Tag Archives: Scotland

Dec 24 2023
Leave a comment
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.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 17 2023
1 Comment
Art and architecture, Daily Post

In Broughton

Sunday 16th July 2023, 12 noon (day 4,343)

In Broughton, 16/7/23

Our nine days in Scotland come to an end. A fine trip, although a lot of driving — all by me — including today’s six-hour stint from Dundee back to West Yorkshire. Over the last two years this has become a familiar journey, and we know where to stop for tea, lunch, the toilet, etc: and also photo opportunities, as I can’t shoot whilst driving. Broughton, a little village nestling in the Scottish Borders, has become one of those spots. There’s a great little tea room just to the left of this shot. This house has a pleasing look to it but yes, the straight line on the left (coming off a telegraph pole I presume) does bother me.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Jul 16 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Landscape

Beauly Firth

Saturday 15th July 2023, 1.55pm (day 4,342)

Beauly Firth, 15/7/23

Let’s permit Scotland to offer up its combination of mountain and seascape one more time before we have to head home. The Beauly Firth is the far end of the Moray Firth; this shot is looking inland, to the Highlands beyond. And yes, somewhere over there it is raining.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 15 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Golden eagle in flight

Friday 14th July 2023, 1.05pm (day 4,341)

Golden eagle, 14/7/23

Back in 2012, in the Lake District, I pictured a vague blob in the far distance that may or may not have been a golden eagle. But this one is definite. You may, of course, live in a part of the world where these noble creatures hang out on street corners, but that’s not the case in Great Britain — except, it seems, in the far north of Scotland, where this huge bird took off from some trees nearby as I passed and flapped lazily overhead for a while. Until uploading the pic later and checking the details I wasn’t sure of the species, but the wingtip feathers are the giveaway: an eagle it is.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 13 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Landscape

Thurso beach

Thursday 13th July 2023, 11.25am (day 4,340)

OK, it’s another beach (after Monday), but Scotland is a country that does very good beaches — they’re just not very warm. This becomes the northernmost picture so far taken in the UK, a position it will retain until I finally make it to Shetland or Orkney. It will probably forever remain the northernmost picture taken on the mainland of Great Britain, at around 58º 36′ N.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 13 2023
1 Comment
Daily Post, Landscape

Morning run, Cromarty Firth

Wednesday 12th July 2023, 8.55am (day 4,339)

Cromarty Firth run, 12/7/23

More athleticism. Clare is in training and demanded a hill to run up. The tiny settlement of Nigg, on the Cromarty Firth, obliged this morning. The return to the Black Isle region was motivated largely by my desire to get more photographs of it, particularly of this firth thanks to its collection of old oil rigs and vessels that are either mothballed or being decommissioned. It’s proof that industry need not wreck a landscape.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 12 2023
1 Comment
Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Salmon leap, Rogie Falls

Tuesday 11th July 2023, 4.00pm (day 4,338)

Salmon leap, 11/7/23

Rogie Falls, near Strathpeffer, are touted as a place where one can see salmon travelling upstream to spawn and doing their leaps: but I must admit on first sight, I was sceptical. These were not minor rapids but a powerful cascade, thundering over several drops, of which the highest one, pictured here, must have been at least twenty or thirty feet high. Surely no living creature could possibly get up this, against the flow — particularly not one without arms, legs or heavy machinery.

Well, I was wrong. And I have to say that I now have a new-found respect for this species. There have to be easier ways to live out one’s lifecycle, though.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 11 2023
1 Comment
Daily Post, Landscape

Avoch Beach

Monday 10th July 2023, 3.50pm (day 4,337)

Avoch beach, 10/7/23

The Black Isle, just north of Inverness, is actually a peninsula rather than an island, though it is almost cut off by rivers. It previously featured, thanks to Fortrose Ness, on my trip round Scotland last May, and as it seemed a pleasant spot I have returned, this time bringing Clare along (although that’s not her in the shot). Avoch beach is just up the Beauly Firth from Fortrose; the latter remains the northernmost British location to feature on here but that is a distinction it will lose by the end of this week.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jul 09 2023
1 Comment
Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Sport

Watching the game

Saturday 8th July 2023, 4.05pm (day 4,335)

Dog, Penicuik Athletic, 8/7/23

What better things are there to do on a Saturday than watch some footie? The dog may or may not agree but it looks interested enough. Taken at Penicuik Athletic FC, and Penicuik, just south of Edinburgh, thereby becomes the 435th different place to feature on here; expect a few more new locations to turn up over the next week…

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
May 09 2023
Leave a comment
Daily Post, Urban scene

The Duke’s permanent adornment

Monday 8th May 2023, 10.25am (day 4,274)

Duke of Wellington statue, 8/5/23

This statue of the Duke of Wellington stands in Glasgow, and since the 1980s has famously been adorned, a lot of the time anyway, by a traffic cone. Not specifically this cone, as until fairly recently the city council would dutifully remove each one as it appeared, but another would invariably return not long after. More recently everyone seems to have decided that this ‘tradition’ is not only harmless, but actually interesting and ‘ironic’ in a sort of postmodern way. Local Glaswegian sense of humour, ho ho, isn’t it quaint. I saw a guide going on about it to a group of tourists today, for heaven’s sake.

However, I think what it really is, and certainly what it started as, is pure mockery of the rich and powerful, and of Authority generally, and frankly I think we would benefit from a lot more of this kind of thing — particularly after the weekend just gone. The horse’s jauntier crown can be read a little differently, perhaps.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →