Tag Archives: Scotland

Jul 21 2019
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Daily Post, Family Member, Landscape, Portrait

Crossing Allt a’ Mhuillin

Saturday 20th July 2019, 2.20pm (day 2,886)

Crossing Allt a'Mhuillin, 20/7/19

Ben Nevis is a mountain of two sides, for sure. On the south side, a vast but rather dull slope up which hundreds toil daily; the payoff for climbing continuously for three hours being the chance to attain the status of Most Elevated Person in Great Britain, at 4,411 feet (or 1,345 metres). We secured this goal at 11.24am.

But going up that way doesn’t show you the other side, the North Face, with its stupendous crags and (after the tourist path) blissful sollitude. This is the connoisseur’s side of the mountain, the place where you can really look up and feel, yep: this is the culminating point of the whole country, it really doesn’t get any bigger than this.

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Jul 19 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

The River Nevis

Friday 19th July 2019, 8.05pm (day 2,885)

River Nevis, 19/7/19

The lump in the background is the lower slope of Ben Nevis, highest mountain in Great Britain and something I have decided it is past time I hauled myself up. Thus, it is tomorrow’s target for a walk. Here’s hoping for somewhat better weather than we had this evening — but it is forecast to be… wish me luck.

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Feb 17 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Firth of Forth, from Aberdour

Sunday 17th February 2019, 11.00am (day 2,733)

Firth of Forth, 17/2/19

When I said yesterday that I was close by friends, I meant Pegs and Dan, who live in the highly attractive place that is Aberdour, and which we last visited in May, when the views were just as good as they were today. That’s Edinburgh over there — see Arthur’s Seat to the left, the castle in the centre. A hard place to just walk away from, but I have to go home, and will be back some day.

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Feb 17 2019
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Daily Post, Sport

On the attack

Saturday 16th February 2019, 4.05pm (day 2,732)

Burntisland Shipyard, 16/2/19

It’s been a little while (three weeks) since my football habit directly made an appearance on the blog but I like this shot. The blues, Burntisland Shipyard, on the attack here, scored a last-minute goal to win 3-2. Why did I come to this game? I just like the name. Burntisland Shipyard. (And I have friends who live down the road.)

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Feb 16 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

Loch Carron

Friday 15th February 2019, 10.55am (day 2,731)

Loch Carron, 15/2/19

Another shot taken out of the windows of a moving train — grubby windows too. But I think the dirt is disguished well enough on this shot, taken from near Attadale station on the rather pretty Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh line. The sort of train journey that it’s slightly pointless to take for any reason other than just to do the journey…. but there are good enough reasons for that.

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Feb 14 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

Clachnaharry sea lock, Caledonian Canal

Thursday 14th February 2019, 2.55pm (day 2,730)

Caledonian canal, 14/2/19

This is Clachnaharry sea lock, the northern end of the Caledonian Canal, completed in 1822 after a mammoth building project that finished years later than planned and way over budget, and so late that one main reason for building it — to protect shipping against Napoleon — had become obsolete years before thanks to Waterloo. Sounds like some modern infrastructure projects we could all name.

I did get another half-decent picture of the Old Town in Edinburgh this morning but having done that yesterday, let’s choose one from further north on the day’s journey. Taken through the window of the train as it left Inverness (which is my excuse for the grainy quality); but that was the way I saw most of the day.

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Feb 14 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

On the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Wednesday 13th February 2019, 11.50am (honestly) (day 2,729)

Royal Mile, 13/2/19I’m travelling again. Like with my trip to Sussex and London two weeks ago (but hopefully this time without the day ill in the middle of it), this is a writing retreat — I have things to get down on paper, and sitting on my arse at home for days on end is not conducive for this. Hence, Scotland, today and for the next four days as well.

This clock is inaccurate, by the way. I promise.

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Jul 29 2018
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Daily Post, Sport

Start of the season

Saturday 28th July 2018, 3.00pm (day 2,529)

Gretna FC, 28/7/18

It’s that 3pm Saturday feeling again. OK, I admit it, this is actually my second game of the 2018-19  season — you don’t think I went to Rhyl on the 12th just to take the air, now, did you? — but the first to be depicted on here. The balmy weather broke definitively, particularly over Gretna, which is just over the border in Scotland and was whipped all day by a very chilly wind coming straight off the Irish Sea. Under this grey blanket Gretna FC, in white, and Edinburgh University FC trot out for their first game of their seasons, in the Lowland League, all full of optimism and hope, something that 90 minutes later the students probably maintained better than their hosts, seeing as they deservedly won 3-0.

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May 08 2018
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Daily Post, Landscape

Aberdour beach and the Firth of Forth

Monday 7th May 2018, 12.25pm (day 2,447)

Aberdour beach, 7/5/18

A glorious — and three-day — weekend continues with the chance to spend a Monday relaxing with our friends in Aberdour and exploring its stellar beaches: this one, known (erroneously) as Black Sands is particularly fine. This weekend has reminded me why I should come to Scotland more often.

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May 06 2018
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Daily Post, Transport

Forth road bridge

Sunday 6th May 2018, 4.55pm (day 2,446)

Forth Bridge, 6/5/18

We didn’t just visit Scotland for a melancholy afternoon at Raith Rovers. On the second day of three, we drove both ways across this fine transportation architecture. The new Forth Bridge was built after the old one started pinging apart a few years ago. Like the other two monumental bridges — now, one rail, two road, and one from each of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries — it is an elegant structure, worth crossing just for the hell of it.

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