Rabbitroundtheworld's photos

Scotland is a riot of rhododendron colour at this time of year. These beauties were at St Conan's Kirk, by the side of Loch Awe.

Rabbit admires St Fillan's Episcopal Church in Killin. Built in 1876 by the Earl of Breadalbane for private use by shooting parties, St Fillan’s earned the name ‘Grouse Church’ among locals. It has been in almost continual use since then and has a weekly Episcopal service and a Roman Catholic mass.Constructed from corrugated iron, this ‘tin tabernacle’ was bought in kit form from a specialist manufacturer, likely to be the London Iron Church and Chapel Co., in which the Earl held shares. It's one of Scotland's smallest churches, and one of the best preserved of these little tin churches which are found in various villages. www.scotsman.com/news/six-of-scotland-s-smallest-churches-1-4283475 You will see that the sun is still shining. In fact, we're now entering our fourth week of almost continuous warm, sunny weather. It's astonishing! Rabbit has been too warm to sleep at nights. But he is certainly not complaining!

We seemed to jump straight from a long winter into glorious early summer last week, with nearly ten days in a row of sunshine. I took myself off in my little van to the shore of Loch Achray, in the Trossachs. The loch is fairly shallow close to the shore, so the sun had taken the chill off the water, and it was warm enough to have a pleasant swim and then sit by a fire afterwards to warm up. Astonishingly, there were no midges. A perfect camping trip! (oh and can you see the tiny moon in the branches of the tree?).

'I want my time with you' - an installation of fluorescent pink lighting just above the platforms for the Eurostar arrivals and departures at St Pancras station in London - is a new artwork by Tracey Emin. The best view of it is from those platforms - unfortunately I was just passing through rather than catching the Eurostar, so had to make do with a less than ideal angle, taken on a mobile phone. Still, it's a nice sentiment, you can see the splendid St Pancras arch, and I'm sure the obstruction in the foreground counts as a fence. HFF!

This life-size bronze statue, looking out over Montrose bay, depicts the local minesweeper whose job it was to patrol the dunes during the Second World War to keep a watchful eye for stray mines which might be swept into Montrose harbour on incoming tides. The sculptor William Lamb was born in in 1893 and died in 1951. He had trained as a stonemason before WW1 and hoped to work as an artist. However, he ended up losing the use of his right hand fighting in the trenches, meaning that he had to re-train to work with his left hand. Many of his statues are of the ordinary people of Montrose, often shown being buffeted by the wind in this very windy place! He was a friend of the poet Hugh MacDiarmid who encouraged him to stay in Montrose and focus his art on expressing the character and people of the area. HFF! www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/art/the-people-s-sculptor-celebrating-william-lamb-1-3172018 www.montrosereview.co.uk/news/the-sculpture-capital-of-angus-1-340619

Rabbit enjoyed this little daffodil-lined lane through the old graveyard of Old and St Andrews Church, Montrose. HFF!

This striking little green hut stands on the miles and miles of sand dune in the Tentsmuir nature reserve, between Leuchars and Tayport in north east Fife. It was a second world war observation hut. There are various WW2 relics around here, including an old railway wagon which was actually discovered in the sand in 2010, and which had been used to transport ammunition and to provide a moving target on which aircraft gunners from the base at Leuchars could practise. As you can see, we had sunshine and blue skies. For three days in a row!

More from our camping trip to the Trossachs. On the shores of Loch Achray. Somewhere in the cloud is Ben Venue, still with patches of snow.

Spot the campervan! We camped this weekend in the 'Three Lochs Forest Drive' - an area of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park where wild-ish camping is permitted. The forecast sun failed to materialise, and, although it was mild in temperature, we spent two days peering through this mixture of smirry mist and very low cloud. There was an almost total lack of wind (hence the low cloud....), which meant that the lochs were like flat grey mirrors. Despite the lack of sun, it's a lovely part of the world for camping. ('Smirr' - a Scots word for a very fine mist-like dampness which isn't exactly rain, and can be almost imperceptible up to the point at which you realise you're soaked through....)

"Please adopt me so that when I grow up, I can star in a Happy Fence Friday shot on ipernity"

It feels at times, this March and April, as if we've been cast Narnia-like into an eternal winter - but here is a rare spell of sunshine. Rabbit enjoyed the wee stretch of the Fife Coastal Path between Aberdour and Burntisland. (and in Burntisland he enjoyed a truly excellent ice cream at Novelli's). HFF!

Our trip to Northumberland was a bit of a wash-out - torrential rain, and the campervan got stuck in a sodden field - so we returned to Scotland a bit damp, cold and dispirited. But on Easter Sunday the sun came out at last, and we enjoyed a lovely day trip to Aberdour. Here's Rabbit outside the delightful little Aberdour primary school, which has this fun mural painted on its outside wall. We thought it was fitting for the Easter Bunny on his big weekend ;-)

Naturally Rabbit wanted to visit BUNhill in London..... Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground, used from the 1660s to the 1850s, in the city of London. It was non-denominational, and particularly favoured by dissenters and nonconformists (protestant Christians who practised their faith outside the Church of England). It includes the graves of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe and William Blake (one of Rabbit's heroes) and Blake's wife Catherine. It's now a community garden, and a peaceful spot in the hurlyburly of the City Road. HFF and have a nice weekend to all! We're posting this early as Rabbit is going away for Easter, to look for fellow Easter bunnies in Northumberland....

Fournier Street is an attractive street of early 18th-century townhouses in Spitalfields running between Commercial Street and Brick Lane. It’s named after a man of Huguenot extraction, George Fournier, and many of the houses were originally occupied by wealthy French Huguenots who brought silk-weaving skills from Nantes, Lyons and other cities to London. The houses are notable for fine wooden panelling and elaborate joinery. Silk-weaving was carried out in the uppermost floors to gain the best light for the looms – you can see some of the glazed lofts on the left hand side of the collage. The ground floor rooms commonly served as elaborate showrooms for the finished products. After the decline of London's silk weaving industry at the end of the Georgian period, both Fournier Street and Brick Lane became established as the heart of the Jewish East End, with a large number of Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia moving here in the 19th century to establish a thriving community. The Jewish Chronicle newspaper (the oldest Jewish English language weekly in the world) was founded here. Later the area became popular with the Bengali community, and nowadays it’s also home to artists and craft markets. The artists Gilbert and George lived in Fournier Street at one point. The famous Petticoat Lane fabric and clothing market is near here, nowadays selling, among other things, sari fabric and fabulous waxed fabrics from west Africa. At the end of Fournier Street a Huguenot Chapel was built in the 1740s. It later became a Protestant church, then a synagogue at the end of the 19th century, and is now the London Jamme Masjid (Great Mosque) – both the building, and the street itself, are symbolic of the east end as a place of refuge and community for different people over the centuries.

Rabbit had an enjoyable weekend in the east end of London. He ate far too much curry, and enjoyed walking up and down the historic Brick Lane admiring the street life and art. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

A sort of fence runs up the steps of this beautifully restored windmill in Guatiza, Lanzarote. The mill was used to crush maize, among other things, to create 'gofio' (gofio mousse is a traditional and delicious Lanzarote dessert). It's amazing to think of the ingenuity and knowledge which led to the design of windmills - such large and complex structures 'just' to crush grains, but saving back-breaking work in the process. www.lanzaroteinformation.com/content/los-molinos-de-lanzarote I can't work out if Rabbit is holding his paw up in amazement, or having a private little giggle to himself.... HFF to all our ipernity friends!