the art of ruddell
I am refreshed in the journey: the constant changing landscape, the different time zones, the sense of movement, the fresh air, the newness around each corner.making the most of every journey . .
you don't have to travel far from home to see mesmerising scenes . . Kinwalsey Lane in the 1976 snows 
the extremely low light gave the photo a blue cast, which I have always liked as it gives the picture a enchanted feel!
capturing my travelling moments . . using camera, mobile phone, sketchpad or painting . . here with the Zenit-E 35mm SLR in 1976 
my preferred method of capturing a scene in photographs or paintings . . zooming in and isolating the subject 
if you are used to flying around Europe, Africa can be a shock to the system when seen from the air . . 
Morocco is a dry and arid landscape dotted with thousands of argan oil trees . . 
roadside stalls abound where you can buy fresh bread and vegatables every morning
some 20km north of Agadir, you turn into the Tamraght River valley and head up into the Atlas mountains to Paradise Valley . . 
beautiful palm tree filled canyons where time has stood still . . lunch is available if you have an hour or two to wait for the tagine!!
it is so refreshing to linger in such an un-commercialised wilderness: no car park charges (no car parks!!) just rock pools, Grand Canyon like views and exotic birdsong to keep you company 
Beachside cafe in Taghazout, a small fishing village in southwestern Morocco, where blistering October sunshine, fishing boats and camels on the beach tell you that this is not England
well off the beaten track of Moroccan tourism Taghazout is known for it's narrow streets and surf hostels,
blue buildings and tropical plants
getting ready for sunrise yoga on the Hakuna Matata surf house rooftop.
the small beach is the place for quiet days and ocean watching . . . 
the beachside apartments have large colourful terraces where you can indulge in long lunches and lazy afternoons . . 
chilling, Taghazout style, in the mellow evening . . 
sunset approaches on the deserted small beach as I do my Daniel Craig impression in the warm evening 
father and daughter time in the small desert
sometimes I would get up in the middle of the night, wrapped in a blanket, make coffee and just listen to the endless surf . .
moving from Africa on the Atlantic Ocean to Asia on the Aegean Sea . . 
Kusadasi, in Turkey's Aydin Province, is a small beach resort on the Aegean coast.
just offshore on Pigeon Island is a walled Byzantine castle that once guarded the town, connected to the mainland via a causeway
walking amongst the ancient battlements of the fort is a great way to start the day and work up an appetite for breakfast
just along from Pigeon Island is a small spit of land called Yilanca Burnu covered with random palm trees
less than an hour along the coast is the remains of the ancient city of Ephesus, once a busy port. This is Harbour Road, which used to run down from the 25,000 seat amphitheatre, to the coast, but today the ocean is over two miles away.
it is great to walk on the actual paved ground of The Temple of Hadrian, which was built before 138 A.D. for Emperor Hadrian’s visit.
the reconstructed Library of Celsus, which, in the days of the Apostle Paul, contained over 12,000 scrolls. Sketched in HB pencil, based on my photos from my morning visit to the ancient city.
La Vista Boutique hotel was a real find - a small family run hotel on the hill just beyond the harbour, featuring . . .
an infinity pool that looks out over the Aegean Sea
a perfect location for celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary
the sun sinking behind the Greek Island of Samos reflecting into the infinity pool in the foreground. Painting based on a photo I took with the camera actually sitting on the ground!
Jumping back to the 90s . . . operational headquarters for many ruddell demos up and down Germany and neighbouring countries . . my CDI colleague's beautiful home in Senne on the outskirts of Bielefeld
located on the teutoburgerwald I usually had a morning walk through the forest before breakfast . . here on a misty September morning . .
circling around the local flugplatz, the tranquility was occasionally broken by small aircraft taking off
arriving late one night in Berlin I had a meeting in the morning and a flight to the UK in the afternoon . . I still took a walk before breakfast to absorb the historic atmosphere . . . 
the stand furniture for the ORBIT Computer Exhibition in Basel was handmade by ex-Jaguar craftsman John Roach. The Basel hotels were oversubscribed so . . . 
we stayed in the Landhaus Brunhilde guesthouse in Schopfheim, at the southern end of the Black Forest, from where it was a relatively short drive down to Basel each morning 
It was a great week: working in Switzerland, living in Germany and eating in France in the evenings!!
we were feeling pretty relaxed . . until we remembered that we were crossing in and out of the EU every day . . with a bootfull of French wine from Turckheim!! 
