Gallery

The Flodden Tree, The Hirsel, nr. Coldstream. Our nomination for Scottish Tree of the Year 2018 was shortlisted as one of six trees selected by an independent panel of judges. Public voting closed on 7th October 2018 and the result was announced on the BBC's 'One Show'. The Flodden Tree was placed third. It is a 400-500 year old Sycamore and is reputed to have been planted to commemorate the Scottish dead at the Battle of Flodden 1513.

The ruins of ancient Amathous, east of Limassol (Lemesos), founded as a commercial centre between the 10th and 8th centuries BC, is named after its legendary founder, Amathus, son of Aerias and king of Pafos. It has been inhabited by Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Jewsand Romans. View looking down to the agora with its remaining columns, parts of an aqueduct system and the site of a bath house. May 2018.

On top of the hill, way above the ruins in the previous photo, are the remains of the acropolis, with temples to Aphrodite and Hercules. The large stone vase is a replica of the original one which is in the Louvre museum in Paris. The remains of an original, second vase can be seen to the right. May 2018.

A corner of the Old Town, Limassol with a minaret of the The Grand Mosque in the distance. The mosque is still used by the few remaining Turkish Cypriots in the town. May 2018.

Larnaka Fort built by the Ottamons in around 1625. May 2018.

The early 10th century Church of St. Lazarus in Old Larnaka was built to house the saint's tomb. A now empty sarcophagus in the crypt supposedly housed his relics. May 2018.

The large village of Agros in the Pitsillia area is set at a height of 3,280ft. above sea level. It is renowned for its cold meats, fruit preserves and products made from rose petals. May 2018.

View within the complex of the Monastery of Agia Napa. May 2018.

The octaganal Renaissance fountain decorated with marble reliefs at the Monastery of Agia Napa. May 2018.

A 600 years old Sycamore Fig stands outside the Monastery of Agia Napa. May 2018.

The elaborate west door of Selimiye Camii, the former Aya Sophia Cathedral in the Turkish-occupied, north Nicosia. The cathedral was built by the Lusignan kings between 1208 and 1326. Following the capture of Nicosia by the Turks in 1570, the cathedral became the Hagia Sophia mosque whic, in 1954, was renamed Selimiye Camii. All images have been removed and Gothic stone sculptures chipped away. The interior of the mosque has been stripped of ornamentation and two minarets have been erected on the sides of the main facade. May 2018.

The Buyuk Han, the Big Inn, is a former caravanserai in the Turkish-occupied north Nicosia. It was built by the Turks after the capture of Nicosia in 1572 as an inn for visiting merchants. Under British administration it became Nicosia's main prison. The 68 former rooms have been converted to souvenir shops, art galleries, cafes and a wine bar. The courtyard has a small octaganal Muslim shrine and prayer hall. May 2018.

The colourful frontage of a market shop in the Belediye Ekpazari, the bazaar in the Turkish-occupied north Nicosia. May 2018.

Etal Castle Gatehouse, Northumberland, in a snowstorm, March 2018.

A reconstructed Iron Age hut at Whithorn, Galloway. This is, hopefully similar to archaeological remains that we have been excavating in north Northumberland in summer 2017. I found an Iron Age pottery sherd. More excavations next year if we get the funding.

The Old Man of Hoy seen from the top of the cliffs on the island of Hoy, Orkney, in June 2017. There were three climbers on it at the time.

The Old School, Rackwick, on Hoy dating from 1718 when it was founded by the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. The number of pupils ranged from 15-20. Note the huge slates! June 2017

A Kittiwake amongst the Sea Thrift on the red cliffs of Hoy, June 2017.

Looking down on Village Bay, St. Kilda, on a walk up to The Gap, June 2017.

The ruined chapel on St. Ninian's Isle, Shetland where the treasure was found in 1958. All the 28 objects are silver apart from the jaw bone of a porpoise. The treasure is housed in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The upright stone in the centre marks the discovery site. This photo was taken on a wet day in June 2017. The island is reached by walking across the sand tombola.

Atmospheric scene on a wet day on St. Ninian's Isle, Shetland, June 2017.

The southern coast of Cyprus west of Limassol. Cliffs and lowland plain seen from the archaeological site at Kourion. May 2017.

The archaeological site at Kourion, Cyprus with the last of the spring flowers and a sheltering olive tree. May 2017.

Bellapais Abbey near Kyrenia in the illegally occupied northern part of Cyprus. May 2017. 

Fragments of columns, capitals, bases and other assorted remains outside the Archaeological Museum, Limassol, Cyprus. May 2017.

Kykkos Monastery in the Troodos Mountains, Cyprus. May 2017

Roman water tanks at the Amathous archaeological site at Limassol, Cyprus. May 2017

January 2017—The Scarlet Elfcup is back! A really bright feature in the winter landscape.

New Year's Day, 2017. A guided walk in the Cheviot Hills looking at prehistoric and medieval remains. Here we are looking at an intact stone circle.

