Looking down on the River Ness from the Holm Mills Bridge, Inverness, Scotland 🙂
River Rapids
Tag: landscape
Living Close to Water
I love living close to water. Our house in Inverness is situated a five minute walk from the canal on one side, a ten minute walk to the river on the other, and a pleasant half-hour stroll following the canal to its final lock-gate will take me straight down to the sea 🙂
Caledonian Canal: Clachnaharry Sea Lock
One of my favourite walks close to home in Inverness is to tramp along to the very end of the Caledonian Canal where it finally meets the sea at Clachnaharry Sea Lock. I’m a creature of habit so walk here a lot, sometimes with my camera and sometimes just my phone, and tend to take very similar photographs every time I go. I’d really struggle to choose a favourite image out of all I’ve ever taken because I genuinely love them all in different ways. The scenery remains pretty much the same every time, but the weather changes along with the seasons and the tides. This morning it was dry and cloudy with intermittent sunny spells but OMG it was really windy – my hair was whipping about in all directions and was in knots when I got home! 🙂
Roads I Have Travelled
My Sunday stroll today, walking along the rural roads I’ve been walking for over 50 years… Beautiful sunny day, but it’s really windy 🙂
Frozen Water Everywhere
Walking along the Caledonian Canal passing by Muirtown Basin this afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice the frozen skin of ice on the surface of the water creating a little skating pond for the birds. Nowhere near frozen enough to support people of course, but frozen over nonetheless 🙂
Winter Walk on a Monday
It’s been five weeks and three days since I last went for a walk along the canal, but today the weather was so lovely (well, for the middle of winter, anyway) I decided to give it a go, so wrapped up warm and off I went, taking my time, and my camera of course.
Inevitably I was out far too long and walked far too far for my first ‘proper’ post-Covid convalescent walk, but I felt the need to really get my lungs working properly again and however exhausted I may feel now I’m home again, it was well worth the effort.
Blue water, blue sky, rosy cheeks and a huge sense of satisfaction! Smiles all round for me today 🙂
Happy New Year!
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 🙂
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 🙂
