Happy New Year from Inverness – the view across the Beauly Firth, Ben Wyvis, the Black Isle, and boats moored in Muirtown Basin taken this afternoon. It was chilly and grey, but at least it was dry and we were wrapped up warm, so we really enjoyed our brisk and bracing New Year’s Day walk 🙂
Tag: landscape
Sunday Stroll: Along the Canal
It’s been a while since I’ve been for a Sunday stroll along the Caledonian canal from Muirtown Locks to Clachnaharry Sea Lock, and although the rain threatened a few times I had no more than a few spots here and there to contend with. But oh, it was bitterly cold today, especially with the bracing sea breeze that’s never far away.
Whenever the sun came out (decidedly intermittently) I snapped whatever I could landscape-wise, and whenever the dark rain clouds dampened the light I concentrated on close-ups of whatever I could find around me. I was out for an hour or so and came home with frozen fingers, pink cheeks, windswept hair, and a big happy smile 🙂
Same View, Different days
I’ve been fretting a bit lately about the lack of variety in my blog posts, in particular my recent photographs, due to the fact that Covid restrictions mean my life currently revolves around little more than going to work, shopping for food, and staying at home.
I’m lucky in that my daily 20 minute walk to work takes me across the River Ness via the Greig Street footbridge, and every now and again I’ll be on the bridge and think – Oooh, that might make a good image! – so I take out my phone and click a quick pic.
Looking back through my phone last night I found these four images taken on different days at different times and in different weather over the last few weeks, but showing pretty much the same view left to right of Bank Street, Inverness Castle and Ness Bridge.
So I thought – That’s maybe something new to do photographically, deliberately take the same photograph of something or somewhere multiple times but seeing how different time, light, weather, angle and/ or any other variable creates a very different feel and end result to each image?
Hmmm… I might just try experimenting with that over the next few weeks, and see what turns up! 🙂
Sea, Sand, Sun, and a Smile
OK, so maybe it was a bit cool and sea-breezy rather than baking hot, but what a lovely afternoon yesterday for an impromptu trip to the beach at Nairn. Not the usual busy seaside town tourist spot with the white dunes and proper beach-front, but along the coast a little at the other side of town where it is much quieter, with far less sand and far more rocks.
But it was certainly warm enough for a leisurely paddle in the outgoing tide, for finding a few special rocks and shells, for feeling the cold wet sand squidge so solidly between my toes and then letting the warm dry sand powder my feet afterwards, drying them off… Altogether a perfectly natural setting for my slightly windswept smile 🙂
Inverness from Greig Street Bridge
Looking over towards Inverness Castle from the Greig Street footbridge, taken on my phone camera this afternoon on my walk home from work 🙂
Beautiful Scotland
‘I used to think – Oh, Scotland’s beautiful, but it rains – and then gradually you realise that Scotland’s beautiful because it rains….’
Frankie Boyle, Scottish Comedian
Level Crossing with Train
Yay! I finally happened to be approaching the level crossing this afternoon when a train went past – I only took phone pics, but definitely better than nothing! 🙂
Cloudy Skies
There were some pretty cool grey and white clouds dominating my walk along the Caledonian Canal this afternoon 🙂
Lockdown Walkabout
The weekend challenge on Weekly Prompts is ‘Walkabout’, inviting us to share some of our permitted outdoor exercise routes during lockdown.
I’ve already shared many of my regular walks, and am really lucky to have plenty of options so I decided to ring the changes and make a little monochrome gallery of my favourite places to walk for now, dependent on my mood and the weather and whether I fancy a slow leisurely stroll or something infintely more bracing.
Inverness sits on Scotland’s north-east coast, and has both a canal and a river running through it. So from my house I can easily walk along the canal, around the cemetery, through the woods, by the water’s edge or across the river – all spaces reasonably close to home where social distancing is safely achievable 🙂
April A-Z: Reflections on 2020
I had such great plans for this year’s April A-Z, with the idea of sharing brand new photographs taken in real time of Inverness in Scotland, where we now live. But being in lockdown throughout the full month of April with no real advance notice whatsoever left me stuck without access to many of the people-filled public places I’d hoped to show.
But rather than change my theme altogether, I decided either to use some of those few images I already had (we’ve only been living here for six months) or to find alternative, pandemic-friendly topics to photograph in real time – and to my surprise I succeeded, 26 posts on 26 alphabetical topics posted in good time on each given day.
As you can see from the image gallery above, there were a few buildings, a few bridges, and a lot of landscape shots, and although it wasn’t my original intention I can see in retrospect I’ve probably shown you less of a generic busy tourist’s view of Inverness and more of my own personal, quiet experience of living here. So maybe no bad thing…
One thing I do feel bad about is not visiting enough new A-Z blogs this year – it just felt one step too far for me. I’m not in a particularly happy place right now and for me, and focusing mainly on my own posts and those of bloggers I already follow had to be enough. But I’ve done it, I feel a sense of achievement to have got through it all in such difficult circumstances, and look, I even have a badge to prove it! 🙂
Anyway, here are the links to my individual daily posts, just incase anyone wants another look back, or missed some of them at the time – welcome to my Inverness! 🙂
P is for People in Passing in a Pandemic
