Wisley is on the N side of the A3 near Junction 10 of the M25. From the M25 go towards Guildford on the A3 and double back at the next exit. There are two reasons for going at this time: to see and photograph the exotic butterflies in the Millennium Glasshouse, and to photograph the garden in its winter state.
Meet in the coffee shop outside the entrance around 09:30. Contact Nick Withers for any further details.

A wander around this huge Victorian cemetery, a short stroll along the Grand UNion Canal and a surprisingly good lunch at a Thai restaurant on the Harrow Road. Afterwards we took the bus to South Kensington and visited the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at the Natural History Museum. A fine day out.

After a few shots of the Shard, we moved on to Borough market. The market traders were all there, but there were few customers. The traders were very obliging, and a lot of work was done for an hour. We then had coffee, and went into the old St Thomas’s operating theatre, where photography was allowed. After that we walked along the South Bank, stopped for a bite of lunch, then visited the Taylor Wessing portrait prize in the National Portrait Gallery. We then visited the Queen’s gallery, where there was an excellent exhibition on the photographs taken on the Scott and Shackleton exhibitions one hundred years ago- a very successful day,

Cancelled due to bad weather.

This outing will be rescheduled for spring 2012

We visited Farley Farmhouse, home of the legendary photographer Lee Miller, and her husband the surrealist painter Roland Penrose. We were even more lucky to be shown round the house by her son Anthony Penrose. We visited her fitted kitchen, which was quite an innovation in the 1950’s; over the Aga was a tile painted by Picasso, who visited the house several times. The house was full of momentoes of Lee Miller’s life, including a picture of her in Hitler’s bath, having walked in there symbolically in her army boots. We saw many paintings by Roland Penrose, and the interior of the house was similar to those owned by the Bloomsbury group, whom they knew.
After lunch, we visited the Bentley wildlife and motor museum, to do some photography of vintage cars or ducks, whichever took your fancy; altogether a very exciting day.

We went to the Hannah Peschar sculpture park, near Ockley, south of Dorking. RH5 5QR.

We had a lovely day in Rochester, for the Dickens festival. The parking was easy, as they had an efficient Park and Ride system, which dropped us 100 yards from the high street. There was a parade down Rochester’s narrow high street, ending in a fair on the park next to Rochester castle. There were dozens of people dressed in the dress of various Dickens characters, and the quality of their costumes was first rate. They did not mind being photographed, indeed were very obliging, stopping and posing. The street photography was quite challenging, because of the thousands of visitors, including quite a few photographers. The light was quite bright, especially at midday. We had coffee, and lunch, then returned home about 4.00 pm, after a very productive day.

They have a huge range of British wildlife at the centre. We started with red squirrels - you go into an enclosure, on a raised walk way which has been extremely cleverly designed. There were red squirrels running about in the birch trees, seeming free- no wire in the way of photos.
In addition to red squirrels, there are several types of deer, otters, polecats, foxes, hares, owls, water voles etc. Photos of these could not be put in a wildlife competition. HOWEVER, there were totally wild sparrows posing for us, and herons nesting in an enormous oak tree. These were wild, free and unrestrained, so would be suitable.

Banstead Lavender fields