Under starters orders

Two days to go ... to the start of Royal Ascot. There will be around 300,000 people attending the five days of racing, all extremely well dressed and aiming to see the excellent racing and join in the party atmosphere, regardless of the weather.

Steve and I went for a run today on the Heath inside the racecourse, and despite my intention to take pictures of the car park "lollipops', I preferred this shot looking east towards the Grandstand. The racecourse was a hive of activity today and we even were able to see diggers and other heavy equipment. We think they were laying a new road in the heath which should hold up better in wet conditions. The extra TV screens and microphones were up.

The security was, well, unusual. After wandering around the Royal Enclosure and the special car park with my camera, we were quizzed after leaving about how we had made our way into the 'secure' area. Through the gate, we said. A surreal discussion about how we made our way from a public area to another seemingly public area occurred. We think the security guard wanted something more dramatic, such as scaling barbed wire fences or digging a tunnel. Our entry and exit were too ordinary to be believable.

I was pleased to think about one of my photos being presented today as a Father's Day gift from the Lads v Dads game.