landscape – Page 35 – My Photo Blog

Fish – 18 October 2016

Posted on October 18, 2016October 20, 2016 by Zogman

This morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish. It was either Linlithgow (which has an actual fishmongers) or Morrisons in Falkirk (which has a good fish counter – no, he doesn’t actually count the little fishes, it’s not that sort of counter). We opted for Linlithgow because it’s quite scenic, if a little twee and I might just find something to photograph. It was a bad move.

I’d forgotten that Linlithgow actually welcomes people to park cars, vans and lorries at the side of the narrow road. It also encourages farmers to drive their massive pumped up tractors and slurry tanks at full legal tilt down the congested main street. Today, just to confuse the unwary and annoy me in particular, they also decided to start roadworks at the three way roundabout at the end of the town with three way traffic lights to raise the blood pressure of all and sundry. This meant a crawl behind a snaking caterpillar (is that mixed metaphors?) of cars, vans and buses through this historic town. We did eventually get to the carpark and the fishmongers and get the fish, but I couldn’t be bothered going to get some photos and end up getting mired in more traffic chaos to get back out of the town. I wanted to get the dinner on by about 5pm and it was already after 1pm. I wasn’t sure we’d get out of the congestion by 5. As it happened, the traffic heading west was easy peasy and we scooted home in double quick time.

When I took the shopping bag with the fish out of the boot there was a decidedly fishy smell coming from it, but hey, there WERE fish in the bag, what do you expect. It wasn’t until we were unloading the shopping bag that we noticed a few of the individual bags were leaking fishy juices into the shopper. Oops, straight into the washing machine with that then.

Since we’d made such good time coming home, I thought I’d take myself off for a walk before dinner and I’d drive down to Auchinstarry for a change. Dumped my camera bag in the boot – fishy smell still there, and off I went. Got to Auchinstarry and while retrieving my camera bag I spied the culprit. The lining of my lightweight rainproof jacket was soaked with fishy goodness. That explained the smell. Hmm, straight into the washing machine with that too when I get back.

Today’s photos:

Young deer hiding in dried reeds. It didn’t run because it knew there was a 3m drop and a 5m wide torrent to cross before I’d be anywhere near.
Two young horsewomen riding through the trees. Incongruously, one of them was smoking a fag (cigarette to any American readers who may be conjuring up very strange images 🙂 )
Bramble leaves soaked with sugar (that’s what makes the colour). I promised myself that I wouldn’t photograph leaves this autumn. That didn’t last long.
Abandoned farmhouse on the Campsie Fells. Lovely warm textures from the glancing sunlight attracted me.
Crows and pigeons rising from their late afternoon feed in the corn field. A bit of fakery in this shot to lighten the corn without lightening the trees too much in the background.

Today’s Inktober is an old house near the railway walk. In real life, it’s gloomier than this sketch shows, but it’s a fair representation of this old and rather sinister looking house. It sits behind a wood and from the path you are looking through the trees at it. I only managed a quick, twenty minute max, sketch before the midgies really got to me and I had to move on.

So, back to the house and dump that waterproof jacket in the washing machine. Thankfully it’s made of nylon, so I’m hoping:

It will still be waterproof
The smell won’t he stuck in the fibres

I’ll find out tomorrow when it’s dry again.

Tonight’s dinner was Simple Fish Stew which came from BBC Good Food. Recipe here.

More sunny spells expected tomorrow. Viva the Jet Stream!

PS To those who didn’t get the photos, but presumably have them now, the WiFi died last night and didn’t come on again until this morning. Virgin Media apologises for the lack of connectivity – Aye Right!

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

Posted on October 15, 2016October 15, 2016 by Zogman

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere. I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today. Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then. Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops. Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car. It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag. It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway. Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government. Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive. Whatever next? They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving! Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home. The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out. I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch. It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector. That’s all they did really. They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise. Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers. Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on? It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire. I digress – as usual. I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot. I had something in the bag at last.

Today is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in. Pass this and you’re on the home stretch. I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same. Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

The Sound of Silence – 13 October 2016

Posted on October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 by Zogman

He came! He actually came and within twenty minutes the aerial was down and dismantled. The aerial man gave us back the sound of silence. To paraphrase Stuart MacBride’s heroine Detective Chief Inspector Steel, “Seventy five quid plus VAT? My sharny ¹ arse!” This guy did the job and we thank him very much … we did pay him too.

