< July 2011 >

All content copyright © David Richerby, 2011

Contents

Friday, 1st July

This little tug usually works at the Holyhead ferry terminal so I'm not sure what she (why are ships named after men still women?) was doing in Liverpool.

Sunday, 3rd July

In Leeds for Ruby and Dad's birthdays. I didn't take any photos at Ruby's party and dad wasn't feeling well so we just went for a quick wander in the woods, today. These were taken without a tripod and came out rather well, I think.

Monday, 4th July

Wednesday, 6th July

A busy day on the river: a tanker out, a “new” pilot boat (Dunlin, which suffered an engine room fire in March and is only now back from repairs), three ships out of Cammell Laird (the two tugs, Audrey and Vigour, and the freighter Ben Varrey), a tanker in and the usual freight and ferry traffic.

Saturday, 9th July

Monday, 11th July

Tuesday, 12th July

Lately, Royal Daffodil has been letting off big clouds of black smoke when the power is applied after idling for a while. I imagine it will soon be time for a service.

Wednesday, 13th July

Ships

The last two of these shots, of the freighter Butes, are a little too close to be comfortable. As you can see in the first of them, she's already quite close to the bank and is angled towards it and going at quite a rate. By the time of the second shot, she'd straightened up but I've never seen anything other than the pilot boats come even nearly this close to the near bank of the river.

Full moon

Thursday, 14th July

Afon Dyfrdwy (River Dee) is the barge that takes Airbus A380 wings from the plant in Broughton down the river to Mostyn where they're loaded onto the ship that takes them to Bordeaux, where they take another barge to Langon, where they're loaded onto huge trucks to get them to Toulouse, where they're bolted to the plane, which flies to Hamburg to be painted and furnished. Craziness!

Friday, 15th July

There's been quite a clear-out at Cammell Laird over the past couple of days. Cable Innovator has gone and the recent photos of Hibernia Seaways, Afon Dyfrdwy and C. S. Sovereign were all taken on the ship's departure from there. Today, the Border Agency cutter Sentinel and Irish Sea Pioneer left.

Saturday, 16th July

Torrential rain in the morning cleared to a fairly nice afternoon. The first photo shows the Capital in the best possible light, except possibly for pitch darkness.

Monday, 18th July

Wednesday, 20th July

Thursday, 21st July

The Royal Liver Building was completed a hundred years ago this week (Tuesday was the anniversary, as I recall). There's some kind of light show over the weekend and I assume the pattern of left-on lights has something to do with that.

Friday, 22nd July

Ships

A silly sign

This one has been amusing me for a few days. Note that your common-or-garden sale is now an “event”. And is “buy one get one half price” the same thing as getting a quarter off a pair?

Night shots

The Three Graces are lit up to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Royal Liver Building. There's a sound and light show on the Liver Building but I didn't stay for all of it as their speakers were turned up much too far and my ears were still hurting fifteen minutes after I left.

Saturday, 23rd July

Ships

Planes

I was very surprised to see these come past and assumed the city council had, once again, failed to tell people that they'd booked a fancy fly-past. A bit of Googling told me that the Southport Air Show is on today and tomorrow.

The Macula Spectacular

(Which is amusing in a Liverpool accent.) I went back to the light show, stood farther back where it wasn't so skull-crushingly loud.

Sunday, 24th July

Crown Princess arriving

Crown Princess is back in town; she was here in May and will be back in August.

Lambananas

The Lambananas were the cow parade analogue while Liverpool was the European Capital of Culture. A little herd of them now lives outside the Museum of Liverpool.

Canning Dock

Southport Air Show

P-51 Mustang

Tucano T1

It seems that most acrobatics pilots are trainers in their everyday lives. This is one of the RAF's training planes.

Glider FX display team

This pilot, Guy Westlake, is an exception: he flies Boeing 747s for BA for a living.

The RV8tors

The Red Arrows

Hawker Hunter Mk58A “Miss Demeanour”

Is this not the coolest paint job ever?

Fairey Swordfish MkII

Used against submarines on the North Atlantic convoys in World War II.

Black Cats display team

A rather graceful display from a pair of Lynx Mk8 helicopters. Introduced 40 years ago, they're the first British helicopter to be built entirely in metric and still hold the world helicopter speed record, at 249mph.

Breitling wing walkers

Crown Princess departing

Monday, 25th July

The barge is here to help with construction of the new landing stage for the Mersey Ferry, to replace the one that sank five years ago.

Tuesday, 26th July

Wednesday, 27th July

Thursday, 28th July

Crystal Serenity

Other shipping

Friday, 29th July

Saturday, 30th July

Sunday, 31th July

A multi-purpose party hosted by my cousin Laura and family.