This Time, I Remembered the Camera

A hazy Sunday morning view of Edinburgh

There are only a few minutes until midnight and the end of July and the beginning of August. I shall be unlikely to finish this blog before the bewitching hour but at least, I shall have made an attempt to start a blog before July is out. As my last blog was on the 2nd. of June, it has been almost two months since I added my little bit of wisdom or silliness (you pick) to the world wide web.

My inspiration for making the effort to tap the old keyboard was to update my blog of the 9th. April. Therein, I bemoaned the fact that I had gone on a wee drive in the country to the west of the city in which I have spent most of my life but went on that little trip without a camera. The scenery had looked fantastic in the clear air and the glorious lighting. I vowed to return some day with a camera, although I felt that I was unlikely to be blessed with the same great photo conditions and so it was to prove. This Sunday, with my camera, I tried to recreate the opportunity for photographic marvellousness that I stupidly missed in April. The clouds did allow the sun to grace us with it's warmth and light but also took delight in denying such pleasures when they felt the urge. There was even a hint of rain (how unusual !!!). However, I did manage to capture some views from a hill known as The Knock and enclose a sample of my efforts.

The view above is looking east and if you scan to the left of centre, you should be able to locate the control tower of the airport, while above that, is Grannies (Corstorphine) Hill*. To the right, the great bulk of Arthur"s Seat can be seen, while beyond, from left to right are the hills in Fife, East Lothian and Midlothian. Lost within the haze, is the City of Edinburgh and I was tempted to think that someone, say a thousand years ago, standing on the same hill, would have seen the same outline although without the same details and certainly no airport control tower. I also felt that I was like a traveller, seeing the city for the first time, with only the bird song in my ears and the expectation of what might await me when I entered through it's gates. While everything and everybody that is important to me and has shaped me as a person is or has been in that city, I have never felt that I totally belong to the city. However, I was standing in the county in which I was born and not that far from the very place of my birth and yet I can't claim to be anything but a visitor to West Lothian. It would seem that I shall have to accept that perhaps I am always just a visitor to this lifetime, as are we all.

                                         * Please see my previous blog on this Hill.

View looking southwest with wind turbines on the horizon.

Looking west with the ruins of farm buildings.

Looking north passed the stone circles to the Kingdom of Fife.


It is now well into the first day of August and my bed beckons, so I must take my leave of your good self. I would promise to blog again soon but you would be quite right to disbelieve such promises, so I will simply say that I hope we meet again over the digital ether at some time in the future. Until then, may you enjoy your world and the people that inhabit it.

 

Allotments, Castle and a new beginning !

Edinburgh Castle as seen from the Allotments in Inverleith Park

Oh dear, Oh dear, it has been a long time. My plans of creating a regular blog still seem to elude me.

However, I recently read the blog of one of my nephews and his use of photographs and text, illustrating his daily wanderings through his life has put me to shame. So therefore, I am making another effort to record my wanderings through my life using my pictures and my poor words.

The above photograph is here for two reasons. The first is that it is an example of what I am hoping to achieve with my art. A record of the world as I see it. It was taken last summer and the juxtaposition of the sharp imagery of the plant life (in the original image) and the hazy outline of the hard rock of the castle I find very appealing. With the combination of the lighting, colour and tone, it has a simple attraction to me and while not earth shattering in it's subject matter, it has become one of my favourite images.

The second reason for showing the picture is that my daughter has been kind enough to let me add some of my 'masterpieces' to her stall at some recent craft fairs, although I have to admit that my sales success has been limited. In the hope of producing a more affordable 'product', I had some smaller prints placed in greeting card mounts but sales still eluded me. It seems that the few people who visited the fair did not have the money or interest in purchasing the craft work on show as adjoining stalls also had few sales. At least my daughter covered her immediate costs and my one sale of the day, was one of my photo greeting cards to a nice lady of the above image. I can only grow from that.

Until the next (hopefully soon) time  

April 19th.

Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh, taken from near the Union Canal, near Ratho.

Today was a special day for me and my brothers, as on the 19th. April, three years ago, our Mother died. We met up at Warriston Crematorium, where we perused the entry in the Book of Remembrance and each of us, no doubt, had our own thoughts on the meaning of the words that lay there on the vellum page. I will not repeat the words, as I think that they are our own and for us only but I am sure that they reflected our Mother's character and the legacy that she passed on to us.

We of course, do not need any book or other device to bring the memories of the person who brought us into the world, gave us our start and guided us as we made our faltering way through the ups and downs of life. My brothers, no doubt, have had their own thoughts and memories and I know that in the last few days, I have spent much time, thinking of her and our Father and being grateful for the hard work and the many sacrifices that they made, uncomplainingly, in bringing up their sometime not always appreciative sons. As three years have passed, I find that the painful memories of her last few weeks of illness and her passing are now falling into their proper place in the story of her life. Now, as each year winds it's way through time, we can rejoice in the the many happy and joyful times that we were blessed to have shared with our Mother and that legacy that we are honoured to continue and celebrate.

Our Mother had always maintained that, "apart from the deaths", she had had a good life. She always had a positive and happy attitude to life and showed a courage and strong resolution to that life and the problems and difficulties that fate threw at her. She was a widow for much longer than as a wife and with the death of our six week old brother from a cot death, our Father, still a relatively young man, passing away after many years of illness with kidney failure and the death of our other brother in a drowning accident, the winging and demanding parents of today would have much to learn from her strength and fortitude.

Each time our Mother made her own pilgrimage to Warriston, she always had a list of all of the good, happy and positive things that had happened in her life in the year since her last visit. I hope and indeed, I am sure, that seeing her three sons chatting happily over coffee and tea and cake, she would be proud, happy and content.

You may be wondering why a rather mundane photograph of an unassuming hill should feature above in this blog. It is one of the many hills of Edinburgh (there are supposedly seven, as in Rome) and Corstorphine Hill was our indicator that we where nearly home when returning from our travels. Our Mother enjoyed much pleasure from the woods on the top of the hill, walking our dog, meeting neighbours walking their dogs. Even when her fitness would not allow her these pleasures, she enjoyed watching, from her house opposite the woods, the regular dog-walkers and of course their dogs. She had always been very fond of dogs and would relive the time when she would meet with and share conversations with friends and neighbours as together, they all walked their dogs.

The hill is visible from much of Edinburgh and is therefore a constant reminder, as if one was needed, of our Mother and will always, for us, be known not as Corstorphine Hill but as 'Grannies Hill'.

Until the next time.....

 

A Fisherman's Tale

Yesterday, being Sunday and having dropped my wife of at her church, on a whim, I decided to go for a little morning drive. Having collected my Sunday Paper, I turned the car left and headed for the wilds of my home county of West Lothian. Had I turned the car right, I would have headed home. However, I was now heading west and I knew where I was going.

I am one of the many Bangour Bairns. I was born in the Bangour General Hospital (not the Bangour Village Mental Hospital next door) but I have never seen it since those first moments of life and I was not paying much attention then. The hospital is gone and has been for some time. It was replaced by the new St. Johns Hospital in nearby Livingston. It had only been a temporary structure (that lasted for decades), built to deal with the injuries of wartime, with the new hospital, the long wooden huts of Bangour were soon removed, returning the fields to their agricultural uses. Now, only green fields mark the area where I first entered this wonderful, exciting and constantly interesting world. Lest you think that I was born in a field, there are books and old maps that record the time and existence of the hospital. However, looking over the field, I felt that, had I been born on that grass, I was in good company, as the many sheep that grazed there had brought young spring lambs into the world. The lambs had a rather curious expressions, as they looked at me, unaware that they were part of my thoughts. We were both fortunate to share the same place of birth.

When I had first arrived, a local dog showed it's displeasure at me disturbing it's Sunday devotions by barking loudly and fearlessly. I approached it in an attempt to make friends with it, my bravery being augmented by the high and strong fence that stood between us. The dog was having none of this and it was only when his much more friendly owner appeared, I was pointed to the field that I had made my small pilgrimage to find. As I left, she probably thought that our canine friend was worth every penny of his Winalot, when there were such weird people about.

I left that field to the sheep and their new offspring and headed home by the scenic route. It was a lovely morning and while the sun was somewhere behind the clouds, it's light filtered through those clouds with a silver gleam that spread on the landscape with a bright but soft luminous glow. The grass had a brilliance of colour because of the previous day's rain. That rain had also washed the haze from the air and you could see for miles. The distant hills and mountains in every direction had a lovely blue/grey or purple colour to them. Even a distant wind farm looked beautiful, with its majestic turbines lazily turning in the gentle wind. It reminded me that you do not have to travel to the highlands of Scotland, magnificent as they are, to see such fantastic scenery. The lowlands, just a few miles from Edinburgh and our other great cities, can present a landscape that can rid your soul of all the insanity that our modern lives soak up.


You have probably guessed where this is going. The Fisherman's Tale is usually about the one that got away. In my case, it was dozens or possibly more. With this beautiful landscape all around me, its colours and that fantastic lighting, only my memory had captured that lovely Sunday morning. Yes, I was without a camera. The whim that had made me turn left, rather than right, made sure that my Canon camera was able to continue it's slumbers, untroubled by having to work out focus or shutter speeds. The embarrassment that I feel at missing such an opportunity will at least make sure that a camera will always be with me, although such a magical scene may never present it self again

. 

I had planned not to show any photographs, reinforcing my shame at not having a camera on me but the excuse for showing the above pictures is as part of my explanation of the two hospitals in this area. I have described the General hospital and while nothing remains of its building, the other still remains, if only in the form of its ghosts. The Bangour Village Hospital was so named because of the type of layout of the hospital. It consisted of a number of large stone villas, each placed within a spacious landscape. A church was added later and there was also a nurses home and a recreation hall. It further consisted of other buildings, such as a laundry, a shop and a boiler room and at one time even had its own railway branch. It was in itself a completely self contained 'village', set in open countryside where I hope some of its patients found relief and maybe the return of their sanity. To my knowledge, there has never been a normal village called Bangour.   

     
Until the next time.....
      

A Quiet Day at Blackness

                           Gosh, that must have come from some size of a plug-hole !

Another glorious day and it is still March. Taking advantage of this little bounty of sunniness, my wife and I drove to one of our nearby favourite places, the ancient port of Blackness. Unlike most of our  visit to Blackness, there was only a mild gentle breeze that was most welcome for it's cooling qualities. I can't believe I have written that. Usually the wind, in this little corner of Scotland, has to be endured and at best can be described as fresh and breezy. A sailing boat club is based in this once busy little port. Such a club would not have any purpose if there was a complete lack of wind in this little outpost. It would have to move to Westminster or Holyrood, where there is plenty of wind. 

The top photo is some form of mooring that is completely out of place. It could have come from the nearby castle or possibly from further down the coast. Within the last couple of years, there have been some fierce storms that had the power to move large concrete blocks, so this giant plug would be no problem.

We had a lovely quiet picnic lunch in this children's play ground, which was completely devoid of children, no doubt in school, learning to become good and useful citizens of the future (see last post).  We both felt that the local children were very lucky to have such a safe and healthy place to play. The middle photo shows a play horse, in the park, against the background of the two bridges, silhouetted in the misty distance. We both managed to resist it's charms although the lady I married did have a go on a swing, over which we shall draw a discrete veil.

The lower picture is my feeble attempt to illustrate the obvious echoing of elements of both bridges in the background, with the diamond shaped climbing frame. I just could not find the picture that best showed this link between the two structures in the distance and the structure in the foreground. Only this heavily cropped image rescues the picture. A return visit will be necessary.

It has been a lovely day and because I take photographs, I have a visual reminder of a sunny day, in March, spent with the woman I love, at Blackness. Thank you for your visit and sharing a little of my day. 

Until the next time....    

Spring Thoughts

As I sit here, writing these few words, I look out onto a glorious sunny summer day. Well, it is only the 22nd. of March and therefore just the beginning of spring but it has been a wonderful day during which my wife and I have occupied ourselves with a spot of gardening. The above photograph was taken yesterday, in equally beautiful weather, in the grounds of Laurieston Castle, a short distance away from our home. Content with the the efforts of our labours, the few squares of 72% cocoa dark chocolate and the view of a blue cloudless sky, I am at peace with the world.

Local children are at play outside, content that their own labours, at the nearby school, are also completed for the day. While working outside in the garden, we heard the excited cries of the children, as they competed in some form of sports day on the school field. It is always uplifting to hear such youthful joy, particularity when it is at a little distance and the volume is not to loud! My brothers and I had a loving and secure upbringing and this should be the right of every child. It is with regret and sadness that in our society, not all children may enjoy this surely most basic right of childhood. When I come into contact with young children, I think of my own largely happy time when I was that age and ponder on what the world will be like when they reach adulthood. Indeed, what sort of world will they have to live in when they reach my antique years. Will flying cars finally exist and how will future generations cope with them constantly falling out of the sky or shall the joys of teleportation save them the daily commute to work or the dubious pleasures of the airport on their way to sunny climes or Mars or the moon.