Earlier in the day, Scamp met her aunt and managed to establish the identity of a great many people in a sixty year old wedding photo. It made me think that in today’s world where so many of our photos, even wedding photos are not printed, how will we perform a similar task in the future. Will we still be able to view those videos on their lovely shiny DVDs engraved with the movie highlights of today’s wedding groups? Will the photos that are printed using ink on ‘archival’ paper last for sixty years? Will the resolution of the full frame CCD be as good as the old fashioned 6×6 TLR? Not a chance. The other thing we need is to record the names and fit them to the faces of the people in those photos. I realised too late, after my father died, that I’d lost touch with all those people whose faces I saw in the old photos. They were also dead, but they had also taken their identities with them. What I urge you to do is to record, preferably in ink and on paper, the names of the faces in your old photos, and if you don’t have physical photos, print them out on the best quality paper you can afford. It’s not for you, it’s for the ones who come after you. They are the ones who will be left scratching their heads after you can’t be relied upon to enlighten them.

Today’s PoD was taken on the east of Fannyside Moor looking towards Slamannan. It’s a great place for Big Skies and this certainly was a big sky. I like it because it’s a place where you can just watch the clouds rolling past without cars constantly zipping past. The only traffic today was a lady on a bike who was riding a tail-wind. I hope she had already cycled the head-wind part of the route and was on her way home.

Today’s Inktober drawing was of the church in Cumbernauld Village and is a building I’ve been meaning to draw for some time. It really is the most awkward shape with bits apparently added on at different times in its history. The windows, especially seem to have been placed wherever the builder found a space for them. Only the tops of the upper windows line up properly and some have lots of small panes of glass while others have fewer, larger panes. In all, I was pleased with the finished sketch, probably even more so because I sketched it in the open air. I’m not French, so why should I call it en plein air. That’s just being a poser, or should that be poseur?

Tomorrow is unplanned as yet, but it will not include listening to the crows landing on that aerial or dreading the screech of it rotating in its rusty bracket. The bracket is gone, the pole that held the aerial has been recycled and the aerial itself is in a skip. I love the sound of silence.

Befouled with dung. Merriam-Webster ↩

Another day waiting for the aerial man – 12 October 2016

Posted on October 12, 2016October 12, 2016 by Zogman

The bloke who was going to take down that bloody aerial failed to turn up today. Different bloke from the last time, different day, same result. Now he says he’ll be here tomorrow. Do we believe him?

Went out early for some photos in the sunshine in St Mo’s. Got one of Mr Grey preening. Unless he’s lost a lot of weight, I don’t think this is the real Mr Grey, more likely it’s a body double. The real Mr Grey has probably flown south for the winter and he’s arranged this substitute to make it look as if he’s still here. The body double probably even collects the real Mr Grey’s Giro. Yes, I know that we don’t do Giros any more, but unemployed bird still use them, because they don’t do internet banking. Anyway, the green leaves were growing from a storm felled tree. There must have been enough continuity between trunk and roots to keep the transfer of sugars and starches. The landscape is from St Mo’s and is of clouds breaking over the Meikle Bin above and beyond Kilsyth. The wee spider was climbing a tree and if you look closely at the Flickr version, you will notice that he’s got his safety rope securely fixed to a branch. Even spiders have to be careful these days.

I’ve been following “The Constant Doodler” and today’s Inktober sketch is my first attempt at his signature One Line drawing where his pen never leaves the paper until the drawing is finished. It’s much more difficult than it looks. Try it sometime and you’ll discover just how much planning is required before you start.

Other than that, it was another dull day after the promise of the morning’s weather. There was a bit of rain in the evening and more if forecast tomorrow. Maybe that will give the aerial man another excuse to avoid the demolition of the bloody aerial. But then you never know. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be celebrating the removal of this piece of roof architecture.

Rainy, Windy Friday – 23 September 2016

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Zogman

I was tardy this morning, very tardy. I woke just before 8am and the next thing I knew was when Scamp gave me a prod and asked if I was GETTING UP!

