A pilot checks his balloon at dawn — and other news in pictures

Yabba dabba doo! A two-bedroom house built into 200 million-year-old red rock in Larkspur, Colorado has gone on the market for $1 million

CREATIVE EDGE MEDIA/SWNS

MCC members queue outside Lord’s cricket ground in London for the ICC World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia

ALEX DAVIDSON-ICC/GETTY IMAGES

HMS Bristol is towed out of Portsmouth harbour, bound for a scrapyard in Turkey, as veterans bid farewell from the Round Tower. The Type 82 destroyer served with the Royal Navy during the 1982 Falklands War

PETER MACDIARMID

Pope Leo meets the crowd at his general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican

REMO CASILLI/REUTERS

Early morning mist rolls over a poppy field near Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight

JAMIE RUSSELL./BNPS

Cast members Stephanie Costi and Lucy Penrose pose at Battersea Power Station to promote the new production of Grease at the Dominion Theatre in London

IAN WEST/PA

Alex Kelly, a conservator, inspects stonework during the annual maintenance of Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin, Scotland

JANE BARLOW/PA

Freddie Hine-Haycock, 6, poses with sculptures made for the Gromit Unleashed 3 trail in Bristol — home of the characters’ creator, Aardman Animations

TOM WREN/SWNS

Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, is prepared for display in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, one of the events marking the 30th anniversary of the artists’ Wrapped Reichstag installation

HANNIBAL HANSCHKE/EPA

Portraits of four generations of the royal family go on display at Fine Art Commissions’ gallery in London ahead of Classic Art London, where works by Sir Herbert James Gunn, Nicky Philipps and Simon Watkins will be among the items for sale

MALCOLM PARK/ALAMY

Squires from the Cadre Noir of Saumur perform at the French military riding academy’s equestrian show in western France, as the Ecole Nationale d’Équitation marks its 200th anniversary this year

LOIC VENANCE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Bethany Joseph has her pick of early-blooming lavender at Cadwell Farm in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Fields are in flower two weeks ahead of schedule after England’s driest spring on record

BAV MEDIA

Visitors pause at the Singing Ringing Tree sculpture above Burnley, Lancashire, which plays notes as the wind passes through its steel pipes

MARTIN RICKETT/PA

Smart set? The All England Lawn Tennis Club, based at Wimbledon, is launching a Court to Club fashion range as new research shows tennis is booming in popularity — especially among younger Brits

Victoria Rees, 70, has painted her neighbour, farmer Dave Newman, almost every Tuesday for the past 13 years in her Gloucestershire studio to help sharpen her portraiture skills — and her speed

ZACHARYCULPIN/BNPS