it is good to know that I was the Computerexperte aus Großbritannien . . . 
flying into Salzburg on Mayday for an aerospace exhibition . . it was like arriving in paradise, such beauty and stunning scenery . . 
complimented by a superior flying experience on Niki Lauda's airline where plastic cultlery, foil trays and paper napkins were banned: instead you were served a five star meal by waitresses dressed in jeans and racing caps!! 
it was downhill from there . . I had to source my own Silicon Graphics monitor from somewhere in Salzburg, and it rained continously for the rest of the week. I spent the evenings tracking down locations from The Sound of Music, but failed to find the "16 going on 17" gazebo - although I had passed it on a coach some years prior to this visit 
I did locate the site of the final escape scene - St Peter's Cemetery, which today is a lot more developed than it appeared in the 1965 film where it was a bare graveyard with derelict buildings. 
good view of the lake and the French Alps as we descend towards Geneva for Telecom 91, a huge telecoms show . . 
that consisted of amazingly complex exhibition stands the like of which I had never seen before! 
we were with Mercury Communications demonstrating video conferencing and data transfer, where my colleague in the UK was passing me huge CAD models in real time, pre-dating broadband by 10 or 15 years, so it was advanced stuff for the period!! 
somebody handed me this printout: "congratulations on finding the suitcase of your dreams" . . . a reference to the fact that Swissair had lost my suitcase on the flight out!! 
accomodation was hard to find so we stayed in La Tour-de-Peliz, taking the train every morning to Geneva via Lausanne, a journey of 1 hour 17 minutes . . exactly . . every day!
. . . time to catch up with Francis and Edith Schaeffer's journey of faith! I re-read L'Abri on the train every morning and the context made the Schaeffer's story even more powerful.
it was a spectacular location: one minute's walk down the Rue du Château was the lake where I watched the onset of morning each day, gazing across at the 10,686 ft high Dents du Midi 
one of several visits to motor city Italy - Turin, training engineers at SEPI . . later to become part of the Lear Corporation, a major supplier to FIAT 
it was a great joy to travel around Europe, working alongside engineers in my own industry, but having the chance to understand something of their different culture.
trying to beat my students on the driving simulator at lunch break . . I never managed it!! 
Valentino Park . . Enzo Ferrari sat on a bench in Valentino Park in 1921 to consider his future after FIAT had made him redundant. Maybe the very bench I was sitting on . . 
exploring beyond the bounds in the late 70s . . ten hours into a journey to Brasilia we have left the coastal mountain ranges behind as the sun is rising on the central plateau some 1860 feet above sea level. .
the Itapemirim sleeper coaches pull into a rest stop and breakfast consists of some scrumptous misto quente sandwiches!!
Três Marias lake in the state of Minas Gerais; this is a sharp contrast to the forests and mountains of Rio de Janeiro
Kate Adie entitled her autobiography The Kindness of Strangers I understand a little bit what she means . . a family I meet on the Itapemirim invite me to dinner in Brasilia, and then taxi me round Brasilia's architectural wonders!
the Brazilian National Congress, just part of the city's amazing architecture by Oscar Niemeyer
The beautiful Palácio da Alvorada, the president's palace and personal chapel . . . flat bottomed cumulus humilis drift silently overhead!!
"Meteoro", a sculpture by Bruno Giorgi, seems to float above the lake outside the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia. 
the simple elegance of Niemeyer's touch . . the cathedral in Brasilia, that sits in a lake and is accessed by a dramatic subway. He just didn't care . . 
the end of a great day . . the sun going down behind the National Congress . .
O Brasil é feito por nós was the national slogan for the year and appeared everywhere . .
title slide from the documentary I made of my trip to the Amazon . .
Copacabana is known for many things but I was really taken with the beautiful pavement mosaics - “Largo Mar” (wide sea) a traditional calçada portuguesa design . . .
. . this was echoed in the cut grass in the local parks, which I thought was a nice touch
an impromptu football match in the shadow of the Sugarloaf mountain
nice view from the top of the Sugarloaf looking across Praia de Botafogo to Cristo Redentor
leaving the South of Brasil on a Tuesday morning to fly up to the Amazon: it was a great morning, drinking
cafezino in the departure lounge; watching the sun rise on the mountains while my ex-colleagues slaved away at their drawing boards in rainy Coventry . . .
after some hours of travelling it's "everybody out, the aircraft has broken down!!" My travelling companion, a Brasilian entrepreneur, comes back from the desk "Good news" he says, "we won't be delayed long . . . just a day" 
we are in Cuiabá, in the Mato Grosso, one of the hottest places in all of Brasil . .
so . . time to do a spot of industrial espionage with my companion, at a French owned rubber processing factory, where he makes use of my engineering skills to size up some machinery dimensions . . by eye! 