After breakfast we drove to Portree to post a postcard to one of our friends. After that we went to Jans Vans for lunch. It was Scamp who noticed that it was predominately locals who were sitting in the cafe. If it wasn’t for Jac1 telling us about it we wouldn’t have considered it and after yesterday’s upset stomach, which I must lay at Café Arriba’s door, it was brilliant by comparison. Just a simple sausage, egg and bacon with toast and tea for a decent price. The best thing is the decoration. It’s bike porn. Not like the last definition of Bike Porn, just unusual cafe decoration.

Left Jans Vans and headed up to the north of the island again and this time we were looking to follow in Jac2’s footsteps and go to Camas Mòr. Scamp told me we’d been there before and I remembered the ruined church when we came off the main road. It looked a bit creepy the last time I went there, probably around 15 years ago and it didn’t look any more welcoming today. I remembered that Murd didn’t say much about it and if he hasn’t got a funny story to tell you about something, then there’s a reason for that.

Further on we reached the shore and sat there beside one other car in the car park watching the waves crashing on the far shore. I did eventually decide to face the elements and take some photos. That’s what contributes to most of today’s mosaic. It wasn’t very comfortable with rain being driven over the bay on a gusty wind, but that’s what makes a 365 (or a 366 this year) so interesting. You just have to go out there and get the photos taken. After that one of the locals wanted access to the slip and we were in the way, so that was as good an excuse as any to head back to Staffin.

I’d half intended going back out to the slip to see if I could get any more photos, but the wind and the rain made me think twice. I eventually decided that I’d forego the pleasure of taking photos on that great place for the comfort of a coal fire in the sitting room. I think it’s the sight and sound of coal fires as much as the heat that attracts me. Yes, I know that they are a nuisance to clean out and prepare, but they are so welcoming. So much more welcoming than central heating with all the benefits of the modern equivalent. I’d love a coal fire again. I haven’t lived in a house with one for over 30 years and still I hanker for one. I’ll just have to be satisfied with borrowing one for a few days in Skye.

Until the next time, goodbye to this island. Homeward bound tomorrow.

Windy & Bright – 22 September 2016

Posted on September 22, 2016September 25, 2016 by Zogman

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Sitting in the Coffin House in Skye. Having coffee, eating a brownie and gazing at a wide, wide landscape. Scamp is eating something unpronounceable (Pear and Almond Streusel I’m reliably informed!) with coffee. What a place to build your house! Just imagine waking to this view every morning!

At least, that’s where we were. Now we’re in Cafe Arriba in Portree. Globetrotters that’s us.

Or at least we were. Now the big hand’s almost at 6 and the little hand is heading rapidly towards 12, that’s 12pm! It’s been a lovely day and I’m trying to catalog it before it becomes tomorrow.

After we left the Coffin House or Turf House to give it its proper name and to be absolutely perjinct, the house is called the Turf House, but we were in the adjoining coffee shop and its proper name is Single Track. It’s in Kilmaluig on Skye. It was Murd who christened it the Coffin House because of the elongated hexagonal plan view of the house itself, although the coffee shop is actually in what is the studio of the house, not the house itself. They tried to name it Turf House, but to the locals it will always be the Coffin House. Inside the cafe it’s warm and quite spacious with that wonderful view out to the sea. I went there hoping to see some of Wil Freeborn’s watercolour paintings, but they were almost all sold. Only one left and priced at £90 was outwith my pocket money. I wasn’t all that impressed with it either. The two ladies who run the cafe were very forthcoming about Wil and told me that the paintings had almost sold out within a week of opening. His stuff is good, well, I like it.

After Coffin Coffee we went on a run to Aird. We’d been there in March? The last time we’d been on the island anyway and found a fairly sheltered parking place out of the worst of the wind and sat there watching the world go by. Scamp wanted to go there again today and we spent another hour and a big bit watching the world go by again. I got a fairly decent watercolour done of the wee white house in the mosaic above. I’d painted it the last time we were there too and I don’t think today’s effort was better. Only had one interruption by a bloke wanting to get directions to Flodigarry. We sent him in roughly the right direction, hoping he’d bump into someone who would give him a more accurate road.

When we left Aird, we headed south to Portree for more high jinx trying to second guess what the stupid motorists would do before they did it. You can never tell when some people want to drive at 10mph through the town, signal left then go right while others are trying to perform a 93 point turn in the middle of the main street with a camper van. I really do despair of the intelligence of these drivers. I’m sure they’re the ones who voted Out at the EU referendum.

