Ancient friends

And still full of beans

Long drive to Berlin through the sunshine.

Today we drove to Altenshlirf

The birthday boy

The birthday tractor

All aboard!

Off they go!

Nice day for a stroll next to the lake – much favoured by our feathered friends. They even have official goose-pooper-scoopers on the lawn here.

Four feet

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It’s a bit hard, but otherwise really quite comfy.

Cool clover

Today we walked around the United Nations Campus to visit the Bundeskunsthalle

There was an interesting bunch of videos on attempts to escape from the traditional way of life at various times in the 20th century.

A picture called Fidus’ Lichtgebet (Light Prayer) – apparently the life reform movements’ key painting.

A Robert Rauschenberg collage from 1972

In a second exhibition about building techniques this is a pavilion made of seaweed.

Not only is there a lawn on the roof, you can play crazy golf too!

After lunch we drove to the Haus am See campsite.

Today we drove through some heavy traffic, made considerably worse by the German police, carrying out illegal checks at the border to The Netherlands. Eventually we made it to Bonn.

In Bonn for €12 we settled down next to the Rhine in a camper spot on Charles-de-Gaulle Straße.

It’s a quiet location only a short walk from the Bundeskunsthalle which we will visit tomorrow.

21:40 and the sun sets over Bonn . . .

Today we just lazed around.

Today we visited the crazy Verbeke Foundation.

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The mushrooms are real.

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Gerhild is sitting in a skull.

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I’ll have to look these up in Wikipedia.

Coffins!

Where did all of the flies go?

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There’s such a lot of strange stuff here, you can’t imagine.

In the evening we checked in to Fort Bedmar campsite.

Leaving the white cliffs of Dover on an Irish ferry!

Calais has a terrific beach.

French graphic design- c’est merveilleux!

Banksy certainly gets around. His thoughts about Syrian refugees.

Just like Gerhild.

So many reflections about our trip.

What a beach!

Not yet!

Today we visited the Goodwood Art Foundation.

Wild meadow

Rose Wylie – pale pink pineapple/bomb

Isamu Noguchi – Octetra

Rose Wylie – Pineapple

Nature – Thistle

Rachel Whiteread

More Rachel Whiteread

Inspired by these two images.

More nature

Susan Philipsz- As Many As Will

The waitress’s grandfather made the wings for Spitfires, which you can book for a flight at Goodwood!

Foxgloves everywhere we go!

Different landscape today.

Pine trees planted in the 1950s have been removed thank goodness.

Some of the older trees are simply amazing.

Nature doing what it does.

Gerhild is in there somewhere.

A forest duck pond appeared out of nowhere.

Bumble bee’s breakfast

Today we drove to a campsite with a shower. In the South Downs national park, surrounded by trees and rhododendron bushes.

It’s a hard life camping.

We’re going to do an 8 km walk today.

This way.

A snack seat built into the wall.

Busy bees.

The coast looking towards Weymouth.

A heck of a lot of steps down.

Followed by a heck of a lot of steps up.

Time to leave the coastal path and head back inland.

Leaving the folk music festival was a muddy, wheel-spinning affair. With much heaving & shoving by friendly musicians we managed to get out.

We stopped at a farm shop.

To clean off the mud.

And get Kim’s dinner.

Nice place to camp today, in an old farm which is being returned to nature by the National Trust.

On the way to the pub, the village is made of Purbeck stone.

The main stage

It’s a bit wet today . . .

Straw bales for seats

Farefeld

Tango Calor

Jackie Oates & John Spiers

A Different Thread

Today we moved to The Tangled Roots Festival

Nastee Chapel started the evening in the Piggery.

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Two of the Buffalo Gals then played till late.

We took a bus into Bristol.

Alice in wonderland still wonderful.

Walking up to Stokes Croft.

There’s so much going on in the street art here.

Fishy!

The colours.

Another Banksy – we are in Bristol after all.

One relaxed lion.

How often that wave is used as a motif!

Bristol’s architecture is such a mixture.

Bristol rules.

One last Banksy before we catch the bus home.

Today we drove to a campsite in the centre of Bristol.

In the afternoon we strolled along the riverside walk.

Banksy’s girl with the pierced eardrum.

Motto on some old almshouses in the centre.

Topsy turvy house.

We went to the Bristol Old Vic to see this.

Quite an evening!

Today we left the coast and drove through central Wales into Shropshire (England)

Picnic spot somewhere in the Welsh hills, near Bala.

An infamous lake, the valley dammed by the English to improve their water supply.

Our stop for the night in Shropshire. Parking for walk up the hill, with or without dogs.

Fine cliff top walk here https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/morfa-and-nant-bach

This walk starts with a kissing gate.

There’s an old granite quarry up there.

We’re walking along the coastal path.

