I have a couple of lovely friends, who are members of the RHS and kindly invited me to see the Wisteria at Wisley. Sadly, the show was a little subdued, as part of its upkeep, it was clearly pruned back last year. But the rest of site looked lovely, especially something I hadn’t seen before, a Flamingo tree.

With a heritage going back 500 years, to a manor house with a domestic brewery, The Mortlake Brewery finally closed its doors in 2015.

Smart Phone Photography - are you one of those that feels its not quite photography if you resort to using your phone to take a picture of something? I am here to reassure you that its nothing to do with your equipment and all to do with the person behind the lens, whether it be an Apple, an Olympus or a Canon?

I have spoken before about researching your subject and timing your visits for the best results in your photography. The month of March is an excellent example of what I mean.

Whenever I start a new book, I always gravitate towards the open spaces and the likely wildlife I might encounter. To my delight, Ealing is bursting with it, from the Peregrines that my daughter and I visited back in February to even Beavers, which will appear in a later newsletter for sure (they are nocturnal, so I’ll need to wait until the days are longer when they might be tempted to venture out at dusk). Ealing has a very active local volunteer army, all expertly corralled by a lovely chap called Sean from the Ealing Wildlife Group.

Some friends and I recently formed a new small local history society, call the Commoners’, and one of the first trips was a special visit to Mount Clare in Roehampton. Boasting a lot of history and a heritage going back 250 years, we counted ourselves very lucky to go, as its recently been sold and all its internal treasures are likely to be off limits in future. If you would like to know more about the society please get in touch.

I always look forward to March, as I feel that the cold is finally on its way out and the hint of something warmer is in the air. As if to prove it, the magnificence that is Magnolias burst forth all over town and the humble little Celandine grabs its moment in the spotlight before everyone else crowds it out.

This has definitely been the year of the Waxwing, they have been all over the news and unusually, some have even been spotted in London. So, on hearing some had been spotted in a residential street in Balham, I took myself off to see them earlier this month. Never having seen one before, I was not disappointed, they are fabulous birds.

I love structures on this kind of scale, especially ones that also display excellent symmetry. The Ouse Valley viaduct in Sussex is one such monument. It has been on my radar for some years but photographically speaking, it has to be seen at this time of the year, as the sun sets right behind it.

I take loads of loads of pictures and it ‘s hard when it comes to choosing my favourites. One or two might surprise you but I imagine most won’t - anyway, I hope you enjoy them.