Lunch was at Café Arriba in Portree and I’m suffering for it tonight. I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve been to the toilet. Maybe the last time for this lunch venue.

After lunch we went to Braes which is out on a headland just south of Portree. We managed to go on another new road! Got some photos and came back by a really dodgy under maintained road. Not very funny at all. However, we didn’t meet any of the stupids this time … thankfully.

Coming back north we stopped at Storr Lochs and grabbed a few more shots before dropping Scamp off at Burnside and heading down to the shore to get the last few shots of the day. Saw a strange looking lorry down at the slip with a wide door in the side and what looked like a stage or a catwalk extending from it. A mobile theatre perhaps? On Skye?? Got a few shots of Staffin Island and then the rain came on, right on the forecast time.

Tomorrow looks like rain all day.

On the Isle – 20 September 2016

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Zogman

Here we are on Skye after a 240(ish) mile journey which took the nominal 7 hours which equates to around 34 mph average. Of course that doesn’t take into account stops to take on food and water or to ahem, remove the byproducts from the system. Real average speed was nearer 45 mph. That’s still slow by today’s standard, but given the traffic and the roads we were travelling on, was quite good going.

It was a beautiful morning when we left home and pointed the car roughly north, and the weather stayed that way all the way to Skye. We’d been warned that there were a lot of visitors on the island, but we weren’t really ready for the amount of tour buses and mobile homes we encountered on the journey. In Sligachan campsite alone, we counted 15 of these pantechnicons cluttering up the place. Really, people do you NEED to take absolutely everything with you when you go on hols? My brother-in-law was an HGV driver and was telling us tonight that he had to sit a second test to be able to drive heavy lorries, yes most of these ugly homes-on-wheels are driven by amateurs with the road sense of a chimpanzee. I’m sure most of the vehicles are capable of speeds in excess of 70mph, but the trained chimps seem to be determined to make the most of first and second gear to the exclusion of all others. “Fifteen miles an hour is good enough for anyone” seems to be their mantra. I hate them. They are almost as bad as caravans. Don’t get me started on caravans.

Despite the moving road blocks that are houses on wheels, we had a great run up. Weather was good. Company was good. Music was good. Chocolate Limes were in plentiful supply. What (apart from the obvious) was not to like? Stupid tourists, that’s the answer. We stopped at the Commando memorial at Spean Bridge for coffee and lunch. With what is usually a lovely view of the mountains to look at. Unfortunately, some refugees from a bus tour stood in a group eating icecream and watching us. Maybe they were jealous that we were eating real food and drinking coffee when all they had was rapidly melting icecream. I took their photo, just so they wouldn’t feel left out. It was like watching sad old zoo animals. I felt sorry for them when they were herded back into their bus to be taken somewhere else. I’ll post the picture tomorrow.

Once we got to Burnside, we felt refreshed, as we always do. Good food, banter and a wee dram or two helped as it always does.

Don’t know where we’re going tomorrow, but probably we’ll try to go on at least one new road. That’s the plan.

The End of Summer – 17 September 2016

Posted on September 17, 2016September 18, 2016 by Zogman

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Wandering around my own favourite wilderness and noticing the skies are empty of swallows. If it takes more than one swallow to make a summer, does a lack of them mean the end? I think it does. Then I spot a dragon. Is that the contradiction?We had intended going to Embra today, but it looked like being a nice day and I didn’t want to spend the day in a train or wandering around the shops. Too good a day for that and if the first paragraph is correct, we should make the most of the good days now. The upshot was that as usual, Scamp was in the garden and I did a wee bit of painting and grubbing around in WordPress without any great success in either. Eventually, I decided that the weather was settled enough for shorts and tee shirt cycling and went out to get some photos and also some brambles if there were any left.There were brambles a-plenty and I got just over 600g which is not too bad. Just over a pound in old money, or is that me mixing my metaphors or something? The sun was warm and although there were no swallows, there was a dragon later in the afternoon. I got some photos, but knew that if I went closer, my shadow would encroach on the insect and it would fly away. Dragonflies seem to be very sensitive to changes in light, or maybe they just don’t want anyone stealing their sun. I also grabbed a few shots of spiders, sorry arachnophobes, look away now. It’s the transparency of the body that I like about spiders, especially contré jour. I just had to experiment a bit more with the pinhole effect and got a shot of the Three Amigos with the camera sitting on a fencepost. The last shot was as I was coming home and the light was warming up. It took me some time to find the best VP for the shot of the hay bales, but I’m happy with this one. There was a fair bit of post-processing done to get it just the way I wanted it, balancing the light and dark areas of the photo without falsifying it too much.Came home and dinner was courtesy of Bombay Dreams. Great online ordering system and way too much for one meal. The rest for lunch on Sunday.Weather on the turn for Sunday with lots of widespread rain forecast.

