It’s election day, but other people have much more fascinating and well-informed opinions on that than me. So instead I’ll share what I was doing this evening, which was wandering around Southampton in the company of various local Twitter types, and taking lots of photographs.

It’s easy to think of Southampton as a shithole sometimes. But there’s lots of interesting stuff around, perhaps most notably the ancient city walls that are scattered around the place. The nice thing about wandering around with photography enthusiasts, though, is that you don’t feel quite so self-conscious taking photos of weird things. Like a rusty old padlock. Or the shutter on a shop. Or a particularly interesting piece of grating. Or indeed lying on the floor to get some nice close-ups of dandelions.

It was a fun evening, a chance to hang out with some lovely people and an opportunity to visit some parts of Southampton (well, a pub) that I’d never seen before. For future reference, the Duke of Wellington pub on Bugle Street is very nice. A proper old pub, with wooden floors and beams and everything. Apparently the food’s good too.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a selection of unretouched photos.