It was a nice sunny day so I went for a drive to Marsden, Yorkshire and the Huddersfield canal to check out the tunnel portals of the canal and railways.

Cleaning the Huddersfield canal.
Limekiln lock 1984

Longitudinal section through the canal tunnel c1803,
showing main shafts, subsidiary shafts and drainage adits.

Walking through Preston on a misty morning from the bus station to the railway station.

The first place we visited was the Silverprint shop with its wonderful nostalgic smell of photographic emulsions.

Then caught the tube to the Fotofusion Gallery, Electric Lane, Brixton to see 2 exhibitions. This is Bill Rowlinson: A Master's Touch.
Bill Rowlinson, doyen of black and white master printers, bequeathed his print collection to Photofusion on his death in 2008. His somewhat eccentric approach (such as staining a print with tea bags and smoking over it!) produced results that were highly sought after by photographers.
 

left is Richard Nicholson's
'Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light'.
This project, begun in 2006 and shot on large format film, documents London's remaining professional darkrooms. For decades these workspaces were the engine rooms of the British photographic scene, turning out iconic images for galleries, billboards and glossy magazines. Yet now they languish, struggling to survive in the new world of digital photography.

Darkroom of Roy Snell by Richard Nicholson

We returned to Waterloo on the tube then walked along the South Bank to the national Theatre, Lyttelton Exhibition Space to see 'Take a view' – Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009

My favourite. Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire by Nigel Hillier (Natural England Award)

Parked opposite the Moorcock Inn above Ripponden and went for a short walk on Norland Moor.

Interesting use of an old tree,
to sculpt a scarecrow

The Moorcock Inn, Ripponden.

I started on the top floor by climbing the stair well enclosed in the circular structure tagged on the west side of the building. Its centre area was a huge display of armour and weapons for what looked like the 17th century. At floor level was a display of various ships cannon but the main thing missing was that none of them were labelled to give their name weight and size of shot.
When I got to the main exhibits the first thing that struck me was the exquisite workmanship of all the displays. From armour to swords and pistols etc. Many hand guns were on display and the touch I liked is the descriptions of those used in the James Bond books.

Walther model PPK 7.65mm calibre. German, first manufactured 1931. Was first issued to James Bond in Dr NO (1958) as a replacement for his Berreta .25
Suggested because of its stopping power and light trigger pull. It was used in almost all the following books.

It was such a nice cold clear morning that I thought I’d start it with a bus ride to Wheelton then a walk along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to Simpson Fold Bridge then home across the fields. I left the towpath and followed the icy path down to the footbridge across the River Lostock. As I descended into the valley the air felt distinctly colder against my face and as I stopped by the bridge I checked the thermometer on the side of my rucksack to see it reading -10degC. As I climbed up towards Denham Hall it soon rose to -5degC and a strange icy mist appeared over the fields as the sun was rising over the aptly named Winter Hill. There was a very beautiful orange glow to the light.

For most of the day we had heavy snow. It stopped around 4pm so I went out at 5pm to take a few snaps

Roddlesworth Reservoir under a dramatic sky.

Plan of walk

Altitude profile of walk

One of the first photos of 2010 was my tent during a cold night on Hurst Hill above White Coppice. The temperature dropped to minus 6 degC. The full moon illuminated the foreground

A 'Three Dawns' photo of the sunrise over  the Winter Hill transmitter masts.
A New Day, a New Year and a New Decade.

As the sun came up I had a nice clear view of Chorley surrounded by frosty fields.