The Amazon Basin is an immense flatness, as far as the eye can see . . .
The replacement 737 makes it up into Amazonia without further dramas . . .
Sena Madureira, 2000 miles from the mouth of the Amazon River is the biggest town in the state of Acre, population 34,230 (2007)
this is a great picture . . it shows a cross-section of the local people as they wait for an anniversary parade through the town. It also says something about their approach to health and safety!!
"Sr Jack" collects his thoughts prior to sharing his journey of faith with several families deep in the Amazonian rain forest ..
I spend some time painting John 10 verse 10 on the main wall inside the church . . .
just found this picture in the archives, taken I think a week or two after I left Sena
. . . subsequent upgrades of the church interior have just gone over the text carefully so my Old English script is still there 40 years later!!
doing some sketching for the local children to while away a long hot afternoon . . .
"The recent rain is the cause of many of the luxuriant fresh smells among the hanging vines, dead bamboo; hidden flowers and dense green tradução. It is two hours since we left the treacherously slippy estrada and parked the truck among the bushes, before heading straight into the forest:
Antonio is in front, crouching as he goes, rifle in hand, Jack next, checking the path, buffer next carrying the bins and me last with camera and tape recorder."
" My eyes have grown accustomed to the many shades of green, the variety of trees and bushes; all picked out, in varying intensity by the sun, depending on how dense the tree canopy is high overhead.
Crickets squeak continuously but a multitude of other noises can be heard . . shrieking birds, hooting sounds that echo through the trees, trills, things that vibrate like tiny motors, all set against the backdrop of a thousand bird-songs!" . . written in my travel journal at the time
after a month in Sena Madureira MAF fly us to Boca do Acre where we land on the main road outside the town " what - there's no airstrip?" the pilot asks Jack!!
circling round at a few hundred feet before landing . . . every tree is different, this is not forest, this is jungle
heading across the River Purus in our leaky canoe, being careful to avoid the local whirlpool, while I do my David Attenborough impression . . 
the rain hammers down after lunch and brings a welcome chance to cool off a bit . . . latex from rubber trees is generally compressed and baled, but a few old style latex balls can be seen here
after the afternoon's tropical downpour the wet streets steam like a movie special effect . . . then the sun breaks out below the clouds - awesome
just a normal day on the Transamazonica after the afternoon rains . . .
afternoon downpour . . the temperature drops to around 30°C, the road becomes awash with water and people stay indoors . . . for a while. Love this view over to the old church, the school room and the new church, with more of my script writing visible above the entrance
last view of Sena Madureira as we leave the small Amazonian town and start the long journey back to England in December . . which sounds unappealingly cold . . so
from South America to South Africa . . my first view of Table Mountain and the Lion's Head as the SAA 727 banks round to land in Capetown
across the bay from Table Mountain and Capetown . . . this photo follows my custom of looking in the glossy travel books of famous cities to see good places to photograph from. This location was hard to find . . it was behind a run down industrial estate!!
a perfect autumn evening behind Table Mountain - the Constantia area . . .
it was a slightly overcast morning when we meandered our way down the Cape Peninsula, from Fish Hoek to the Cape of Good Hope, relishing each secluded little cove on the way, including Miller's Point . .
southernmost beach in Africa - Dias beach at the Cape of Good Hope - all is calm . . .
being averse to retracing my steps I cut across country to get back onto the coastal Garden Route after visiting the Cango Caves . . . which gives me a fright . . it turns into dirt roads
safely back onto the Garden Route . .
one of the most memorable aspects of the Western Cape is the colour of the mountains . . when the sky is clear they appear to be a really intense blue colour! Tranquil Franschhoek . . on the famous wine route
I take some moments in the shadow of the Huguenot memorial to savour the peace, and consider what the monument signifies . . religious freedom.