I hope dear reader, that you will see from the above that I am not a hater of children and will bear this in mind when reading the following rant.

Earlier this week, I was on my travels around my city when the opportunity to ease my aching legs arrived by the appearance of a number 45 bus. The 45 is one of Edinburgh's less frequent services which I seldom seem to see when on my travels. I was beginning to believe that the timetable was a work of fantasy and fiction but here it was, a number 45 bus arriving at the bus stop just as I took up my position in the queue. I started to run through all of the possible destination that this single decker bus would pass on it's route and the variety of walks that I could undertake from any of them. My joy however was short lived. The bus was packed and virtually all of the seats were taken by pupils from a primary school, which for the moment, will be nameless. When I was that age, it was drummed into you, that you should give up your seat if there was an old, disabled or pregnant person standing. Fortunately I only fall into the first category but I was still denied a seat and a little rest before embarking on the next stage of my trek, while the youngsters, no doubt bursting with energy, rested until the demands of playtime. I can still remember the often quite formidable conductors and conductresses (Ah remember them!!!) who would have enforced, with no argument, that surely reasonable acknowledgement of helping those in need of a little assistance.

I do not blame the children. However, there were five teachers/carers present and it does not seem unreasonable that one or more of them could have shown a good example and given up their seat to a crusty old geezer such as myself or indeed, the other oldtimers who were left to stand. However, that would probably spoilt a good natter as they all sat close together. The real cause of this attitude and where I place all blame is with the Parents. They are now the most powerful section of our society and seem to think that the world and everyone in it should revolve around them. They claim that their demands are for the children but I am not having it. It is they who think that the result of a few moment passion should make them special and give them an honoured position in our world. Parenting has never been easy and most of us just make it up as we go along, trying our best to give our offspring the greatest start in life. While in a decent society, we should all do our best to help parents, that should not mean that we should be bombarded with parents constant and deafening demands when they should accept the responsibilities that they brought on themselves.

       
Well sorry about that, it just came out. Lets hope that when the children of today become parents, they will taken on more of the responsibility, rather than expect the rest of us to do. Although I am not hopeful.

We're ready for our close-up Mr. DeMille !

Three young stars of the Spring garden.  

Thank you for your patience, until the next time..... 

.    

A Trip West

A few days ago, I headed west to Glasgow, the excuse, if one was needed, was to journey there by the recently re-opened Airdrie/Bathgate railway line. A casualty of the passion for closing railway lines, at its height in the 1960s, the line was kept alive at both ends until more enlightened times saw the sense of re-connecting the east and west extremities of this once busy railway. The railway, once again gives the good folk of West Lothian and Lanarkshire an alternative means of visiting the two great cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, which glower at each other over the forty plus miles that separates them. My Father had a great fondness for Glasgow, which I have inherited. In years past, I used to visit the city often but in recent times, my visits have been less frequent. This I am determined to change. Although I have lived most of my life in Edinburgh, I was born in the land that lies between the two cities. I can therefore take a more neutral position in the somewhat silly Edinburgh/Glasgow rivalry. It has always been my opinion that anyone living in the central belt of Scotland and beyond, who does not take advantage of the delights of these very different but equally interesting and absorbing cities, really are losing out on the great experiences that both offer. 

The trip, was for me, quite nostalgic. When I last travelled over the this railway line, I was a mere boy and a puffing steam locomotive would have been at the front of the train.  The two photographs at the top would have shown many ships, some double parked but instead show a river completely devoid of any craft, with two new bridges crossing the empty river. At the top is the pedestrian bridge connecting the area of Tradeston on the south of the river to Glasgow city centre. The second photo is of the famous 'Squinty Bridge', it's formal name {The Clyde Arc}, I have forgotten, as  I am sure have most Glaswegians. The two lower photos are of the South Portland Street pedestrian suspension bridge.

I am determined to visit the great city of the west again soon and hopefully, take many more photographs. I have been asked to make the photos larger and this I shall do. However, until I find  watermark software that I am happy with, I shall limit the quality level of the pics.

I hope to return soon, until then, enjoy your life.