400 + views

My girlfriend is never to see this (although she ought to be secretly proud of it!)!!! Hoyo de Manzanares, November 2012.

Sierra de La Cabrera, Madrid Province. Underneath the fog in the distance is Madrid.

Back in 2013, for a few months, I lived in a high-rise block and used to wake up to terrific sunrises!

This is an officially designated nudist beach. I like this beach for its many aesthetic qualities and pleasures! But I must add that I have never seen any nudists here! The way down is quite safe but not perhaps for the faint-hearted! And in some years, land slides and mud slips make the path treacherous until someone (on one occasion me and a local line fisherman) helps out by kicking in a new path where the old one had been swept away. (The things I do for aesthetics!) Seriously, anyone who knows this beach well will tell you that I am exaggerating. You see whole families down on the beach. Grandmothers pass me by on their zimmer frames as I gingerly creep down the cliff path, City types stroll past, nonchalantly placing a deal or booking a table at Nathan Outlaw's latest restaurant. etc etc No. I still haven't seen any nudists here! Sorry. I get carried away sometimes with the beauty of Cornish scenery!

The cliffs and the sea are one foot behind me.

Some of you may remember, from Panoramio, this piece of land belonging to my girlfriend. She is still trying to sell it, if anyone is interested! In the foreground; Spanish lavender.

Buitres Leonidas. Griffon Vultures. I was fortunate to get this close. I was upwind and in the shade; it helped! El Cancho de La Bola, Sierra de La Cabrera. Photo taken in May 2013, regardless of the exif date!

About the size of an elephant.

Rhodochriton (sometimes called Purple Bell Vine). A climber originally from Southern Mexico and Guatamala. It is very happy in Cornwall! Garden in Saint Day, Cornwall

The 'Pepperpot' at top right was the huer's look out. A huer had the responsibility of calling (hueing) the first sighting of the pilchard shoal. When that happened, the whole town swung into very serious action! The jetty and round stone hut on the left, having withstood many severe storms, finally succumbed to a huge storm the following year. And rebuilt extremely quickly. When I re-visited in 2014, it was as if nothing had been destroyed! I was impressed!

North Cliffs, Cornwall. This shot is taken from the ramparts of Crane Castle, or what is left of this Iron Age hill fort. The flowering bank in the foreground leads up to the top of the landward defensive rampart; nearly all of the fort is now under the sea and would have occupied the now disappeared land between this position and the island ahead.

Porthcurno, Logan Rock, granite,Cornwall, Dartmoor ponies, Shasta daisies, heather

Towanroath Pumping Engine House, Wheal Coates tin mine, Chapel Porth.

Rock hopping here at low tide is not really an option - with all this seaweed about!

A hot August day, but cooler than the streets of Madrid below! Fabulous walking and scrambling country!

The sculpture: "A LA DIVERSIDAD HUMANA" Sculpture by Josep Capella and Clara Capo. I have Steve Drury to thank for finding the title from my Pano gallery when I thought Google had erased all notes and comments! Please give as generously as you can: www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/ipernity-members-association-a-non-profit-entity

Not advisable to dawdle too close to the crumbly edge here! I walk by here about once every two years (at one time 3-4 times a week when I lived here!), and am constantly surprised by how much land has disappeared each time! Not too long ago, I could have walked across to the promontory from here in a straight line!). There is an old tin mine entrance on the far island (storm erosion has washed away what would have been an obvious approach to the entrance, I suspect).

One of the joys of teaching Business English is the early start of a morning! Top executives want to have their classes between 7 and 8:30. I do sometimes get to see sunrises in compensation!