidal river. Images of this nature never do my river justice, so as the tide was nearing the full at the right sort of time yesterday...

Looking towards the city centre from the west bank, we see the rail bridge with the Old Town road bridge behind.

The waters look quite calm, but don’t be fooled the Usk is both deep and treacherous here.

The Crindau Pill; running to the west of the Usk, the Crindau Pill was the termination point for the Mon & Brecon Canal, offering easy access for barges to the main waterway.

Looking inland, with the M4 motorway crossing in the distance.

Newport’s railway bridge was typical of its genre and in many ways unremarkable. The bridge has featured in a couple of films however and being just to the east of Newport station has seen many a sad parting.

Newport Castle stands on the west bank of the Usk and has an excellent example of a Norman water-gate. Unfortunately when the castle ruins became the haunt of drug addicts and drunkards, the city council fenced off the access points and re-routed a public footpath, denying access to the ruins to members of the public. Newport’s Old Town Bridge can be seen in the background.

As usual, clicking an image will open a window to give a larger view.

I can post more tales from the riverbank another day for anyone who may be interested...

I took a back-road on my way in to work this morning and simply had to pull over because on first glance I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Is it just me, or are Bluebells blooming early this year?

These were growing in the edge of a shaded hedgerow and I had to use flash to photograph them, so the colours are a bit washed out. Looking into some nearby woodland I noted a carpet of bluebell plants, but none of these were in flower (plenty of bud stalks though).

I'll have to keep my eyes open to see if bluebells are blooming elsewhere; anyone else noticed any bluebells in flower yet this year?

I always love this time of year; things just feel so fresh, new, full-of-life and expectation.

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day and although the wind was very strong and quite chill, the sun was quite warm in those sheltered places.

We walked along one of the country lanes local to our house, a stroll that took us five or six miles through the countryside with hardly a motorist to be seen or heard and just the farmer’s livestock, birds and insects for company.

Blossom has broken out on the blackthorn in the hedgerows and the local bee population were making the most of it. I hope there’s a good crop of fruit this year; I want to try making some sloe vodka as an alternative to the more usual sloe gin.

I was reminded as we walked of Disney’s cartoon version of Baloo the Bear, the character from Kipling’s The Jungle Book; did you know the name Baloo is derived from the Hindi word for "bear"? Mr. Kipling obviously knew a little more than how to make exceedingly good cakes.

There’s a scene in the cartoon where Baloo has an itch that just has to be scratched; you know the sort of itch, the one you can’t quite reach. The itch you need help with.

In Disney’s cartoon Baloo's itch is between his shoulders and he scratches first against the trunk of a tree, then against the edge of a large rock before plucking what appears to be a coconut palm from the ground and using it as a back-scratcher...

I couldn’t help wondering if this young lady would have liked a little help with her favoured itching post.

If only life were always so simple, we could just wend our way through Nature’s bounty doing whatever took our fancy and satisfying the urge to simply live...

With the amount of spamming going on here recently, I'm starting to feel like a character in a Monty Python sketch!

I wonder if blog.co.uk are going to do anything to put a stop to the idle few with too much time on their hands?

Well the sleeplessness thing seems to have a good strong hold on yours truly. For some reason best known to my body and least appreciated by myself, I appear to be locked into a bout of insomnia. Regular readers of this blog will be holding up their hands and saying, here we go again...

Well no apologies for blogging about my sleepless condition, again, but there is method in my madness. In fact this is really an information post to say I may not be about much for the next few days and since I'm extremely tired and my concentration levels are very low at the moment, I’m apologising in advance for any weird/odd/nonsensical comments I’m likely to make on other blogs; hope that makes sense...

Have a good Sunday all