Back to the present . . . it is always a great feeling arriving at Dover Port . . knowing that the M25 is behind us and . . .
the tranquil farmlands of northern France await . .
sitting down to breakfast in Perpignan . . the bright sunlight, the ambience and the smell of coffee signal the start of our summer . . 
running alongside the Mediterranean, the mountains and the Aleppo pine trees of Spain beckon
located amongst the Botanical forest, Castell Beach is reached by a small country road that's not on the map
struggling on through the long afternoon . . . on the coastal path near Castell
when you tire of coastal paths, sun drenched beaches and local architecture, you can head into Barcelona and experience some serious buildings, for example the Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia in the Gothic quarter!!
old Catalan buildings, scorching weather and lazy days
Llafranc: heading down for a swim across the bay before breakfast with Hannah
my last morning in Spain is mellow after overnight rain: unknown couple walk past as I drink coffee at the Llevant
you walk up 129 steps out of Llafranc to get onto the coastal path, and pass this wonderful house at the top. Been planning this painting for several years!! Watercolour and fine point marker.
Watercolour in the style of @frifrini, an Italian artist, using a couple of fast washes, a light one, then a slightly darker one, then finishing off with the black details done in watercolour and fine point marker.
the Centre Fraternal is a cultural centre, casino and coffee house in existence since 1887, located on the main square in Palafrugell
on a dull day you can spend many hours here partaking of the excellent tapas, wine and spanish cuisine . . the only thing is there are no dull days . .
the Costa Brava: the forgotten coast. Don't tell anyone . . its quiet . .
on the trail of The Prisoner in North Wales . . 
in one of Ed Abbott's experimental XJ6 Series IIIs, this one with prototype 5 speed gearbox, racing cams and Jaguar D-Type valves 
where am I? . . . "in the village" what do you want? . . . "information"
you won't get it . . .
"just fill in your race, religion, hobbies . . . what you like to read, what you like to eat, what you were . . . "
"what you want to be . . . any family illnesses, any politics . . . "
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! my life is my own
Portmeirion, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis's architectural masterpiece, or in his words "a collection of fallen buildings", was a perfect location to film the enigmatic TV series in 1966-67
In 1972 Jaguar used Portmeirion as the backdrop for pictures of their new car, the Jaguar XJ12.
not be outdone for exotic location shooting Bentley photographed their Bentley T Series there as well . . . 
heading back to Browns Lane Monday morning . . utilising the 200bhp straight 6 we managed to outrun Orange Alert and escape the village . . . let's face it - the Mini Moke just doesn't cut it 
the new world: my first experience of driving in the USA, in a friend's station wagon, with a manual gear shift, in the rain, in downtown Philadelphia. . .
the same day, in Pennsylvania . . it's still raining. Designers gouache and fibre tipped marker pen to capture the wondrous gazebo at Longwood Gardens
flying into La Guardia . . a great view of Manhattan, still with it's twin towers in 1980
typical San Franscisco weather on the Golden Gate bridge . . coastal mist
Drove up to the Grand Canyon from Williams "I get the Grand Canyon all at once, in one fell swoop - it's staggering: so many colours" written in my travel journal at the time
immediately descend into the canyon on foot down the Bright Angel Trail for a morning of walking and painting: gouache on artboard - completed in the shade of the trees at Indian Gardens, half way down the trail, before tackling the exhausting climb back up to the South Rim . . 
which is 4.8 miles . . but with a vertical ascent of 3000ft!! I am convinced that they have moved the Three Mile Resthouse since this morning!!
to get to the lesser visited North Rim you have to drive 200 miles through the Painted Desert
sunrise on highway 89A, driving alongside the awesome Vermilion Cliffs, on the way to the North Rim, having crossed the Colorado at Lees Ferry.
quiet evening . . no traffic, no noise, just an intense aroma of the surrounding pine forests and the anticipation of experiencing the Canyon once more tomorrow!!
Sunday morning at the Grand Canyon's North Rim Lodge, where a small
interdemoninational worship service took place overlooking the spectacular view.
contemplating the meaning of life on the North Rim's Widforss Trail . . . I join the 5% of canyon visitors who actually leave the rim and exoplore further through the forests or into the canyon itself.
joining a small group of people at Cape Royal, watching the sunset - the end to a perfect day that began with worship, contained a lot of forest walking and ended in stunned silence with my camera and paintbrushes!!
done in gouache on artboard . . time was a factor as the sun washed the canyon walls with continually changing colours!!
a picture that shows the main ingredients of the last week of journeying: some sort of Lincoln, my British Airways travel bag, a log cabin and endless pine forest
a couple of years later . . heading over the Arctic on the way to San Franscisco for our honeymoon
after mooching around the up and down streets for a few days, we head down to . .
