Recently in Edinburgh, a love letter Category

In case you're wondering, dear reader, Edinburgh continues to be lovely. It isn't always sunny, or warm, but it is still magical to me.

These photos, like all of mine these days, are hosted on Flickr, and can be viewed in different sizes by clicking on them.

In between trips to London, I've been so busy studying that I've taken very few shots around Edinburgh. Of those, only a few are really worth your consideration, gentle reader.

The roses are past their best in George V Park, but I still love them.

Taken 15 June 2006

Taken 15 June 2006

Splendidly bizzare monkey puzzle in the Botanics.

Taken 1 June 2006

Tender shoots of holly, Arboretum Avenue

Taken 1 June 2006

Friday, though cold, was a bright and sunny day - perfect for a family expedition. We took Alex's bike to the John Muir pathway along the Firth of Forth, just outside of Musselburgh. It's time for Alex to get more confidence in his bike and himself on it. He needs to ride faster if we're going to take his stabilisers off.

It was a good ride - he started slow and hesitant, but I started challenging him to races. As the trip went on, I found myself striding less and running more to keep up with him. He was thrilled to be pushing me, but insisted after a time that we were "a team" and should cross every minor finishing line at the same time.

At the midpoint of the ride, we all stopped on the beach. The kids threw rocks into the water. I found a couple of old bikes on the stony shore, slowly rusting in the salt and being buried by the tides.

The first bike, frame and cables

Taken 14 April 2006

Cables round the stem of the bike

Taken 14 April 2006

Pedal mount on the second bike

Taken 14 April 2006

Rust replaces chrome on the second bike

Taken 14 April 2006

Handlebar mount on the second bike

Taken 14 April 2006

Sprockets in stone, bike 1

Taken 14 April 2006

Stone in sprockets, bike 2

Taken 14 April 2006

Wheel mount, bike 2

Taken 14 April 2006

Not just a bike, but the headphones for a walkman too!

Taken 14 April 2006

Handrail hardware by the firth

Taken 14 April 2006

The green shoots and the black iron were not the most compatible of couples. Their parents disapproved, their friends didn't understand. But they were happy in the springtime.

Taken 5 April 2006

(It was a trying day. I may be in a slightly odd mood as a result.)

My phonecam developed a spot about a week ago. Ugly, in the way, and depressing. It ruined a number of photos that I really wanted to take.

Taken 1 April 2006

Occasionally, I could get a shot in that it didn't ruin, but that was rare.

Taken 29 March 2006

Fortunately, my phone insurance covers the functionality of the whole instrument, including the camera. I called Vodafone, and they sent a new phone to replace the old one. So now I have my camera back!

I tried it out on Fiona this morning.

Taken 4 April 2006

Then I was back to taking the pictures I've been missing.

Leaf growing through a fence, Newington

Taken 4 April 2006

Shadow of a doorknob, looking like a warmer day

Taken 4 April 2006

Cut-off fence post.

Taken 4 April 2006

Framing the world, one tree at a time (this photo has been cropped)

Taken 4 April 2006

Yay new phone!

A photo essay, of sorts, from Sir Walter Scott's Marmion.

Also available as a Flickr slideshow.

...and it loves me back.

Taken 6 March 2006

I love this city, too, though it doesn't show its affection in the same way.

I love the Botanics, and they show me the delicate drops of rain on a branch.

Taken 7 March 2006

The first yellow flowers come out for me, even on a cold day.

Taken 9 March 2006

The side doors of St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile stand solemn and graceful.

Taken 9 March 2006

And the door handles from the back of the cathedral have their own rhythm. (Yes, this has been cropped.)

Taken 9 March 2006

Yesterday, while I was walking in the Botanics, I came under a sudden assault of hail. I had to shelter under an umbrella under a tree - one layer of protection was not enough.

After the white stuff stopped falling, it seemed to vanish. Only a few balls were left to convince me that it wasn't a dream.

Taken 21 February 2006

The hailstones didn't last, but the raindrops were beautiful as well.

Taken 21 February 2006

This shot reminds me of one of my favourite poems, No Road by Philip Larkin

Taken 21 February 2006

I've had a few other photos building up that didn't really deserve their own entries. Of possible interest:

The sacred cow is coming home to roost.

