Tag Archives: 51

Aug 17 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Ben Lawers

Monday 16th August 2021, 11.55am (day 3,644)

Ben Lawers, 17/8/21

Ben Lawers towers over the shore of Loch Tay and, at 3,983 feet (1,214m), is the tenth-highest mountain in the UK. In the whole country south of this point, there is no higher land. Tell you what though, it made me work to bag it; the day was a classic illustration of how conditions can deteriorate with altitude. This walker was heading up it after the worst had passed — which is more than can be said for me. See the County Tops blog for the gory details and more pictures.

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Aug 17 2021
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Keeper of the Crannog

Sunday 15th August 2021, 2.10pm (day 3,643)

Crannog keeper, 15/8/21

A day spent between walks. Did another dose of museum instead, specifically the ‘Scottish Crannog Centre‘ on Loch Tay. A crannog, it seems, is an Iron Age dwelling built on an artificial island in the loch; there are reckoned to be many of these throughout Scotland and Ireland. This centre had a reproduction of one, until it burnt down last year — the impressive thing is that the place was still interesting and good value without it. That had a huge amount to do with the staff, including this guy, clearly the boss, but his minions earned their wages too.

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Aug 15 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Old Military Road

Saturday 14th August 2021, 10.05am (day 3,642)

Old Military Road, 14/8/21

The A93 runs north from the town of Blairgowrie, in Perthshire, to Braemar in Aberdeenshire. Just north of this point — and a couple of hundred feet below the point from where I took this picture, looking back into Glen Shee — the tarmac reaches the Cairnwell Pass, which at 2,199 feet above sea level, makes it the highest public road in the whole of the UK. It’s called the ‘Old Military Road’ as it was originally built as part of the general plan to assert military dominance over the Highlands of Scotland after the last Jacobite rebellion in the 1700s.

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Aug 15 2021
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Daily Post, Interior

The ghost of New Lanark

Friday 13th August 2021, 12.35pm (day 3,641)

New Lanark ghost, 13/8/21

On Friday 13th, let’s go ghost-spotting. This spectral figure appeared from round some old cotton-spinning equipment in a former mill at New Lanark, Robert Owen’s planned industrial settlement in the gorge of the River Clyde. Or maybe it’s just a projection in one corner of the museum, visited as we made our way to Scotland to begin (finally) a summer holiday. But whether put on for the tourists or not, it’s still a ghost, in some form.

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Aug 12 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

On the threshhold

Thursday 12th August 2021, 3.50pm (day 3,640)

Dog, Railway entrance, 12/8/21

The 2020-21 academic year has been buggered about with, and broken, and (for me) unusually extended — but as of this afternoon, at about 3pm, it is OVER. I am on holiday. Could say ‘feels good’. The reality — more like this.

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Aug 12 2021
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The condiments are ready

Wednesday 11th August 2021, 9.55am (day 3,639)

Old Gate condiments, 11/8/21

They start serving early at the Old Gate pub/restaurant in town. The condiments are set and prepared even before 10am. Off they stretch into the distance, like little table-set skyscrapers.

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Aug 11 2021
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

The stewards, Blackburn

Tuesday 10th August 2021, 7.35pm (day 3,638)

Stewards, Blackburn, 10/8/21

My latest trip to Ewood Park, this time to see Morecambe FC (still buoyed up by their recent win at Wembley) play Blackburn Rovers in the League Cup. The stewards had plenty of visiting Morecambe fans to deal with but not, it has to be said, a great many Blackburnians. Perhaps this was because they knew the result was fated, as I was in attendance. This was my fifth visit to the ground as far as I can ascertain, and Blackburn Rovers have now lost every one of them: a 1-2 defeat to the mighty Shrimps this evening continuing the run. I won’t be back for a little while, guys, I promise.

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Aug 10 2021
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Tuco fruits

Monday 9th August 2021, 1.35pm (day 3,637)

Chillis, 9/8/21

Our latest chilli plant. It was Clare who christened it ‘Tuco’, after Tuco Salamanca, the ridiculously fiery Mexican in the first couple of seasons of Breaking Bad. Only we have already eaten one of the three fruits it has produced so far, and it turned out to be very mild, so perhaps it’s misnamed. We should call it Jesse Pinkman instead, perhaps.

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Aug 09 2021
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait, Sport

St Pol Striders, 24 hours in

Sunday 8th August 2021, 11.40am (day 3,636)

St Pol striders, 8/8/21

The Striders are a local running group. Yesterday, they set out to run a 5km lap, on the hour, every hour, for 24 hours. This was taken at the end of the last one. Jilly, in the middle with the white top, did 20 of these laps — thus, she has run 100km (or over 60 miles) since Saturday, with a couple of hours of dozing at about 3am. I am in awe of this; if I walk more than about 10 miles these days I feel knackered and have to rest for a day or so.

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Aug 08 2021
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The Goole giraffe

Saturday 7th August 2021, 12.55pm (day 3,635)

Goole giraffe, 7/8/21

Taking photos for its own sake means that almost anywhere becomes interesting on a first visit. When the destination is a landscape of industrial decline, on the scale of this one — the town of Goole, in East Yorkshire — there’s enough to keep me going for the whole day, and it’s a shame, in this case, that I just restrict myself to one photo per post. This is my choice — the first giraffe to appear on here? Well, it looks like that to me.

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