Happy 2026 as we march like mighty strong persons into the year that comes to meet us.

Shot with a Fuji X100s at f5.6 and 1/340 second and ISO 800 on the 10th September 2016 on a promenade during Jane Austen week in Bath.

After the Second World War my father signed up to Z reserve because it meant he got an extra eight shillings a week.

Nobody expected another war but there was another war and my father was called up to fight in Korea.

When he was away, my mother and I would go to Roundhay Park and on the way there was a postbox set into the stone wall of a field near the park and we would dutifully post letters to my father, hoping that he was okay.

For that reason I’ve always had an affiliation with and feeling of closeness to the very idea of postboxes.

It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I took notice of postboxes as I passed, subconsciously noticing old ones.

This one in upper Saint Martin’s Lane in London is a relatively rare King Edward VII postbox. It’s rare because King Edward VII only reigned for 10 years and they’re only about 200 such boxes in the UK.

December 25th. It seemed a good day to photograph with the streets empty. And mostly they were except in the strip between Oxford Street and Piccadilly.

And then there were the hotel guests enjoying a horse and carriage ride.

As the carriage drivers passed me they were polite and with little nods acknowledged that I was not spooking the horses.

But they looked pretty grim faced, and why not. It is a working day for them when nearly everyone else is enjoying their free time.

Almost everyone. Starbucks and a couple of other cafes were open.

Tech Stuff

All photos taken with Canon EOS R6 with 28-70mm f2.8 lens