Ornithological accommodation.

Looks fully booked.

Ynys Fawr

Accommodation for Homo sapiens.

Totems for the local tribe?

Accommodation for migratory visitors.

Who does this make us think of?

Nice walk through the golf course, along the peninsula.

That pretty hamlet is called Porthdinllaen.

Our campsite is over to the left somewhere.

Part of the Welsh coastal walk.

Gerhild and the Welsh dragon.

There was a good, stiff breeze today. Just right for kite flying.

Later on the sun came out.

The tide’s out too.

Evening approaches.

After breakfast we went for a walk along the beach Dolly mount Strand.

It’s a big beach.

And a sunny start to the day.

The parts that aren’t golf courses are nature parks.

We took the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead.

Our splendid campsite for the next few days.

Very beautiful location.

There are even foxgloves! What’s not to like?

Today we drove to the Howth Cliff Walk

The weather app claimed that it would stay dry, so we set off, and it poured down.

Real Irish weather, what more could we ask for?

The Emerald Isle looks quite emaraldy today.

Nice spot to park on the causeway to North Bull Island.

Today we travelled on an open-top tourist bus into Dublin.

We visited the EPIC museum to see why so many of the Irish left Ireland. As visitors basically aiming to see the best bits of Ireland, it was a curiously melancholy perspective and not really very uplifting. Cost an astonishing €42 as well!

We took the tram and a different bus back as the direct buses to the campsite are very few and far between.

Today we did the washing with COLD water and OZONE.

Irish innovation!

Today we did nowt.

Today we drove to the Irish Museum of Modern Art and enjoyed a guided tour by a young French woman.

This is by a Japanese artist who lives in Ireland. Lots of symbols, mostly Japanese but you can spot the Irish influence here and there. I like the rabbit!

This is “Portrait of Alice Liddell, after Lewis Carroll” (Alice in Wonderland)

..but when you take a closer look –

It is made up of all sorts of small plastic junk.

How do you like an Irish answer to the gender question, when you need a pee?

Looking at the weather forecast, we decided that the big city is called for, until the sun returns to entice us back to the countryside.

Convenient campsite in Dublin, with a bus just outside the gates.

Today is our 44th anniversary and still going strong.

Nine year old artist from upstairs in Berlin.

Today we drove around the lake, Lough Leane, to try the Tomies Wood walk.

Kim horsing around, completely free from allergies.

Gerhild and her favourite flower – foxglove!

Kim, looking stumped?

O’Sullivan’s Cascade

Our picnic spot below the cascade.

Plenty of comfy, moss-covered, warm stones to sit on today.

Gerhild full of beans after our picnic.

Our campsite is down there somewhere.

This morning we woke up in Dungarvan, looking out over the Colligan River as it enters the sea.

We drove to Killarney, to the Killarney Flesk Camping about one half hour’s walk along a busy road away from Killarney.

Today, before catching the ferry, we went for a walk enveloped by the scent of cow parsley around the Goodwick Nature Reserve

and heard a reed warbler sing in the sunshine. Like this –

The ferry to Ireland was an hour late setting off due to a plumbing problem. It’s hard to find a plumber in the UK these days.

Welcome to Goodwick.

This is Fishguard, after a very pleasant “Marine Walk” from where we are parked in the neighbouring village, Goodwick. The Fishguard and Goodwick Art Trails are quite entertaining.

Plenty of places to stay.

A very fishy wind vane.

And a fabulously fishy seahorse.

The Last Invasion of Britain began on the 22nd February 1797. Four French vessels anchored off the rocky headland of Carreg Wastad, to the west of Fishguard, and ferried ashore about 1400 men and weapons. The invaders occupied most of Pencaer, from Strumble Head to Llanwnda, but the invasion was short lived. French troops soon became drunk, on stolen alcohol, and local people banded together to resist them. Most notable was Jemima Nicholas who, armed only with a pitchfork, reputedly rounded up 12 Frenchmen.
The French surrendered to local soldiers at Goodwick Sands on 24th February 1797.

Up the mountain path from the campsite.

A sun-hat is important today.

The other side of the valley.

Plenty of green!

Mountain goat approaches.

Looks like a grand picnic spot.

It is a grand picnic spot.

On the way down.

Craig~y-nos country house

Nice campsite

Today we scampered through the Forest of Dean sculpture trail

An amazing „maiden“ Beech tree.

Dr. Beeching ripped them up and an artist put them back again, slightly modified.

Interesting idea.

An invisible tree-hugger.

Giant bugs.

In the afternoon we drove to Newent to see some old friends.

Newent lake.

Newent girls.

Chestnut tree dressed for a spring morning

Pine cones – old and brand new

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Time for a short break

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Back to the camper for another delicious lunch