Friday 24th May 2024, 5.25pm (day 4,656)
I’m as satisfied with this portrait as I can be. Important elements come together: the woman walking past; his ankle (and what it implies); the just-lit cigarette.
On Union Street
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: Scotland
The Forth Road bridges
Friday 22nd March 2024, 2.50pm (day 4,593)
On the journey to Dundee, whether made by car or train, crossing the Firth of Forth is always a highlight. Today, a mostly sunny train journey was interrupted by occasional heavy showers and one of these kicked in just as we left Inverkeithing, but that didn’t matter, this shot will still do (particularly as to get any picture from the rail bridge itself involves timing it very well to avoid getting big, red chunks of steel in the way). Here, you in fact see both road bridges: the roadway in view is that of the first, 20th century version, since superseded by the 21st century bridge whose stanchion and (just) cables are the ones behind.
Driving through total crap for five hours
Wednesday 27th December 2023, 11.25am (day 4,507)
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.
The Kelpies
Tuesday 26th December 2023, 1.30pm (day 4,506)
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.
The Tay Bridge, from Dundee Law
Monday 25th December 2023, 11.55am (day 4,505)
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.
Coatbridge: a ‘most dismal’ town?
Saturday 23rd December 2023, 1.25pm (day 4,503)
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.
In Broughton
Sunday 16th July 2023, 12 noon (day 4,343)
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.
Beauly Firth
Saturday 15th July 2023, 1.55pm (day 4,342)
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.
Golden eagle in flight
Friday 14th July 2023, 1.05pm (day 4,341)
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.
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.
Being 42 