An excellent day.....

.... was had yesterday, when I went to Ascot Heliport for the day.

Decided to take a day off & go to a particularly busy Heliport at the Ascot Ladies Day race meeting. It was the first year being held back at Ascot after a 2 year break for the building works on the new fantastic Grandstand to be completed (came in on budget & on time - well done Mr O'Rourke!)

It was nice to spend a day in the sunshine & meet up with a few friends that I hadn't seen for years.

Loads of photo's posted here.

It's smaller than I'd imagined......

I had a good look around the new Aston Martin V8 Vantage the other day when one attended a Helicopter Club of Great Britain event.

I have to say it looks very nice & would use the word "pretty" to describe it, but it's not a patch on the old brutal looking V8 Vantage - which was a personal favourite of mine.

I know the old Vantage was a bit agricultural & used Ford switchgear, the new Vantage is an altogether more modern & technically advanced car & therefore should be seen as progress, but it just doesn't have the presence of a Grand Tourer. It's small enough to be a nimble sports car, maybe they see the V12 Vanquish of more as a Grand Tourer?

Caught on camera.....

..... some friends in the garden having a dip.

In the last couple of days of hot weather the wildlife in my garden has been seeking water to drink, wash & cool off in. So a few trays for putting pots on placed around the garden full of water have come as refuge for these two when not being distrurbed by washing blackbirds & the like.

Taken with the latest addition to my camera collection - a Canon EOS 5D with a Canon EF100mm f2.8 Macro lens and a Canon MR EX-14 Macro Ringflash - very pleased with them so far.