Edinburgh evening, looking towards the castle.

Edinburgh skylines in glorious monochrome.

Edinburgh Trip

I wonder what you'd expect from someone who took a trip to Edinburgh - arguably one of Europe's most attractive cities? Pictures of churches, castles and craggy parks? Drunks, junkie prostitutes and beggars? (Ah, dear old Scotland, the self-harming emo-nation of Europe!). Well forget it.

In the park.

Nice old sundial, spoiled by the stupid tv cable draped across it - I could have shopped it out, but I prefer to see 'real' pictures.













Autumn leaves on a cobble star.






















Mysterious green doors. Probably the door on the left was a stable and above it was the feed store. I imagine they would have had a hoist to take grain and hay up there at one time. It is part of a very old building originally built around 1650, but I think this part of the building is much later, a Georgian addition.

Not more nasturtiums!

Yes, more nasturtiums. On a marble slab. Sunlit, no flash.

Red Admiral

Quite possibly not the best ever photographs of a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) - but not too bad, I hope. He came visiting the red hot poker flowers this morning, as you can see, a pleasantly warm and sunny morning. Very common in europe, the americas and asia. Handsome devil, not worried by me sticking a camera up close to him either.

Nasturtium studies

If you can tell me what the raindrop has 'captured' in the top photograph, I'll send you a prize. I know what it is!









The second study is a close look at the growing tip of the plant, again, with rain drops in the helix. The hairs on the leaves seem to disappear as the plant grows.

Glacial

Light and cloud reflected in a piece of raw glass.

Wild berries

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) berries on a cold, windy day.

Where ever you see them, Hawthorn hedges have probably been there for hundreds of years - long before the town built up around them.

International timepiece.

Now here's something I bet you don't see everyday! Shows times (pretty approximate I would guess) at various places round the world. Amazing. Made in 1841. Anyone know where Fort Nelson is (or was)?

Something in the woodpile...

Funny place to find a toad, at the top of a log pile. Not very sensible at all, seeing it'll need to hibernate soon - also I'm planning to saw up the logs ready for burning. I'll have to relocate him to somewhere safe in the garden.

Cloudy day

Cloudy day view of Pendle Hill. The hill - not quite a mountain - dominates the area, even causing a rainy micro climate to the towns in the valley below. Interestingly, or not - depends on your viewpoint - naming of Pendle Hill is unusual in that it apparently says the same thing in three different languages. In the thirteenth century it was mentioned as Pennul or Penhul, apparently from Cymbric pen and Old English hyll, both meaning "hill"; the meaning having become opaque, the modern english word Hill was again appended. Mind you, it might be a reference to King Penda of Mercia - Penda's Hill. King Penda died in 655 BCE, not many records or maps from then so just a guess! More recently, George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement took a walk up there in 1652. Fox felt that God led him to go there. He had a vision of thousands of souls coming to Christ. "As we travelled, we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered."
The area is notorious for the despicable events that lead to the 'Pendle Witch Trials' earlier in the 1600's. Interesting read about it here: The Wonderous Discoverie Of Witches in the Covntie Of Lancaster Bit of a struggle though as the English is very archaic!

Magic water

Water on a nasturtium leaf. The leaves have a surficant property that affects the water, making it behave like liquid mercury. I haven't really captured what I wanted here, if I manage to get a nice shot I'll update it later.

Not a bee.

Neither a bee nor a wasp, this little chap is a hoverfly. Perfectly harmless, buzzing round like a tiny hummingbird. The flower is Red Hot Poker or Torch Lily - Kniphofia uvaria.

Opium Poppy

Soon be ready for this year's opium harvest - not! Nice flowers though. Anyway this is a 'Norman' type Papaver somniferum, Laciniatum Group which will not yield any opiate substances, although it is widely held that eating foods with poppy seed will give a false positive if you are tested for 'substances'!

Tropaeolum majus - nasturtium

Pale variagated nasturtium flowers in dappled light.

