The City Daily Photo theme day for the start of March is ‘Black and White in Colour’.
We cycled to Radley Lakes on Sunday and walked round Thrupp Lake and the fishing lake alongside.
There was not a lot of colour in the pictures taken across the lakes. Parts of Thrupp Lake appeared to have been colonised by black and white cormorants. The only colour came from unidentifiable orange blobs on their island.
Two swans were on the fishing lake alongside. The only colour was their beaks.
Looking directly into the sun across Thrupp Lake. The only colour was from a handkerchief of blue sky.
More pictures at City Daily Photo on the theme.
The shadows almost make them look like black necked swans. Lovely.
A very grey day?
When I lived in Lancashire, this was what we called “a fine summer’s day in Yorkshire.” When I lived in Yorkshire, people called it the same…
I love swans. Fun to see you have included them in your collection.
This week end is the Keep Britain Tidy Spring Clean week end, 3rd to 5th March. Volunteers are organising events to clean up the countryside. I put my Abingdon post code in to find an event and there was no event in this area. Why I am I not surprised. I do not think that there is any effort to clean up Abingdon. Schools do not seem to be involved and fast food retail units such as McDonalds do nothing although their packaging is littered all over Abingdon. I litter pick in my street but it is futile if there is no drive in Abingdon to do anything about it. We should take note from Singapore that fine people $400 dollars for the first offense and double that and a days labour cleaning up a park for the second offense. No wonder our country is so dirty.
I love the swans. It’s kind of nature to give us some shots that fit today’s theme.
Janet, Perhaps next year you could talk to the town council in advance of the weekend and ask the councillors to organise a little pick in each of their wards. I’m sure they would be very supportive.
Janet,
As negative as ever.
Lovely pictures of our beautiful town.
Janet is the life and soul of the negativity camp….
The swan photo is especially good for the “black and white in color” theme.
funnily enough I was in Abingdon the other day for the first time in some months and was taken aback by how clean and tidy it looked generally.
I think sometimes there are people in Abingdon who have lived in the Cotswold bubble so long that they forget how fortunate they are.
Abingdon can be criticised for a lot of things, but i do not think relative untidiness is one of them.
I live near the MacDonald’s ‘Drive Through’ site and I am constantly really disappointed in the amount of litter. It is unsightly and stretches over a large area. No need for signage…just follow the litter trail. Likewise, along Ock St….there are 13 food takeaway outlets between Fairacres and the War Memorial and the evidence is there for all to see. No use appealing to the public to take their litter home with them….even the car customers in the drive-through fling the cartons out of the window.
Thank you Janet for raising concern about this issue. Beautiful towns soon lose their attraction when buried under a heap of rubbish. Incidentally, I too looked on the Keep Britain Tidy for an Abingdon litter pick event.
I love swans and l lovely views and want to keep the lovely views. If this means raising issues such as keeping Abingdon a litter free zone than I make no apologies. The people who critisise me for being negative would probably not bother to do what I have been doing. Spending hours clearing up weeds and rubbish from my area.
I have just had a look at the “Big Tidy-up” info on the Keep Britain Tidy website. It is all about volunteer groups coming together to organise something – not the Councils doing it. So, as someone suggested earlier, why not start thinking now about doing something next year – get Abingdon on their map! The Vale website has information at http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/services-and-advice/environment-and-neighbourhood-issues/street-cleaning-and-fly-tipping/need-help-c about practical support they can give.
This is something the Friends of Abingdon have often discussed organising, but to be honest we don’t have enough people-power to do it; but if a number of you out there contacted us to say you wanted to help, organise it we would see what we could do.
NB this can all be done at any time of year – not just in the national litter-pick week.
The residents group I belong to have decided to undertake an annual spring clean of our local park. We have the blessing of the landowner and the VWHDC are providing litter pickers and hi-viz jackets.
Isnt there already an organised body in existence to do this already? It’s called The Veil council.
Please give me a rebate on my council tax and ill happily get on with it myself – or equally happily give the money to a [better] organised local volunteer group. But paying for it AND having volunteers do it….thats not right.
Perhaps we could get a consultant to look into it all for us?
Does anyone else feel they’re being taken for a mugg yet?
Yellow blobs – fungus?
Daniel – I agree completely, we are all being conned by The Veil and OCC. The place looks like a tip and if you complain they have the perfect excuse ‘we no longer have the budget… blah blah blah’. Weeds, rubbish, poor drainage, loose/cracked paving stones, potholes, failed road surfaces, none of which are they interested in dealing with, choosing to do the modern thing of socking it to the little guy who can’t fight back or lacks the financial resources to do so. So although I hate the litigious approach the only option I see is should the option arise through accident, injury or other take legal action and if you don’t like the idea of financial gain give anything above personal costs to a local charity.