VWSelburn's photostream  

VWS1733 © VW Selburn 2012: I took a walk around campus today. The seeds are snugly tucked up in the cones ready to be flung out, carried by the wind or nibbled at by the many squirrels on the campus of the Open University in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK. This is such a beautiful tree. I never get tired of looking at its wonderful silvery needles. Nature's elegance for all to see.

VWS1731 © VW Selburn 2012: I took a walk around campus today. It is January 25 2012 and the tip of the Monkey Puzzle tree is developing nicely. The spiky top is almost bushy! This is the top spike of the tree, which had a very much smaller crown of thorns way backin April 2010 www.flickr.com/photos/vwselburn/4498333366/in/set-7215762...

VWS1728 © VW Selburn 2012: Bit of a doorstep but when you are half asleep making sandwiches early in the morning you can't always cut straight! Anyway, I like cheese, especially Red Leicester.

HPIM4970 © VW Selburn 2009: John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
From Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin
I have cloned out the irritating wall furniture, TV aerial and wires. Somebody (anybody) from the local council please note how much better it looks!

VWS4835 A reminder of the winter we didn't have... like in 2010. Aren't you glad? This was taken on Christmas Eve 2010 on campus at The Open University in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK. I've cloned out a couple of lamp posts and two cars. I see this view every day on my way into the office. I'm so glad I have not had to traipse through the snow from the car park this year!