Old fashioned values

Some autumnal jams. This is recycling folks! Fruit all picked in hedgerows or growing in my garden, jars courtesy of anyone. I couldn't believe how hard it was to get a half-decent picture of some jars in a cupboard!

Worcester Pearmain

This is the one solitary apple that has grown on my lone apple tree this year. As the title might suggest, this is an old type of apple, a Worcester Pearmain. Nice name, the only reason I bought the tree and planted it - oooh - three years ago. I haven't done anything to the tree since, no spraying or pruning, nothing, so perhaps I've got what I deserve! It doesn't look exactly appetising but I'm going to have to eat it. Because it's there.


Afternote: I tried the apple, it was fragrant and delicious. Totally belied by it's appearance.

This is a Pineapple Lily, eucomis bicolor, taken against a background of nasturtiums. I stronly recommend this plant to the novice gardner, it is easy and cheap to buy as a bulb for spring planting, it is a very, very easy plant to grow and fortunately, slugs and other pests tend to avoid it.

Mean, moody and magnificent! This is Jack, our Jack Russell terrier (imaginative name, eh?), taken at Malham Cove in North Yorkshire in Winter 2006. Jack has a blue eye and a brown eye. Pretty cool, eh?

This is Sophie, my 'step-daughter', on her 18th birthday - a few day's ago. She is getting ready for a night on the town. Note the immense handbag on the sofa. She's probably going to be dancing round that later...

Not a brilliant picture. Blackberries, ready to be made into more jam.

Manually initiated irrigation system.

Now a bygone, but still superficially in excellent condition, as you can see. A real rarity nowadays in the western world where we demand that our water appears from the tap (or faucet) on demand with no effort and no questions about how clean it is. I don't suppose it's all that many years since this was the norm though. Certainly I remember being facinated by the well at my grandparent's house when I was a little boy! They also collected rain water in a big barrel. This was within 30 miles of the centre of London. Also, I'm not that old, thank you.
I had to try the pump to see if it worked, but I'm sad to say that it didn't. They used to have wooden and leather washers and I suppose they had perished. All it did was let out a wheeze...

Rusting iron

Simply that. A quietly decaying mass of iron.

Shelves

An uncomposed shot of some glasses, cups, jugs, vases

Ruined? Or 'improved'?

Nice old VW Beetle seen in a restoration yard in Suffolk. I can't help but wonder what happened to it! Student prank? Bored kids while dad was out?

Toads.

Two common toads (bufo bufo) in my pond. I only dug the pond about April this year and am amazed at the speed with which it has become a 'live' thing.

Zombie Peacock!

Insane-looking zombie peacock.

Madonna Lilies

Apros pro of nothing much really. Some lily flowers. Madonna lilies? I don't know.

Lamps & Keys.

I liked the colours and the shapes of the old lamps and the keys. The keys were pretty fascinating on their own (more of them later), must have fitted huge locks. Don't know how secure they were though! Apart from the lamps, everything looks rough and hand crafted. Look at the nail heads on top of the pegs.

Thames Sailing Barge EDME.

Thames sailing barge off the Suffolk coast. I liked seeing the barges near Woodbridge in Suffolk, I assume they must belong to a Trust or something similar.
As far as I am aware they fell out of commercial use in the 1950's and 60's because they couldn't compete with road and rail haulage rates for cargo.
To the non-nautical individual (me) they look like a complex vessel to manage, but apparently they only had a two man crew. Must have been a load of hard work, with all those sails.

Sorry this picture isn't a sharp as it could be.

This particular barge is the EDME, sailing out of Harwich. She is 50 tons and built out of wood at Harwich in 1898. She has no engine. She is available for day charters if you email Allison Bond

Here goes nothing!

Well, I've decided to use my pictures for a blog instead of just having them clutter up my hard drive, unseen by the world. Please feel free to comment. If you find a picture that particularly appeals to you for desktop use or whatever, just go ahead and use it - you're welcome. Not for commercial use though please.

First picture is of some watering cans, sitting on an old table. The watering cans were already in various parts of the back yard, I put them on the table and waited until the light looked nice.