Dec 27 2023
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Daily Post, Landscape

Driving through total crap for five hours

Wednesday 27th December 2023, 11.25am (day 4,507)

Crap drive home, 27/12/23

This is a totally crap picture, but it epitomises the day, entirely. The sunshine of Boxing Day was not sustained. We left Dundee at about 9am, I gritted my teeth and drove, and we staggered into Morecambe at about 2pm — an hour longer than it should have taken — battered by high winds, driving rain, surface water, low visibility, the lot. This is taken somewhere in the wilds of the Southern Uplands, in the indefinable watershed country between Tweeddale and Annandale, when I just had to pull over and stop for a few minutes. 

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Dec 27 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The Kelpies

Tuesday 26th December 2023, 1.30pm (day 4,506)

Kelpies.26/12/23

The Kelpies are sculptures a hundred feet high that sit beside the M9 motorway in Falkirk, Scotland. They are certainly impressive although I don’t quite see the point. Yes, it would be nicer if the pylons weren’t there, but never mind, you are meant to be distracted by the penetrating stare of the one on the left, while the other does that whole head-tossing thing, all in tons of steel. 

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Dec 27 2023
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Daily Post, Transport, Urban scene

The Tay Bridge, from Dundee Law

Monday 25th December 2023, 11.55am (day 4,505)

Tay Bridge, from the Law, 25/12/23

Ummed and ahhed over this one for a while (two days, as you can see) but in the end I decided to go for something without a Christmas reference at all. Except, of course, in what I’ve just said. Anyway — a view from my morning exertion up Dundee Law, the walk I usually try to take on Christmas morning in advance of the food bloat that is to come. This is only the second Christmas of my life that I have spent in Scotland, after a not-so-fondly remembered time in a cabin on Loch Awe in 1992.

Anyway — if a bit belatedly, a I hope you all had a happy Christmas, however you spent it. 

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Dec 24 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Balgay Hill cemetery

Sunday 24th December 2023, 1.55pm (day 4,504)

Balgay Hill, 24/12/23

A lush scene for Christmas Eve, particularly after yesterday. The cemetery on top of Balgay Hill in Dundee was a real discovery of the day. Just one of its memorial stones is pictured here but this is a huge necropolis, backed by the Firth of Tay, the hills on the far side of which are just visible here. A very un-Decemberish shot, but that’s why I’ve picked it. For tomorrow, Happy Christmas…

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Dec 24 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Coatbridge: a ‘most dismal’ town?

Saturday 23rd December 2023, 1.25pm (day 4,503)

Coatbridge tower block, 23/12/23

After a month where I felt I’d barely left the house, time to go a-travelling again, and this is Scotland’s first appearance on here since we came back from our holiday in July. Coatbridge, a few miles east of Glasgow, has had a bad rep down the years; notoriously polluted and run-down in the early 20th century, and arguably, in decline ever since, in 2007 it was apparently voted ‘Scotland’s Most Dismal Town’. But we passed through today and I thought it was OK. The Stalinist apartment-block architecture doesn’t give it glamour but it at least gives the photography some interest. Not to mention the stadium of Albion Rovers FC just down the road, but that’s another story, for a different social medium.

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Dec 23 2023
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Daily Post, Interior

Double bill (with Renton and Sick Boy)

Friday 22nd December 2023, 3.25pm (day 4,502)

Trainspotting, 22/12/23

For the last few weeks things have been very uneventful thanks mainly to lots of work plus bad weather. Today was the first day of my Christmas break — but we still had the bad weather, and mainly for that reason, it remained uneventful. But I can sit on the bed and watch DVD double bills like this in mid-afternoon and not feel guilty. In the background, Sick Boy delivers his speech about ‘first you’ve got it, then you’ve lost it’ while Renton looks out for air rifle prey. You’ve seen Trainspotting, right?

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Dec 22 2023
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Windy

Thursday 21st December 2023, 3.50pm (day 4,501)

Bin down, 21/12/23

Wind is the hardest weather condition of all to capture adequately on camera — but it was very windy today. We will rebuild, however.

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Dec 20 2023
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

Market Street, round the back

Wednesday 20th December 2023, 4.20pm (day 4,500)

Squat the airbnbs, 20/12/23

It’s a valid political opinion. Whether anyone pays attention is a different matter.

This has hardly been the most eventful December — not a single photo in the month so far has been taken further than 30 miles from home — but this will change soon enough. Today is also day 4,500 of the blog, a nice round number: I have done one of my periodic updates of the stats, a page which if nothing else, proves quite how anal I am.

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Dec 20 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Stadium car park

Tuesday 19th December 2023, 7.35pm (day 4,499)

I’m still working, and didn’t leave the house today until after dark, so the choice of picture was, as much as anything else, governed by when and where my rather inadequate camera coped best with the murk and gloom. With some help given by the lights of the stadium ahead, this one won. That does make it two car parks in a row, but hey.

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Dec 18 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Synchronised goose exercises

Monday 18th December 2023, 11.50am (day 4,498)

Car park geese, 18/12/23

These geese literally live in the car park of the Co-op supermarket in Hebden Bridge, and have done for some time. Today, the synchronous exercises: though Gertrude on the right has gone for the ‘tuck’ a little early.

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