Isle of Avalon

Just before dawn on a perfectly still, cool Summer's morning, Whitbarrow appears island-like amidst the ethereal mist. To give this a little scale, at the left hand end of the limestone hill there is a small skein of geese heading left down the Kent estuary. This definitely should be viewed large.

I had set the alarm for 0430, determined this morning to make the effort. And as always on these occasions, I'm left wondering why I don't do this more often. One excuse is that there have not been many mornings like this so far this year, but the truth is I have been turning off the alarm and rolling over and back to sleep. This morning though the effort was richly rewarded, there was billowing mist everywhere, and the early morning light combined with the inevitable tiredness from four hours sleep gave the estuarine landscape a dreamy quality undisturbed by the usual procession of cars and vans along the road.

Once we have the new computer up and running, I will load more images on Flickr. It would have been difficult to choose just one to blip, but in the end the glacial slowness of the whirrlitzer decided it for me.

I stayed out until 0700, and came home feeling so glad to be alive, fell back into bed and slept for another four hours.

The other highlight of the day was of course that time trial in the Tour de France.

Thank you for all the stars and hearts yesterday, as ever alas, I am well behind with saying thank you individually.