Image of the day – 88

I walked out to the harbour and enjoyed the sounds and smells of the sea as well as a glorious sunset. Looking south from the harbour there are some great views of the town.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Click to enlarge

Returning to Portrush at the end of the day we ate a good meal in the holiday house, with a view over the harbour and the west beach.

Later in the evening I walked out to the harbour and enjoyed the sounds and smells of the sea as well as a glorious sunset. Looking south from the harbour there are some great views of the town and its seafront and I managed to get this shot with the setting sun and orange clouds reflecting in the windows of properties just beyond the shore. You can even see reflections on the water of reflections from the windows! Third-hand sunlight!

And I was reminded of something else. Jesus told his followers, ‘I am the light of the world’. And sometimes it’s said that as his followers we will reflect something of his grace and light into the lives of the people we meet in our daily lives. I hope I sometimes do that, I’d certainly like to.

But we don’t often realise, perhaps, that the people who receive that second-hand light reflected by us, also reflect his character and nature yet again to others.

What a responsibility we bear! The better we reflect Jesus into the world, the better others may be enabled to reflect him too. Jesus is the light. If you follow him be the best reflector you can be – others may depend on it! Not that we can change anyone, only he can do that, but sometimes he does use us as mirrors to reflect his presence and nature into our world.


Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Image of the day – 87

It’s quite an interesting walk, and very smelly in places due to the seabirds nesting on the cliff face. Definitely a ‘strong pong’!

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Click to enlarge

After a good look at the Giant’s Causeway, we drove on to
Carrick-a-Rede to see the famous rope bridge. The bridge connects the mainland cliff with the nearby small island where fishermen traditionally trapped salmon making their way to the rivers Bann and Bush for spawning. That industry is now abandoned as the numbers of salmon have dwindled.

The bridge has been replaced many times over the years and is currently owned and managed by the National Trust. It’s quite an interesting walk, and very smelly in places due to the seabirds nesting on the cliff face. Definitely a ‘strong pong’!

The island itself is interesting too, there’s a small house, no doubt built and used by the fishermen, and old machinery and a place to tie up boats. And there’s a great view out to sea, of course. If you’re visiting this part of the Irish north coast, the bridge is well worth a visit.

See also:


Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

< Previous | Index | Next >

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Image of the day – 86

What a place, rugged, very unusual and most impressive. It is deservedly famous! UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Click to enlarge

After our first night in the holiday house at Portrush we were ready to explore in earnest. We drove to the Giant’s Causeway, and the photo shows how many people turn out to see this geological feature, even on a damp and breezy day. It is an incredible sight, with the famous hexagonal basalt columns taking on a multitude of forms. In places they are weathered down to appear like an almost flat pavement (the legendary giant’s work in building a causeway between Ireland and Scotland). In other places they rise vertically like organ pipes, and in yet others they are still capped at the top by overlying sediments deposited above them.

As with the sandy beaches at Portrush, the coast trends east-west and faces north. What a place, rugged, very unusual and most impressive. It is deservedly famous! UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site, it is a Northern Irish National Nature Reserve, and it was voted the fourth-greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom

The Wikipedia article listed below gives a good explanation for the volcanic origins of the ’causeway’.

See also:


Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

< Previous | Index | Next >

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Image of the day – 85

This is the ‘Land’s End’ of the north – not a narrowing peninsula as in Cornwall, but here a long, straightish coast running east to west. A glorious, glorious place to stand and look and imagine.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Click to enlarge

On the day after arriving at Portrush, we relaxed in the house, chatted, explored the town and its little harbour, and walked east along one of the beautiful beaches of golden sand. It was a chilly day, and cloudy, but I don’t think anyone wanted to go far after all the travelling of the previous day.

The land and seascapes here are glorious. A wide, long sandy beach is backed by dunes stabilised by vegetation as you can see from the image. This beach slopes down to the north until it meets the sea with the waves rolling in and breaking. A little way out in deeper water there’s a series of small barrier islands, some of them merely bare rocks. And beyond those, the open sea – the edge of the mighty North Atlantic.

On a clear day parts of Scotland are visible towards the east, while beyond the northern horizon there’s nothing but ocean until the cold Arctic waters east of Iceland. This is the ‘Land’s End’ of the north – not a narrowing peninsula as in Cornwall, but here a long, straightish coast running east to west. A glorious, glorious place to stand and look and imagine.

I have no hesitation in recommending Portrush as a holiday destination. It really does have something special for everyone – children, teens, adults young and old, nature lovers, for swimming, boating, walking – it’s all here within easy reach.

See also:

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

< Previous | Index | Next >

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Image of the day – 84

It was good to have a whole week ahead of us. There would be places to see, plenty to do, great conversations, good food, and – as always on our family holidays – marvellous company!

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Click to enlarge

After exploring Springhill, we drove to Portrush on the north coast where we’d booked a large holiday house for a week. We were the last to arrive, and after the usual hellos and hugs we fell into chatting and laughing and organising our first meal together. It was great to gather round the table together, three generations of smiles and looking forward to our week relaxing together.

The photo shows all but two of us about to tuck into dinner, I’m behind the camera of course, and son-in-law Paz was behind me in the kitchen area, so you see a wife, two daughters, a son-in-law, and four grandchildren. The house was large enough for all of us, we need around six or seven bedrooms, a large dining table, plenty of cutlery, plates and mugs, and room for ten people to spread out. And we had that in spades!

Our first impression of Portrush was good, last time I was here was in the 1960s – almost a lifetime ago! It has changed a good deal, of course, and it’s grown much larger, but the harbour seems its old self, and the lovely sandy beach is just as I remember.

It was good to have a whole week ahead of us. There would be places to see, plenty to do, great conversations, good food, and – as always on our family holidays – marvellous company!

See also:

Images from our Irish holiday 2024

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:

28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

< Previous | Index | Next >

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!