Only a scant four months have passed since we went to Kenya and had a lovely holiday. At the time I shot a single roll of film through my Holga which is unusual for me because I was expecting to have used about 96 films.

Anyway, on to the point – I got the photos back this week. First up, this really hurts – partly because I have no memory of the camera coming open at any time, but mainly because I’m now utterly convinced that the photo in the middle would have been the best photo ever taken by anyone ever.

The ones either side don’t look that special, but I’m not letting that deter me from my belief. Moving swiftly on from my apparently never ending ability to make ridiculous mistakes with what is basically a very very simple camera, I did manage to get one or two that I liked. First up, hanging the camera out of the window of the safari truck I just did a hopeful shot to see what would come out.

I think this was taken on the first day, and was our first experience of what a lot of the roads in Kenya are like – red – and horribly uncomfortable. Next up, a random street scene in Kenya – like nothing I’ve ever experienced before or since.

This is a local shop – and is fairly consistent with all the other local shops you see when you aren’t in a city. Finally – out on the safari trail, a couple of shots that I feel OK about sharing:

I simply can’t understand why I didn’t take more pictures with the Holga whilst I was there – I guess I was too busy having a good time to think about it, most unlike me!

As I mentioned before, we went to Kenya, and it was bleeding brilliant. We did a four day Kenyan Encounters Safari, followed by 9 days in the Turtle Bay Beach Club in a village called Watamu. Lovely place, lovely people, can’t recommend it enough. I took about 3,000 photos, most of them with this bad boy:

I’ve written what has turned out to be a very long description of our time on safari – which I have no doubt that nobody will read, so if you want to look at the pictures, click on this thing here: Kenyan Encounters photos

Hope you like them – I liked taking them!

With a bump. After two weeks of lovely amazing holiday in Kenya including a Safari, I’m back in the realm of Albion and feeling the after holiday come down in a big horrible way.

I took over 3,000 photos, of which I’ve no doubt about 2950 will go straight in the bin. Here’s a photo of the Alps from 33,000 feet to get things started; full post to follow.

Bye for now!

Menorca.

So the good lady wife and I took a little week off work to go to Menorca. We’d neither of us been to the Balearic’s before so weren’t really sure what to expect, in addition it was a last minute “bargain” style booking so it was a gamble for sure.

Upon arrival it was raining. Yes that’s right, RAINING. I know. Happy holidays. It was basically colder and wetter than the England we had left behind three hours earlier. Abby was not impressed, I think she secretly blamed me for the rain as well, which I suppose is only fair since I’ve learned that as a married man everything bad is basically my fault.

The weather stayed pretty gray for the rest of the day but by day two were were in full beach holiday mode. The beach at Cala Galdana is pretty special I have to say – we certainly liked it.

On the second day of our holiday, we went to the Fiesta de Sant Joan in the city of Ciutadella. This was to put it quite simply, nuts. The rep sold us down the river really, explaining about the historical significance of the festival, which involves men in costumes riding around the city (picture Venice without the rivers) on horseback, saluting the mayor and so on. The information from the rep said “Find a quiet bench in a square and sit down with a glass of Pomada and watch the festival go by”.

The reality was this; two hundred Menorcan Stallions ploughing through a crowd of about 15,000 people all crammed into a small town square. Health and safety, what’s that?

It was hard to get a sense of the scale as we were jammed up against a wall by a several hundred drunken Spaniards, but this just about gives you an idea:

Menorcan stallions are famed for rearing up onto their hind legs – the locals think it’s good luck to touch the shield on the chest of the stallion when the horse does this – watching the stallion’s front legs working the air, I think it’s only actually good luck if you survive without fatal head injuries or massive brain damage.

When the horse wants to go sideways, regardless of where it is and who is around it, it goes sideways, ploughing 50 or so boozy locals out of the way as it goes. All in all, it was bedlam, and despite the slightly inaccurate description from the rep, I’m glad we went!

The rest of the holiday was your more standard beach holiday fayre, so I’ll take you back to a more peaceful scene. We went on a little walk from Cala Galdana to a nearby beach called Cala Macarella, on the way the views were pretty special:

And because no post from me these days would be complete without a panoramic or two, on the walk back to Cala Galdana I go this – click to make it bigger:

The beach at Cala Galdana is a nice place to be – it’s where they filmed the movie “The Blue Lagoon” which I’ve heard of but never seen.

I hope you like these,  I can recommend to you a holiday in Cala Galdana,  it’s alright there really. Except did I mention it rained again whilst we were there? I know.