I did want to get a photo of Joe posted from this weekend; after all we did go all the way to Scotland just to check up on him. Well, mostly. This is the first time he has appeared on here since July 23rd last year.
The orange-and-black colour scheme illustrates that we spent the afternoon at Tannadice Park, home of Dundee United FC — whose record against Barcelona is played four, won four, by the way. Labouring somewhat against Inverness Caledonian Thistle (it was 1-1) did not seem to please the locals particularly. At least the sun was shining. Meanwhile, I noticed the cranes of the shipyard behind and decided to see what I could do with the camera.
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.
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…
I am still finding the light input of my new camera somewhat difficult to set accurately. Most of the time I get it to acceptable levels that reflect the environment but other times it’s way up or down, with unpredictable results. But ‘unpredictable’ can also mean ‘interesting’ and ‘not what was expected’ — as with here. This room, showing the introductory movie at the Discovery Point centre in Dundee, was quite dark when I took this one. It worked, though.
It’s not really accurate to say that we came up to Dundee to bring Joe “home” for Christmas. Home, for him, is up here now. You can’t see the windows of his place on this shot but it’s close by. But he was returned to Yorkshire, at least — by 4pm. I like the zones of red on this shot, spacing themselves across the bottom.
The Winter Solstice was spent getting the Christmas shopping done in Dundee, which among other things, is the home of D. C. Thomson, publisher of the famous (in the UK, anyway) comics the Beano and Dandy. The latter no longer comes out except as an annual, but for the 75 years that it was published, the character Desperate Dan was in every issue: and here is his statue in the city centre. The other shoppers don’t seem bothered, though.
Back to Dundee then, and back to the storage facility, in which, a few weeks ago, the contents of Joe’s room in halls were deposited. This place reminds me of nothing so much as that scene in Matrix: Reloaded where there are all these ‘back doors’. I expected a hundred Agent Smiths to leap out at us.
For the duration of this visit, and certainly today, its final morning, Dundee has basked in balmy sunshine that is atypical for the city. It contributed to a pleasantly chilled out wait for the train heading back south, which I think this couple epitomise. (My journey was fine all the way to Bradford, after which it descended into a farce of the kind only Northern Rail seem able to manufacture, but that’s another story, hours in the future.)
In the Blackness area of Dundee there is this huge old industrial complex, now abandoned and crumbling. Open doors and windows allow views inside here and there, like this one, which I nearly entitled ‘Arson attack waiting to happen’: tyres burn most satisfactorily, and for a long time. The place is for sale, and I wonder whether there is profit in buying it and keeping it this way, as a film set or somewhere that urban explorers can simply be let loose to play.
Being 42 