Monterey, where, in Steinbeck's Row, we get photographed as characters from the wild west
we stay bed and breakfast in the forest just outside Carmel. "Doesn't Clint Eastwood live around here somewhere?" I ask the home owner. "Oh yes" she said "he lives next door . . jump in the car I'll show you"!!
we drive down to a small beach and there it is - a Monterey Cypress construction, looking pretty anonymous on the other side of the cove
exploring the back streets of Carmel we find Clint Eastwood's restaurant, well hidden down a back alley . . where you can order a Dirty Harry burger or a Coogan's Bluff steak. There was no sign of the owner.
in Yosemite Valley the famous Half Dome is just visable in the morning light as the morning sun picks out the ephemeral Bridal Veil falls . 
the Glacier Point road is closed due to snow, so we head round to
Vernal Falls, on the Merced River: where thousands of gallons of water plunge 317 feet to the pool below
heading out the back of Yosemite Valley, over the Tioga Pass - a small one horse town in the Sierra Nevada on the way to Lake Tahoe
meandering up the west side of Lake Tahoe, you pass by Emerald Bay where you can get a good view of Fannette Island.
en route to Tahoe we stopped by Mono Lake, where in 1973 Clint Eastwood constructed the a movie set of a mining town called Lago in order to shoot his western High Plains Drifter. There was no sign of Clint or of Lago when we were there, just an eerie silence . .
Back in the USA . . for work this time: autumn in Minnesota - a quiet backwater in Little Falls
September sunset over The Mississippi in the Lindbergh State Park just north of Little Falls
Sand Creek bridge in Michigan, one of my favourite spots on the Aman Indian Trail near Grand Rapids . .
Hallowed Ground . . the CDI offices on East Beltline where the DesignConcept3D software was written in the early 90s . . . .
on my first visit I arrived late, picked up the company Pontiac, swung by Meijer 24 hours to stock up with food, then drove up here . . around midnight . . . to see where I was coming the next morning. There was frost sparkling in the moonlight, and a lone deer standing in the parking lot! I thought "I already love this place!"
snow and morning sun at the Residence Inn on East Beltline as I head out for a normal day at the office
deep snow in Grand Rapids, but this is the US of A and life goes on without any hold ups or dramas . .
on Michigan Avenue, heading west out of Grand Rapids towards the lake. . . my standard evening or week-end practice when working in this mid-west town.
Lake Michigan in March - sand and snow, and a beach to yourself . . . just the faint whiff of woodsmoke from the cliff top condos
same beach at Grand Haven in September, and still nobody about . . . .
whether it's coffee and morning papers at the week-end, evening grill and time round the Pool Table, or live jazz on a Tuesday, The Kirby Grill has to be the highlight of any visit to Grand Haven
Grand Haven lighthouse at sunset and time to reflect on the change of pace in my life. After 20 years in the car industry CDI Technologies is my new world: Activities for this amazing company will create many highlights for my travel journal
undercover cop . . I had a video camera set up on a tripod between the seats as I drove into Chicago on the I 90. Several motorists began to overtake me, then throttled back as they caught sight of my camera . . haha!!
driving into Detroit from Ann Arbor for the Silicon Graphics launch of the Indigo2 Extreme. Classified as the person who had travelled the farthest for the launch (from England) I won a T-Shirt . .
heading south on the I 710 out of LA. It's just another normal California day . . wall to wall sunshine!
In Long Beach I stopped and asked someone where the Hotel Queen Mary was . . they pointed to the ocean liner "That's it!" . . oh
The hotel occupies the front half of the Queen Mary, and the exhibition halls occupy the rear parts of the ship. Well that's different!
a short walk round the hotel before breakfast . . . along the deserted decks . .
