Sleepy Ely, United Kingdom, 11th Mar 2007

The imposing Ely Cathedral in the background, ponies and rams grazing in the foreground. Classic small-town landscape. The octagonal tower you see on the right hand side is what differentiates Ely Cathedral from its counterparts in the rest of the country, and gives it the appearance of an ancient keep casting its grim shadow on the surrounding countryside.

Sun and stained glass combine to vivify the interior of God's House.

Suddenly it felt like I was in Spain all over again.

The splendour of these cathedrals is really quite astounding. One must not forget the sweat and blood of the many who laboured to this end. I don't fancy the idea of having so much money converted into gold and jewel when bread and milk were more needful.

But I might be taking it out of context. Religion and politics went hand in hand in those days, and cathedral-building might constitute some form of community involvement projects for the whole town, and vital both to its cohesion and its economic viability.

The house of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of all of England for a time. If you haven't heard of him before, he went into the record books as the person who lobbed the King's head off during the English Civil War in the seventeenth century.

The River Ouse.

Jie Chao and Pui Man (the two are the ones placing their orders in the picture, the former on the left, the latter on the right) very kindly treated me to ice-cream , which was more cream than ice. Still, it was very good.

Crows roosting.

Warm In A Windy Place, Seaford, Cuckmere Haven, & The Seven Sisters, United Kingdom 10th Mar 2007

Colourful beach shacks lining the shoreline. I suppose these will be filled in summer.

Cuckmere Haven, and one of the most picturesque views I've had thus far in Britain (to be fair, I haven't been about a lot, but this is really quite something). Not very often the world falls nicely into place, at your feet, and you find good company and scenery next to each other.

When it does happen, however, smile and take a picture.

Rolling meadows, criss-crossed by rivulets, where I stopped aging for about an hour.

Walkers in the wind.

I have a rather inconvenient proclivity of taking the road less travelled. The experience was everything Robert Frost would have approved of, excepting the fact of course that I lacked that lauded appetite for derring-do. I don't consciously seek danger, but somehow I always end up crashing headlong into it, even if it seems I'm walking with my eyes wide open.

The Seven Sisters, pictures of which you should find in a standard secondary school geography textbook. And there it was, right before my eyes. Seeing something in a picture book and viewing it in situ are two entirely different experiences. The former yields wonder nonetheless, but the latter, for want of more inspirational phrasing, simply blows you away.

Beachy Head, and Eastbourne, where if you'll recall I visited a few weeks back lie just around the bend in the distance.

I can hardly believe the fact that I managed to walk from Seaford to within touching distance of Eastbourne.

Seaford beneath the westering sun.

How To Locate Excellent Photo Spots (Don't Try This At Home, Or Anywhere Else!)

Step 1: get to the highest point possible.

Step 2: look confident. And smile.

Step 3: look confident.

Step 4: look confident, and look harder, too, for a way down.

Step 5: trust in Providence, and jump.

Disclaimer: success not guaranteed.

Coming Between The Sun And The Moon, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 3rd Mar 2007

As with all uninformed ignoramuses, I only learnt of the lunar eclipse when I saw more than a few curious gazes drawn skywards outside the Great St Mary's. I was earlier wondering how it was that the full moon had dwindled into a mere sliver of light, and was working hard to descry the outline of that most fortuitously-shaped cloud which had left unobscured a perfect sickle!

Sunny Hunny - Hunstanton, United Kingdom, 3rd Mar 2007

Pooh strayed from the Hundred Acre Wood, and found out to his uttermost chagrin that Sunny Hunny was but a nickname given to this Victorian seaside resort.

I knew there wasn't a lot of honey to be found within a hundred acres in the first place!

What we went to Hunstanton to see - those layered sandstone cliffs in the distance.

The carcass of an iron vessel, clad in the brown and green of neglect and blending almost seamlessly into the beachscape.

We were just rather disappointed it wasn't a few hundred years older.

Makeshift lagoons beached by the retreating tide.

The wind was predictably quite strong where we were, and this made for a very bizarre sight. I cannot really decide here whether it was that these blokes were successful kiteflyers, or rather that the kites were unsuccessful in taking their masters out for a sortie.

The local lighthouse, now fallen into disuse, viewed through what's now left of St Edmund's Chapel, also no longer serviceable in the least bit.

It's been a long cold lonely winter, and it seems like years since it's been clear. But here comes the sun.