Aislabie's Photographs | Good food is always worth it

[Aislabie]

Morning all; I'm opening this thread as a place to put my photographs. Now, I should emphasise that I'm not a professional photographer; most if not all of the photos I post will have been taken either with my mobile phone or with the cheap camera I bought before I went travelling around Europe in 2016.

There will likely be some overlap with photos I have posted in this thread, but here I want it to be as much about the stories attached to each photo as the photo itself. So, that's the plan: one a day, each with a caption that actually adds to the photo in question.

Spoiler: All the photos

21st January: This is home
22nd January: Rescue pets
23rd January: Newborough Beach
24th January: Olten
25th January: This is not Canada
26th January: I miscalculated
27th January: Tiny waterways
28th January: This is why I moved to Wales
29th January: Frankfurt
30th January: Water makes me happy
31st January: Highlight of a bad time
1st February: Also in Newborough
2nd February: Home from home
3rd February: Holyhead Mountain
4th February: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
5th February: Keeping my brain active
6th February: Welsh slate
7th February: The diving lake
8th February: No photo
9th February: Winter in Wales
10th February: Summer in Wales
11th February: A loyal fan
12th February: A dozen cormorants
13th February: Be at least as happy as the horses
14th February: The height of summer

​

 

[Aislabie]

This is home. Now, I should clarify that I am not originally from Wales, despite having a reasonably Welsh name, but I did move to Wales to study history in 2016. Since then I've had a few rocky times, and haven't always lived in the perfect property, but when I want to come somewhere that reminds me of why I love the place so much, I come here. It's peaceful.​

 

[Aislabie]

Rescue pets are the best kind of pets. This is Henry, who was our rescue cat and has now been with us for nearly eight years that he wouldn't have had otherwise. The RSPCA found him living on the streets in a really rough part of town, sick, covered in fleas and nearly starved. By all accounts, he had never actually approached a person of his own volition before until I went into the shelter. He chose me, and I chose him; he then got very sick again with cat 'flu, but because he had already been claimed the RSPCA treated him rather than putting him down. Today, he can probably be found curled up in the sleeping bag my dad sometimes uses, because it's too cold outside if you're a cat.​

 

[Aislabie]

Newborough Beach is another incredible spot. Weirdly, I was there late last night - but obviously that's not when I took this photo. In fact, I'm not exactly sure when I took this photo, but it doesn't exactly matter. It's somewhere I try to go fairly regularly, because I struggle to think of anywhere else quite as spectacular with the mountains rearing up across the sea. At night, as I found out yesterday, you can see the lights from Dinas Dinlle across the water. As you might imagine, it's a very popular beach, but it's large enough that you can always find a quiet spot.​

 

[Aislabie]

Olten in Switzerland seemed very pleasant when I passed through it by accident about eighteen months ago. I was travelling from Freiburg to Annecy, but had forgotten to charge my phone overnight. This led to me improvising a route, taking trains to places I thought seemed like they were in roughly the right direction. Therefore, I got a train from Freiburg to Basel, another from Basel to Olten, a third from Olten to Geneva and then a bus from Geneva to Annecy. By the time I got to Olten, I was hungry (as you might expect) so I bought myself some lunch and ate it with this view. I now plan to return to Olten some time as part of a trip where I take random trains to random places in Switzerland.​

 

[Satan666]

Olten in Switzerland seemed very pleasant when I passed through it by accident about eighteen months ago. I was travelling from Freiburg to Annecy, but had forgotten to charge my phone overnight. This led to me improvising a route, taking trains to places I thought seemed like they were in roughly the right direction. Therefore, I got a train from Freiburg to Basel, another from Basel to Olten, a third from Olten to Geneva and then a bus from Geneva to Annecy. By the time I got to Olten, I was hungry (as you might expect) so I bought myself some lunch and ate it with this view. I now plan to return to Olten some time as part of a trip where I take random trains to random places in Switzerland.​

Do you have more pictures? Looks so beautiful!

 

[Aislabie]

Do you have more pictures? Looks so beautiful!

Unfortunately, I don't have any others from Olten that came out very well, and because I had to get back on a train I didn't get to explore very far

 

[Aislabie]

This is not Canada, but it does sort of look like it. In fact, it's near Betws-y-Coed, a Welsh town best known for its Waterloo Bridge and just generally being an incredibly pretty place. About an hour's walk out of town, almost all of it uphill, we found this lake. Or to be more precise, my friend was poring over a map, I got bored and went "I'm pretty sure it's through here" and came out in basically the exact right place. I imagine you're beginning to see why I love North Wales.​

 

[Aislabie]

I miscalculated on this occasion by setting off to walk around Lake Annecy without first checking a map to find out just how far that would actually be. In the end, I turned around when I was 60% out of water as it was mid-thirties and sunny, but I intend to go back, prepare better (at all), and walk the circumference of this beautiful lake.​

 

[Aislabie]

Tiny waterways line many of the streets in Freiburg im Breisgau. Although it felt as if most people would walk past without noticing them, there were some children playing with boats and just generally enjoying themselves. Taking pictures of random German children would be weird and certainly illegal, and I didn't have good enough German to explain my request, so I waited until they went briefly to an ice cream vendor to take a picture of their boats.​

 

[Aislabie]

This is why I moved to Wales. Even though I don't come down to the pier very often (it's a little exposed in the winter) finding this spot on my first visit was why I decided that Wales was the place to me. I had grand ideas like studying in the tea room at the end of the pier, being actually productive and things, but mostly I just come down here for the walk and the views.​

 

[Bleddyn]

This is not Canada, but it does sort of look like it.

That does look alot like Eastern Canada. Very nice picture!

 

[Aislabie]

Frankfurt will always be bittersweet for me. I loved the city (for all its flaws) and loved being able to walk to the Stadtwald, but it was also the first time where I really learned just how hard goodbyes could be. I'm... not going to go into detail on that one I think. Sorry.​

 

[Aislabie]

One thing I've realised since living by the sea is that water makes me feel better. It doesn't just have to be the sea - this river in Betws-y-Coed certainly does the job as well - but when I think of the places I'm happiest, they all seem to have water. In Bangor, there's the Menai Strait. In Frankfurt, there's the Main River. In Annecy, there's the Lake. And so on. It's a recurring theme in so many of my photos I take (only two that I've shared have not had water in, and one of those was in Frankfurt with the Main literally right behind the pictured buildings) because it's a recurring theme of so many places I choose to go. ​

 

[Na Maloom Afraad]

Those are beautiful pictures, man.

Makes me wanna visit those places.