Liz Gwynne

@lizgwyn

Love rocks and dark skies, especially in France. Christian Aid volunteer School governor she/her🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

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Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· 4d

After a few weeks away and only your updates to keep me informed I'm now totally lost. Strong vibes of #TheArchers this morning at a Charentais agricultural show, where the judges are choosing the best limousin/limousine.

A group of dark red-brown cattle in the shade under a pale awning, with several people walking around them.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jul 26

On a non-uk connection I had to take the same route to find it but it gets better placing and a picture. And they had room to write 150000 in the headline but they just put 'thousands'🤷‍♀️ Will it help the algorithm if lots of us open the page?

A screenshot of the BBC News London page shows a few headlines, some with photos, including one in the middle; "Thousands attend London Trans+ Pride march" with a photo of a banner and some marchers.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· May 24

There was a lovely view of Venus (lower down) and Jupiter just after sunset. It was only when I looked at the photo that I realised you can see Castor and Pollux above and to the right of Jupiter.

There are two bright white dots and two pale white dots in a dark blue sky which fades to pale blue and orange, with silhouettes of grass heads and hedging.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· May 21

I have this beautifully illustrated graphic biography of her life, but it only exists in French, as far as I can tell. I found it in the Musée National de Préhistoire in Les Eyzies de Tayac.

On the left, the cover page of a graphic book called Mary Anning chasseuse de fossiles (fossil hunter). The drawing is of a girl, dressed in a long skirt and shawl, walking along a beach with a small dog. She's about to reach a rock with unusual marks that look like a long jaw full of teeth.
On the right, a series of pictures show the same girl in a long blue dress, with the same dog, uncovering rocks that look like a long creature made of stone. The bottom of the page shows a man at a desk looking at her sketch of the creature, which has a long neck and two limbs each side of the body.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Apr 6

Kew Gardens looking lovely today on a sunny Bank holiday. It's busy but doesn't feel crowded and we've just had an excellent lunch in the Orangery #KewGardens

A wide grassy area is overlooked by trees of various heights and leaf growth; a few family groups are sitting on the ground and a few people are walking along the path on the right. The sky is a delicate blue, laced with white vapour trails and wispy clouds.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 13

A Christmas present from my husband in 2021. I chose the best place in our house to take a picture to show it off to friends (since we still weren't going visiting a lot).

A woman wearing glasses, a stripey t-shirt and a necklace showing the planets of our solar system. Behind her are pictures including a photo of stars & gas clouds and a photo of noctilucent clouds.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 4

You can buy one in New Zealand

A photo of an aisle in a supermarket. The shelves are filled with brightly coloured bottles and packets. The aisle label says "11 - Cleaners, Air fresheners, Laundry powder, Dishwash, Dish cloths, Socks & briefs, Manchester, Paper towels"

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 4

Slightly smaller writing back then maybe, but not that confusing. (2009 was the earliest I could find)

A street scene of a three storey building in a terrace. Above the door a sign says Cellar Bar.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Feb 20

Look @robinince.bsky.social we were at the Science Museum ten years ago! I have blurry photos of Helen Keen and FotSN too, including Steve Mould's fire tornado.

A man holding a microphone is standing on a stage. Behind him is a large photo of the surface of the moon with the Earth rising in a black sky.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Feb 18

An easier site to visit is Rochechouart in southwest France. Not easy to see the crater now, it happened about 200 million years ago, but lots of impacted minerals in the rocks and in the buildings in the area. There's a good little museum there too.

Large left photo: a graphic shows France close to the equator on an Earth with different continent pattern. In french it says "200 million years ago an asteroid, travelling at 20m a second, hit the Earth and formed a crater 20-70km across. It was 1200 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Cheops and in a few seconds there were 2000km/hour winds, a burning cloud and a magnitude 9 earthquake where Bordeaux now is (about 150km)

Two photos underneath: a cliff face looking very broken with lots of holes. Two people are in the left hand photo.

Three photos on the right: photos of the local church, the stones are different orange and grey colours with many little holes showing. The top photo has bright flowers in front of the wall, the middle one is an arched doorway, the bottom is a close-up of a column showing many irregular holes in the stone.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jan 19

We're on holiday in the most southerly bit of mainland Britain and we still saw a spectacular aurora.

A dark sky is glowing red and green behind outlines of trees and fences in three photos of the aurora borealis.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jan 17

A dramatic sunrise at Prussia Cove #Cornwall

A rocky coastline and steely grey sea is backed by towers of grey and pink clouds, illuminated by a rising sun between sea and clouds.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jan 3

As they rose last night they were competing well with the Kew illuminations!

A long low building with the rounded walls of a giant conservatory glows orange under a point of light that is Jupiter, and higher up, the very bright blurry glow of the moon.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jan 1

Looks very different, visiting family on the other side. (Picture from 3 days ago, before the sun came out!)

Looking out across a grey sea from a grassy clifftop, with low hills and islands in the distance and a grey and white cloudy sky.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Nov 17

I've found my map of the ferry route; it was so cold!

On the left is a map of the River Mersey between Liverpool and Birkenhead. A red line traces the route up and down the river twice.
On the right, in front of a closed café kiosk, stands a thin bearded man wearing dark jeans, a dark thin sweater and a sailor's hat. He is holding a microphone and around him you can just see his audience are wearing coats, hats and scarves🥶

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Aug 29

Any new build churches (and other organisations) should have single cubicle toilets to be used by anyone. This is in a recently built church and community building in England, but I think I remember the public toilets in the Mezquita in Cordoba being similar.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jul 23

I recommend a visit to the churches in the Vall de Boí. The originals are in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona, also worth seeing, but there are reproductions in the valley and a spectacular video-mapping. Also very tall bell towers to climb.

