sunsets – T E Shepherd

Sunset Over Brill

Thomas — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:44:00 +0000

Emma’s sister, Helen, had persuaded us to go to the Thame Wedding Fair, in part because she had to man the John Lewis stand. Both Emma and I were very nervous about it, and we had no idea what to expect. The drive down there was nice, and the location – the exclusive looking Oxfordshire Golf Course – was something of a revelation itself, and actually, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected. Helen seemed to have a pretty rum deal though. Selling the idea of a guest list isn’t really that ‘sexy’ a thing to attract people to your stand as wedding dresses, flowers, chocolate fountains or glossy photograph albums…

Speaking of photograph albums, we’ve found our photographer! Or at least, subject to wallet-holders agreement we’ve found the person we would like to be our photographer. Phil O’Connor is a former sports photographer for fleet street and specialises in the unobtrusive, reportage style that we are after. He also comes across as a really nice friendly man that you want doing your event.

Following the fair, we went for a walk at Brill Hill, see the windmill, and go through the various things we picked up at the fair. By chance, in the middle of the street, Emma was greeted by an old VN friend out for a walk with a child, and it was a nice catchup. The whole afternoon was gorgeous and we stayed on the hill under the sails of the windmill till the sun had set…

BrillSnowdrops_20080217_441
Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 7.59pm GMT PST.

BrillSnowdrops_20080217_442
Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 8.00pm GMT PST.

Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 8.20pm GMT PST.

Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 8.26pm GMT PST.

The most perfect of perfect days…

Stowesome Sunset and Vegetable Curry

Thomas — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:47:00 +0000

Emma was taking delivery of her ‘new’ bedroom furniture with the aid of her dad and her mum’s car this morning, which left me with a good opportunity to start sorting stuff. And I had a reasonably productive morning at it. Gathering together old video tapes that have since been duplicated by dvds and an (admittedly) small collection of books I was able to make a first delivery to Oxfam in town, and said goodbye to my old bike (a 16^th birthday present) to the tip. I was encouraged by the man there, who said that they had someone who came and collected them, fixed them up and then shipped them out to Africa. I like the idea of my trusty steed cycling for years around a desert somewhere…

When Emma did arrive, we headed straight off to get some sun (admittedly of the setting variety) at Stowe landscape gardens. I had hoped to revel in my enjoyment of snowdrops but were too late to get into the gardens, so we went for a very pleasant walk around the outer-estate instead amongst blue sky and golden light.

Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 7.37pm GMT PST.

Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 7.36pm GMT PST.

Originally uploaded by shepline on 17 Feb ’08, 7.33pm GMT PST.

…and then, to round off a nice afternoon we went out to dinner at Ros and Nick’s. Good food, in the form of a vegetable currey, and good company; I like these friends. By way of comparison to the houses we have seen so far, they gave us the guided tour, and told us about this curious hot air central heating system. Rather than radiators the houses were built with boilers in the centre of the house that warms the air and pushes it out into all the rooms of the house via grills in the walls. Curious…

November sunset over the forest

Thomas — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:44:00 +0000

Sunset #6
Originally uploaded by shepline on 12 Nov ’05, 6.14pm PST.

Moonrise
Originally uploaded by shepline on 12 Nov ’05, 6.16pm PST.