Or not, depending on my mood
‘I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives with you. I don’t think it’s true of people who’ve grown up in cities so much; you may love a building, but I don’t think that you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth; it’s a different kind of love.’ – Arundhati Roy
There’s something so satisfying about the fresh-air smell of washing dried outside on a washing line – it’s something I truly miss living as I do in London, in an upstairs flat with no garden or outside space for drying clothes. So while looking after my elderly parents in the North of Scotland recently I really enjoyed the sensation again, and it certainly made me smile.
And I was out really early in the day with this load, the winter sun is still quite low on the horizon so the hanging clothes were sillhouetted beautifully and I couldn’t resist capturing the contrast 🙂
The kitchen window in my mum and dad’s house looks out over an everyday Scottish rural landscape of arable farm fields. It’s a view I rarely paid much attention to while growing up in the very same house, but over the last few weeks as I’ve stood there washing the dishes several times a day I’ve really learned to appreciate it’s subtle nuances…
Although in some ways it’s always very much the same rectangular framed view, I’ve found it also varies a lot depending on the time of day and the weather and of course the working needs of the farm… so here you can see variations of one Scottish farm field captured over three weeks in winter.
It just so happened that the field was ploughed while I was there, so I took the opportunity to record that event for posterity too – but I think that’s probably for another post all of its own…
By the way as ever it rained quite a lot too while I was there, but to be honest the dull, dark, grey version of the miserably wet landscape simply didn’t inspire me to record it! 🙂
Travelling up from London to Scotland on the Caledonian Sleeper at the end of last month I awoke to find myself in the very last carriage of the train, so although it was still quite early in the morning so not fully daylight I was nevertheless able to take a few shots out of the grubby back window in the closed-over door that normally sits open between the carriages.
I only had my phone camera with me, but I did my best! Although they look monochrome, they are actually full colour – but what I really love most is the way the speed of the train rattling through the wintery Scottish landscape has successfully captured the motion blur at the edges of each shot, perfect contenders for Debbie’s One Word Sunday today on the topic of Movement 🙂
Three views of the great outdoors taken here in Wanstead Flats, Leytonstone, East London – even in a big city like London, we still have our own little oasis of open space to let us spend time in nature 🙂
A Scottish sunrise in sequence, taken from various points around my mum and dad’s back garden one really cold but beautiful winter’s morning in mid-December 2018 ❤
The great benefit of winter sunrises is that you don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn to capture them – these were all taken over 15 minutes between 9.10 and 9.25am! 🙂
Much as I love walking in the woods and the parks here in London, there’s something magical to me about tramping through the Highland woodlands of Scotland in winter that makes me feel I’m home again… ❤