Four photos of the curved end of small stone churches. In the first three the stones are increasingly covered in colour as light projected on to the walls show how the paintings were formed.
The lower right picture is of another church where the painting is a reproduction of the original.
Poor quality photos from my 2016 phone!

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jun 18

It's an amazing coast, tens of millions of years of layers of sediment building up, then continents bumped and the layers were broken and turned edge on.

Cliffs of different heights are made up of stripes lying top to bottom in various tones of grey. Below them on the left is a flat beach of golden sand. The cliffs are topped and occasionally interspersed with green grass and bushes. Two tiny human figures in the middle show the cliffs are several tens of metres high.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jun 13

It was such a joy to share this celebration, to bump into old friends and share stories with new ones, and to sing the great song of justice, Tell Out My Soul, with 2000 people. As a bonus we can just spot ourselves at the edge of this photo taken by Westminster Abbey's photographer.

In the background robed clergy sit at each side of the high altar of Westminster Abbey. In the middle placards celebrating the work of Christian Aid are carried between people sitting in the pews. The placards proclaim campaigns like "Drop the Debt" and "Climate Justice Now"
(Photo by Westminster Abbey)

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jun 8

I didn't photograph the repair🤦‍♀️ But this was our mirror in April, when we and another campervan came too close on a Spanish mountain road. Duct tape around the edges lasted well, (and hopefully for them too, our roll was quicker to find for their mirror!)

In the centre the shattered wing mirror of a campervan, just holding itself in place. In the background a narrow road with a barrier, trees and hills.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· May 31

Sorry it's a bit late, we had to watch DW first! I took a photo because you toned so well with the background, then I zoomed in on the words on the picture and it was even better...

A man holding a microphone is standing on a small stage strewn with notebooks. He is wearing jeans and a black t-shirt adorned with all the colours of inclusion. Behind him is a large and very colourful picture of people and places telling the story of Chester. Across the picture swirl ribbons of text which read...
"Tell me what it is you see
What inspiration might there be? Imagination begins to flow"

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· May 21

I learned a lot about Mary Anning in Impossible Monsters by @mhtaylor.bsky.social but I also bought this graphic novel in the French National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies. I don't think you'd find this in English except as a children's book.

Left: a book cover showing a girl and a dog walking on a beach of sand and rocks. One rock looks like a long jaw. Title is Mary Anning chasseuse de fossiles (French for fossil hunter)
Right: A series of pictures with french text; a young woman and dog on a rocky beach, close-ups of hands uncovering fossils, young woman and dog look at an a fossil several metres long, a man at a desk looks at a sketch of a fossil. Text in french explains she had an eye and a technique for finding, that in 1821 she found the first plesiosaur, now in the 'British Museum' which the man says is her greatest yet.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· May 19

We had this impressive view of distant griffon vultures last month in Spain. They're on the ridge in the distance; we couldn't identify them with 10x50 binoculars.

Left picture: in the foreground a small smart telescope is sitting on a picnic table. It's looking across a wooded valley to a rocky ridge in the distance.
Right picture: a close-up of a section of the rocky ridge. Silhouetted against the sky are two large birds with small heads and necks. In the bottom corner it says SeeStar S50.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Apr 18

One doing a good job out on the boundary today. (Well, in a French river, which is close)

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 29

The SeeStar is such a great telescope for sidewalk astronomy. We gave out about 40 pairs of eclipse glasses too. Murdishaw, Runcorn with Mid Cheshire Astronomy Group. Click on the picture for the full view.

Left picture: a low table with a small smart telescope in front of shops.
Right picture: a yellow disc with the top hidden (by the moon) by a crescent shape, surrounded by an orange haze caused by thin cloud.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 21

I've just had a reminder of this day five years ago. Feeling very grateful that @cosmicshambles.com and @robinince.bsky.social were so quick to give us something to look forward to while stuck at home.

A cluttered shelf unit with a TV screen. The text on the screen shows "Cosmicshambles Stay at Home Festival, March 21st 3pm" with photos and names - Robin Ince, Helen Czerski, Brian Cox, Miranda Lowe and Matt Watson.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Mar 3

This was the most memorable place we visited in two weeks of amazing Orkney sites in 1990. Sad to find it was closed when we last visited in '23, we'd love to be able to recommend it to friends again. Do donate, and then visit when you can.

A small, smiling child lying on a low trolley emerges from a tunnel of flat stone slabs. This was how we visited the Tomb of the Eagles in 1990.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Feb 17

We spent Saturday next to Luke Jerram's Mars getting people of all ages excited about astronomy. Minutes after this photo was taken we were surrounded for the next 8 hours✨

Two tables covered with telescopes, astronomical photos and craft activities to make planets and constellations, in a corner with a tiled floor, sandstone walls and a giant Mars visible through the arched window.

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Feb 15

We spent a very enjoyable day at Norton Priory museum, for their Astronomy Day to celebrate Luke Jerram's giant Mars hanging in the atrium. Children took home sparkling✨ constellations, 🌠 and 🪐🌕 mobiles. Grownups looked at phone apps and affordable telescopes. #Astronomy #Mars

Liz Gwynne @lizgwyn· Jan 9

I know all the local schools have online school going this week but it was lovely to see one family out with a proper sledge (they'd just come down the steepest slope in the park when I asked if I could take this photo)