My Month of June – 2018 Edition

June has been a difficult month one way or another, so I’ve been trying to keep myself busy. I hope you’ll enjoy looking through some of the hundreds of photos I’ve snapped along the way.

I’ve been doing lots of helicopter flying for my R44 type rating, which is nearly complete.

Here I am flying over RAF Brize Norton.

And Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire.

Rainbows are always particularly beautiful from the air.

Arriving at (and in the photo below departing from) Weston-super-Mare Airshow by helicopter was probably the highlight of the month.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight – always an evocative sight and sound.

You can’t beat the Red Arrows!

The delightfully eccentric Dover’s Hill Games returned after a year’s hiatus this month. Pictured here: the legendary shin-kicking competition.

I’ve been to Oxford a lot this month. My sister and I went to a concert at the Sheldonian Theature, a venue that’s seen both of us matriculate and graduate from Oxford University.

The Oxford Millennium Orchestra played an entertaining assortment of opera classics. Excerpts from Verdi’s Aida took me straight back to watching that opera in the imposing surroundings of Verona Amphitheatre way back on my first ever trip to Italy in 2005.

Another Oxford landmark that brings back vivid memories of my student days is the Radcliffe Camera. I remember having four three-hour exams in two days at the end of my first year, and frantically cramming between them in this beautiful library.

The dapper gentleman on the right of this photo of Turl Street is a great example of the kind of English eccentricity that makes Oxford so delightful.

Despite having lived in Oxford for years, I’d never watched the sun setting over the dreaming spires from South Park until this month.

The new rooftop terrace at the Westgate Centre is another great place to watch the sunset in Oxford.

Here’s another sunset, this time in Stratford-upon-Avon.

A couple of snaps from Welford-on-Avon, which is full of perfect little thatched cottages. I loved the Victorian postbox, too.

Dinner in the back garden at home: my first box of yummy Pasta Evangelists pasta (here’s £10 off if you want to try it – NOT a paid endorsement, just a code everyone gets when they sign up for it).