We got up at 4.45 to go and watch the sunrise over the Himalayas - so worth it!
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The Annapurna Range of the Himalaya Mountains can be seen from Bandipur, an ancient hill town in Nepal
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Although August has been hot, mostly sunny and very dry, I can already sense that summer is closer to its end than its beginning. The lights are going on earlier each evening. The warmth of the sun is tempered by a cooling breeze. And a few showers, and one day of steady rain, have started to re-green the weary grass in our parks.
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Thomas Jefferson said, 'The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.' This is a maxim I would do well to follow, but I too rarely succeed in doing so.
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Somehow, getting up early to watch a sunrise is so much easier when travelling. Of course it helps that the setting is usually both more beautiful and more interesting than the rooftops of our London suburbs above which we would normally see it rise.
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There is something magical about the sound of flowing water. Whether tumbling over rocks or moving more sedately, whether young and vigorous or older and more serene, a river has the power either to exhilarate and to calm.
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One of my favourite types of holiday is a road trip in the US. To someone from a small island, the huge empty spaces and relatively quiet roads there evoke a sense of freedom and opportunity. Anything could happen here; anything could be just around the next corner.
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Reflections really add something to a landscape, perhaps because they allow us to ‘see double’. Already beautiful scenery is enhanced by being presented to us a second time, often rippled or distorted in an upside-down version of itself.
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I find it a little odd that Avebury is not as well known, nor as visited, as nearby Stonehenge. Personally I find it just as impressive and in some ways more atmospheric. Its stone circle is so large that over time people have built their houses around and among the megaliths; so that today it seems almost as if the somewhat unearthly stones are slowly encroaching on human space.
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Green is the colour of nature, the colour of spring and summer. It is restful on the eye and calming to the soul. I think it must have inspired more poets and authors than any other colour. And there are almost as many shades of green in our world as there are writers to describe them. Or indeed photographers to try to capture and preserve their beauty!
