New Bird Hide near St.Ouen's Pond

By the green/white house, over the road is an area of parking where an ice-cream van plies its trade in the warm months.
If you hop over / past a low section of wall, through a gate, and along the side of a small field or two...




.. there's a newly rebuilt bird hide.






The entrance...








.. the interior...







The nearby pond to the east...





.. and a view over wetland, toward St.Ouen's Pond to the north.

La Collette changes for "emergency access road"

I had been concerned about the proposed works to be carried out here to allow fire appliances through to the new incinerator...





.. but this new notice explains all...





.. and it looks like the authentic Victorian Seaside railings and granite will be preserved.





What's happening and where...




.. and all is explained.

So it's not so bad. I'll find something else to worry about ;)

Royal Bay of Grouville - along the prom

Some spare photos from a walk along there last year...


Looking southwards from the start of the prom by the Golf Course...






.. the other way, northwards to Gorey...







.. and the famous castle.







A Jersey Round Tower







Another look along the beach to the south.





There used to be a bridge here, with steps, over a narrow slipway...







.. but it has been re-engineered so that the prom is more wheel-friendly.

Misc - pretty random

A random selection of recent odds and ends...



The old pool up at the fort is getting more and more vandalised.





.. nearby, the new electric substation at the reversing bays (quick snap from the car, sorry about the poor quality)






.. again I couldn't be bothered to get out of the car, but it's passable. Taken from Gorey.






The old Drive-In site is being cleared.





Banners announced the coming of digickle telly. It's been really good to have more choice and such a clear picture - I wouldn't go back to analogue! I'm glad we weren't the last region to change over!




Too many cars are silver!







A few moments earlier the foreground was sunlit, but hey. Can't win 'em all! (or any!)






St.Mary's Church, sunlit with dark cloud background..








.. closer.







What a couple of cows.







Warm sunset on one side, and very blue Christmas lights starting to show up in the shaded road.

Roches Douvres lighthouse

The tall lighthouse at the Roches Douvres can be seen from Jersey's West coast (and Noirmont) on a clear day ....


.. slightly to the left of our own Corbiere Lighthouse, as seen from the main road... taken here from by the old station house at the top of the hill. The old station is 26.6 miles from the RD light.




A Google Map showing where it is, at
49° 06′ 18″ N 02° 48′ 50″ W
or 49.104444, -2.815247 if you prefer decimal format.



An English wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roches-Douvres_Light

- and a French one...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phare_des_Roches-Douvres



.. from where this free photo was found. This is looking towards Jersey - we see the 'lump' on the horizon to the left of the column.








The top of the light tower, with some kind of radio navigation system?









.. and the lower part.







I heard one of the Chris presenters on BBC J mention the light he spotted, some months ago, and a few listeners let him know what is was. Perhaps someone could direct him to this blog entry for me, if you think he'd be interested? Thanks.

A Green White House

They've gone and painted it sickly green!














I think I prefer it white.... :)





It is to remain mucus green for a year or so as a publicity stunt to promote green issues (regardless of planning laws?!) and many commentators amongst the public have already criticised this move. However, it has become apparent that it needed painting anyway (it really was looking quite tatty before this repaint) and the scaffolding used in the process was donated, as was the paint and labour, so the NT(J) haven't wasted the organisation's precious resources!

Presumably it will need a repaint again by the time a year has passed, so there's nothing much lost. Except perhaps for the recent Holiday Lets scheme (will a green version have less appeal to potential short term tenants?) and the Wedding Business. How many brides and grooms looking to have wedding photos taken there this year are going to be really irritated? :)