Sunny Sunday Afternoon . . ..

Today was gorgeous - a perfect day to be outdoors. Warm, sunny - beautiful.

So why did I spend the best part of the afternoon in a darkened room, staring at a TV screen ??

The Monaco Grand Prix - thats why. A jewel in the crown of Formula One, and possibly the world's greatest motor race. To the layman its boring - a procession with barely any action or overtaking, but the nature of the circuit, the narrow track, tight corners and ever present, unforgiving steel barriers, mean it is the ultimate challenge for a racing driver.

Threading an immensely powerful, but fragile, racecar around the street circuit is difficult enough in qualifying, which sees the drivers powering around flat out, for a few laps on a circuit with other cars nicely spaced out, but during the race incredible, almost superhuman levels of concentration are required for 78 gruelling laps. One slight lapse in concentration can ruin a drivers race, along with the race of any other drivers that happen to be in the vicinity of the accident.

Todays race saw plenty of incidents, but young Nico Rosberg controlled the race brilliantly from the front, and won to become the first son of a Monaco winning driver ( his dad is Keke Rosberg ) to win the race.

Afterwards I managed to get out and enjoy the sunshine for a few hours. A gentle stroll round the town centre ended with a peaceful half hour in the lofty St. Matthews churchyard, where I captured this view of the town laid out below - unfortunately any images taken from this spot feature a large cross and streetlamp in the foreground, which are nigh-on impossible to clone out.

The image is a stitch of 2 shots, taken at 50mm. My old favourite PTGui Pro was used to perform the stitch . . .