[]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ztf/

Loch Leven – 10 September 2016

Posted on September 10, 2016September 10, 2016 by Zogman

We’re sitting in the cafe at Loch Leven’s Larder. Been for a walk along the lochside and are both now ready for lunch.

Well the lunch was delicious. Mine was a Lamb, Chorizo and Puy Lentil Casserole. Scamp’s was a Smoked Haddock Quiche.

We had decided in the morning that it would be a sin to waste a good, clear sunny day like this, especially after yesterday’s rain, by wandering round the shops. We got the map out on the laptop and chose Loch Leven as the place to go today. It was a good decision. We parked at our usual place and walked clockwise round part of the lochside path. Walked a mile or two, had a seat, then walked back to the car. I managed to get a few photos of the corn fields on our way round the path. Scamp thought we might manage to get all the way to LLL, but it was way too far. Enjoyed the walk more than our usual anti-clockwise walk. Saw a powered glider. Not like a Grob, but with an engine on a pylon above the wing. Wish I’d got the registration letter, then I’d be able to look it up on the net

Drove home over the Forth Bridge and got a good look at the new bridge. I wonder what it’s name will be. Not the official name, but the one it will be known by, it’s Real name.

El Cap seems to be behaving itself much better than I’d anticipated. Got up this morning just before 6am and sorted the problem with the email not being recognised. Then I went back to bed. So far, touch wood, the new OS seems quite stable. Glad I did the upgrade.

Some say rain tomorrow. Some say sun. I’m voting for sun. Just like today.

The Accidental Selfie – 7 September 2016

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Zogman

Sorry JIC, but we went to Helensburgh today. I thought it was only fair since we went to your sister’s least favourite place last week, we should go to your LFP this week.

It’s not my favourite place to drive to because it always seems such a dreary journey. Nothing much to see until you get past Dumbarton. As an aside, this is another Scottish anomaly. The town of Dumbarton is the county town of Dunbartonshire. That’s not a typo, Dunbartonshire with an ‘n’ and Dumbarton with an ‘m’. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Back to the story. Once you get past Dumbarton the scenery gets a bit more interesting with great views across the Clyde estuary to Greenock and Port Glasgow. Before then, it’s just motorway. Helensburgh is a very run-down looking version of its former self. Too many shops closed or in the process of closing on the main street to impress any passing tourists and although the front has undergone a bit of tidying up, it’s not the place it used to be. We walked along the front and I took some photos because the light is usually good there with the estuary and the hills in the background. After we walked back, we had chips and a pizza. Even the pizza wasn’t as good as it used to be. A sad state of affairs.

When we had stopped at the carpark there was a bus parked there with its engine chug, chugging away. It’s driver reading the paper Three hours later when we left, it was still chug, chugging away and he was still reading the paper. He must have been a very slow reader. Wasn’t there a law passed recently that banned drivers from having the engine running while the vehicle was stationary. Probably doesn’t apply to bus drivers. Either that or he hadn’t managed to finish reading that whole memo.

Helensburgh pier used to be a great place for sea fishing. I’ve fished there myself a few times. Like the town itself, the pier is looking a bit worse for wear now with more bits cordoned off or barricaded off than are actually useable. There were very few fishermen on it today, it seemed to be attracting more jakies than fishers.

The titular photo was indeed an accident. I was in the process of taking off the 9mm fisheye and had the 12-32mm zoom ready to go on when I inadvertently pressed the shutter. I like the finished article. It would be useful for keeping the weans away from the fire, if we had any weans or a fire, that is.

Went to Salsa at night. One class of sort-of advanced and one beginners. Great exercise. Bummer of a drive home. Motorway closed right through Glasgow. No warnings. No diversions. Just find your own way out, we’re not helping you. It took almost an hour to find our way home. A journey that should take 15 minutes.

Rain forecast for tomorrow. Don’t mind because today the weather was lovely, if a bit too warm for September.