Claire's Photo Diary

Snow leopards at Marwell Zoological Park

I had a lovely early morning at Marwell Zoo at the weekend with my Marwell Photographic Club, trying to capture the new baby snow leopards at the park. Unfortunately the cubs were having none of it and we only got to spot the adults. Here are a few photos I took:

Isle of Wight August 2011

I had a lovely day on the Isle of Wight recently with my sister Helen. She took me to St Catherine's Point, which is about as far south as you can travel on the island.

Here is St Catherine's Lighthouse - one of the oldest lighthouses in Great Britain - a lighthouse has been here since 1323 - although obviously this is a more recent addition (1840). It stands 27 metres tall and the signal from it can be seen for 30 nautical miles. The engine room suffered a bombing raid bomb and was destroyed in 1943, tragically killing the 3 lighthouse keepers who had taken refuge there. The lighthouse was automated in 1997.

A cormorant

We spotted a couple of hand gliders - what a wonderful view they must have had!

Camping 2011

Thirty years later exactly I was camping in Dorset with my daughter Sophie, TBone, Ollie and Rufus. We had a lovely time and were blessed with wonderful weather. This was the first outing of my new, bigger, tent, and it was lovely to have a bit more space and some better camping equipment. However, the camp site was a bit disappointing, but at least the sun shone most of the week. In fact it was too hot most of the time!

Here are a selection of photos from our camping trip:

My new tent

As the sun sets, time for a barbecue

The beautiful environment in which we camped (Jurassic coast, Dorset)

Camping 1981

These are a couple of photos I found recently of a lovely camping trip through Europe in 1981. Mum, Dad and my brother and I set off from Southampton in Dad's trusty old rover and we made the journey to Dover, before crossing to Zebrugge in Belgium. From Belgium we travelled to Luxembourg, Bavaria and finally Austria, where we stayed for about a week. We camped en route, having a couple of nights at each stop.

Here is our tent, a frame tent, very old fashioned by today's standards!

And this is the view when we got to Austria, a beautiful lake, surrounded by snow capped mountains. It really took your breath away.

I loved this holiday - I love camping and we had a great time exploring Europe. I remember swimming with some other children I had made friends with in the camp site lake in the Black Forest on the day Diana married Charles (to escape it) whilst my mum was trying to watch on our little black and white portable in the tent. Some Germans took pity on her and invited her into their caravan to watch the wedding on their colour set, so mum was happy! We also visited Switzerland, went up mountains in cable cars, saw a glacier in Austria, and the castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria which has appeared in many movies. We explored Satzburg (home of Mozart) taking in some music concerts whilst strolling around (as I think it was Saltzburg Festival while we were there). Saltzburg, I remember, was really beautiful and spectacular. The mountains and flower meadows and little wooden buildings took your breath away. Mum of course made me run around the mountain meadows pretending to be Julie Andrews and I am sure my dad has this preserved on cine film haha! A great holiday and definitely a highlight of my childhood.