
Looking out across the Beauly Firth from Clachnaharry, Inverness 🙂
Or not, depending on my mood
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 🙂
Remember this tree stump? I first took a picture of it on New Year’s Day, floating in the sea not too far away from where it’s landed – or is it stranded? Either way it definitely looks like it’s here to stay 🙂
Who Won the Week for me this week has to be the amazing cold weather. This weekend the UK has been blasted by Storm Darcy coming over from continental Europe, and although here in Inverness we don’t actually have any snow lying at the moment, this was the frozen shoreline this afternoon, walking along the rocks and seaweed at low tide. Although the salt in the seawater usually means it doesn’t ever freeze this close to the shore, today to my surprise everything below the high water mark was covered with a thin crumbly layer of ice, which looked really weird!
PS The last image shows part of the rotting wooden timbers of an old shipwreck only ever visible at low tide 🙂
It’s amazing what can be washed up by the sea in winter – no idea where it originated but this poor tree stump appeared to be out of its depth and was probably going to remain stranded on the shore once the tide went out 🙂
One of the things I love most about walking along the shoreline where the land meets the sea is the way things become so weathered and washed out by the wind and the water. They develop a toughened texture yet retain a salty smoothness to them that always draws me and my camera in 🙂
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 🙂
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 🙂
The lock keeper’s house at the northern end of the Caledonian Canal at Clachnaharry, Inverness, looking very atmospheric in the late afternoon light…
Blue sky and blue sea for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Blue this week 🙂