All set up and ready to demo some virtual prototyping!! "Buy our software or else . . . "
the Apollo Soyuz exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the 1975 mission was a symbol of the policy of détente that the two superpowers were pursuing at the time
wonderful full size model/prototype of the Lunar Excursion Module in the Apollo Building at the Kennedy Space Centre
Aldrin and Armstrong's view as they land in the Sea of Tranquillity in 1969 . . "drifting to the right a little"
Apollo 11's command module Columbia being maneuvered into position by Michael Collins to dock with the returning LEM . . 
the International Space Station production line . . . Destiny is now safely deployed in orbit
approaching the 526 feet high Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest single story building in the world! Even the Kennedy Space Centre bus drivers are still touched by the magic of the Apollo years.
eating lunch overlooking Atlantis STS-101 on launch pad 39A . . I returned for the launch on April 24th 2000, but it was cancelled at T-8 minutes due to high winds, grrrr . .
looking relaxed at Seoul's National Palace . . but looks are deceiving . .
my visits to South Korea seemed to be dogged with bad weather and re-occuring computer problems
many hours were spent in hotel rooms, using the original tri-band mobile phones to call the USA to get fixes for the hardware and software glitches . .
the sun rises but time waits for no man, nor for computer experts . . in a couple of hours I will face a roomful of people and they will expect everything to work perfectly . . no pressure then
not to mention afterwards having to sit on the floor . . . and face another dinner of kimchi . .
well into serious discussions with the customers . . . it was a killer on my European legs . .
gazing out of a Seoul hotel window - I was actually watching the agent until he went round the corner. I had just spent
an hour haggling over the terms of a maintenance contract while the bar musicians were trying to
distract me by playing South American jazz . . .
after the frustrations of South Korea it was a huge relief to spend some weeks training engineers at Hsin Chong, a Ford supplier, in Taiwan . .
a busy and somewhat crazy country with great food and thousands of motor scooters . .
after the first week's training I took some time to look around Taipei City . .
sitting in Linsen Park I reflected on how to get the supplier up to speed after their training . . I suggested to my agent that I propose that the supplier hires me for a few weeks to speed up their work for Ford
"Great idea" he said "why don't you put together a presentation that summarises your automotive background and current skills set, and we'll present it to them at 9.00am tomorrow morning?" . . this was 9.00pm on a Sunday evening
so my very first PowerPoint presentation was created late at night in a Taipei hotel room and completed in the car the next morning as we turned through the factory gates . . .
the proposal was successful, so I returned to Taiwan and was able to see more of the country outside of Taipei . . .
crossing the Tamsui River after taking the train up the coast from Taipei, heading over to the Tamsui District
rendevouz with a couple I met at Schiphol Airport, who show me round the area
we wander through the campus of the local university and look at interesting buildings . . .
back to work Monday morning . . the training took place in Hsinchu City, 90km south of Taipei, home to TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co) who currently produce 90% of the world's semiconductor silicon chips.
CAD models of some of the work that Hsin Chong were able to present to Ford at the end of my consultancy . . . new seat design and fabrics
and a completely revised interior with up-market sports seats and console
back in UK . . a quiet autumn day at Westonbirt Arboretum
damp and misty - the light comes from the colour of the leaves . .
warm weather early in the year and low winds in the autumn are the recipe for spectacular colours . .
the old days at Birmingham airport when you could stand outside a few metres away from arriving aircraft . . and sniff the aviation fuel . .
first time to leave the shores of the UK in 1975. Not by ferry or by aeroplane though . . by Hoverlloyd, from Ramsgate to Dunkirk!!
although the snow was slightly thin on the ground it served it's purpose. This was my introduction to the amazing Schwarzwald . .
Villingen Schwenningen was on the edge of the Black Forest . . near enough for access to the slopes . . . the weather was pure sunshine . . .
and intoxicatingly clean air, so dry that it even tasted different . . the UK can be so damp
cuckoo clock factory that we visited in Shonach . . I spent some Deutschmarks and bought a clock
with it's beautiful carving, the clock is still on the wall of my studio, reminding me of that first exciting Continental adventure many years ago
love this . . the M1 in 1975: no traffic, or central reservation!!
early morning in the Black Forest a couple of years later, getting ready for another day on the slopes
association is a funny thing, but diesel fumes in the morning always take me back to these mornings with the coach warming up while we loaded the skis aboard.
on the slopes of the Fischbach I graduated form being an unhappy skier to being a happy skier!!
under the instruction of The Bush I mastered parallel turns . . at least for right hand turns - left hand turns were more tricky . .
old school ski-ing: a coach, which pulled a trailer full of skis, and a local guesthouse to eat in at night
time exposure taken on a tripod of the cosy interior of the guesthouse restaurant: after a day on the snow covered mountains fresh coffee and home made cake tasted extra good!!
there's nothing quite like mountain chalets, deep snow and bright sunshine to lift the spirits!!
I always liked this picture . . descending carefully through the Schwarzwald at the end of a week's ski-ing - the tint of the coach windscreen gives the colour to the top half of the picture