A view of the Cobb at Lyme Regis, Dorset under an uncertain sky, July 2016. This is Monmouth Beach where we spent some time hunting for and finding fossils from the Jurassic era. We had a special family week here to celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary.

There are many non-native, deciduous trees in the parks and other green areas in Melbourne, planted during the 19th century, probably to remind the settlers of 'home'. It is, therefore, very interesting to see English elm trees Ulmus minor var.vulgaris that we have not seen in Britain as fully grown trees for 40 years or so—only as immature trees in hedgerows. The trees in Melbourne have not been infected by Dutch Elm Disease and it was, therefore, interesting to see the characteristic shape of fully-grown specimens.

A Rainbow Lorikeet, one of the many parrots that we come across in Australia. I approached this one very slowly with branches in front of me for camoflage but I don't think it was fooled—they are quite used to humans.

This is one of the Moonah trees Melaleuca lanceolata that grow on Churchill Island. Some of the trees are said to be 500 years old. Note the twisted pattern to the trunk. Churchill Island was joined to Phillip Island by a bridge in 1959, was discovered in 1801 and farmed since 1859. It is owned by the government and is bounded by the Churchill Island Marine National Park.

This is an example of 'spheroidal weathering' on Philip Island where the volcanic basalt rock has weathered inwards from the network of joints in the basalt. This sometimes leaves dark cores of unweathered basalt and these become black cobbles on the beach when the soft pale-coloured material erodes away. The holes are where the cobbles have been. This process gives an usual appearance with many colours, added to by the green seaweed.

This is a cliff scene on Cape Woolamai on Philip Island taken on a walk around the cape on a very warm day. We had a mixture of weather during our stay in WA and Victoria, varying from quite cool (16 degrees!) to quite hot (37 degrees) with cloudy, rainy and windy days interspersed by warm days with clear, blue skies.

The strikingly attractive 'bottlebrush' shrubs were in bloom while we were there, October/November being spring in Australia.

We attended the Remembrance Day Service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne on 11th November 2015. This was held in the open air in front of the shrine before a large crowd, seated facing the shrine on either side of the long, wide avenue that leads down towards the centre of Melbourne. There were representatives from the armed sevices, politicians and local organisations and the secular proceedings were led by the Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, standing in for the Governor who was laying a wreath at the Cenotaph in London. The Shrine is an impressive of Egyptian/Greek design. Although we were visitors, we felt that we were able to add our poppies commemorating two of our family who were killed in the First and Second World Wars.

This is Whalers' Beach, one of our favourite places in the Torndirrup National Park near Albany, Western Australia. It has pure, white sand and is a 'squeaky beach' as you walk over it, caused by the regularity of the sand grains.

A September 2015 view of the Langdale Pikes-Pike O'Stickle, Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark with Dungeon Ghyll tumbling down from Stickle Tarn. A warm, sunny day—what a view! This view brings back happy memories of walks and scrambles all over the Pikes, including Jack's Rake which is a diagonal scramble up the face of Pavey Ark on the right. We have been up there in all weathers!

A tranquil scene of Elterwater in Great Langdale with the Langdale Pikes in the distance—September 2015.

My photograph of two pieces of slipware pottery found (but unfortunately not by me!) in two separate trenches within the Scheduled Area to the west of Norham Castle in July 2015. They are pieces from two separate platters that must have been quite large—the left hand piece, for example, is about 5 inches across, so the circumferance would indicate a prestigious platter. They date from the 17th century.

This photo was taken during Coldstream's Civic Week which is always the first week in August. It shows the Coldstreamer and his Right and Left Hand Men returning a sod of earth from the battlefield site at Flodden to the site of Coldstream Priory in a moving ceremony at the end of the Flodden ride-out day. The Coldstream Guards always send a contingent for the whole of Civic Week and the Guards take an active part in all the activities during the week.

We were very fortunate to be able to see this very rare and attractive plant, Primula scotica, in Orkney. It is an endemic plant that is only found in certain places in Orkney and in the far north of the mainland of Scotland, in Caithness.

We visited the impressive Clickimin Iron Age Broch on the outskirts of Lerwick, in Shetland.

A corner of the Old Town in Torshaven, the capital of the Faeroe Islands, showing characteristic grass-covered roof and painted clap-boarding.

This echidna looks like a large hedgehog. It was using its snout to dig for ants and grubs in the verge alongside the road but came over to investigate my boots—something different, I suppose. It obviously didn't realise that I was standing there quite still, because echidnas shy away if they realise humans are around.

The Botanical Gardens in Melbourne looking towards the towers of the Central Business District. I rather liked the giant cacti in the foreground. The temperature that day was in the 30s.

A tranquil scene on the River Yarra in the Yarra Bend Park, Melbourne. This is not a 'park' as we know it but a large area of managed bushland within the Melbourne suburbs. It gives an idea of the landscape that might have been in this area before European settlement, with all the many varieties of eucalypt trees, many of them being River Red Gums along the banks of the river.

A cheeky, Australian magpie on the end of the cafe terrace at Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Visitors to Australia soon become accustomed to the magpie's characteristic warblings, particularly in the early morning—a very Australian sound.