Taken 20 February 2006

Plant in the car park at the Cuddy Brae. Very red!

Taken 19 February 2006

Bus stop hardware...one of those tiny details of life that looks so good up close.

Taken 19 February 2006

The days are getting longer again. I walk to the bus in the growing light every morning - saw Venus today in the eggshell blue sky, just before the red sunrise drowned it out with brightness. And on my walk home, I get to see the tops of Edinburgh's golden sandstone buildings still drenched in sunlight.

While I was crossing Princes Street, it began to rain lightly. I didn't get that wet, or that cold, but it was enough to bring a rainbow.

Taken 8 February 2006

The Balmoral clock tower in the light, with the Scott Monument in shadow.

Taken 8 February 2006

Up the hill a shadowy David Hume glowered near St Giles Cathedral

Taken 8 February 2006

The pattern of the stones of the museum on Chamber Street satisfies me every time I pass it.

Taken 8 February 2006

The anarchists have also been out in force. I rather like this one.

Taken 8 February 2006

And, last of all, a public service announcement. If you've lost your heart recently, it's waiting for you on the wall across from the Potterow Port, right near the museum back door. It misses you.

Taken 8 February 2006

It was a cold day after a cold night. I still needed to get out and get some light at lunchtime, even though the wind nipped at my hands and the tips of my ears. And it was worth it - look what I found!

I first noticed, walking by the Water of Leith near Stockbridge, that the edges of the water sparkled with little bright circles. Looking closer, I realised that they were balls of ice, hovering above the water level.

How did they come to be there? The water must have frozen overnight, along the edge of the burn, then thawed in the morning. As the sheets of ice broke up, the weight of the balls lightened until the leaves could spring back a little, pulling the last spheres up out of the water.

Or the fairies left them behind when they were playing marbles.

Ice balls.

Taken 31 January 2006

Today was astonishingly cold. It was one of those days where I step outside the door in the morning, then duck back in to get my gloves on properly before venturing out for real. The sky was clear as crystal, and I watched a flock of fourteen blackbirds fly above me as I walked to the bus. The breath from my open-mouthed smile clouded in front of my eyes.

Things didn't thaw as the morning progressed, either. I took a brief walk at lunchtime (after spending most of the hour indoors, with companions who object to frostbite and nicknames like Nine-Fingers and No-Ears), and the world was still frozen. Wow.

This is not an aerial shot of the antarctic desert from a high-flying airplaine, but part of the pattern of ice on a windscreen. The driver will have had an interesting time this evening.

Taken 30 January 2006

Frost-rimmed leaves, a pattern shot.

Taken 30 January 2006

This evening the fog descended like cotton wool. It was as dramatic as the ice, but a lot less photogenic.

It's been a while since I've posted photos, mostly because I've been too ill to take many. The flu this year has been dreadful, and it made its mark as it swept through our household. Alex was ill week before last, Martin got it last week (and still coughing now), I fell ill last Thursday and didn't really resurface until Sunday, and now Fiona is just coming out of a bad bout.

I have taken a few pictures over the past week or so, as I have walked my way back to health. But the muse hasn't really been there. Here are the ones that made the cut.

The first crocus leaves, peeping up from the soil at the foot of my road. I think they are in for some difficult times.

Taken 12 January 2006

Gate hardware, Drum Street. One of the few manmade items I've been drawn to photograph, mostly because it looks so human!.

Taken 12 January 2006

Wrinkled rose hep, on a back path through Gilmerton.

Taken 12 January 2006

Grass underwater in the Water of Leith. (This photograph has been cropped and its colour altered to reduce the reflections off of the water.)

Taken 18 January 2006

View through the fence, Powderhall.

Taken 18 January 2006

Reddening ivy 1, Powderhall.

Taken 18 January 2006

Reddening ivy 2, Powderhall.

Taken 18 January 2006

Although the weekdays this winter have been really good (because of my desk lamp and my lunchtime walks), the weekends have been very difficult. This one has been no exception. Not only has the weather been overcast these last days, but Alex' recent illness left him unwilling to toerate bright lights. I spent yesterday in a dim house, and by today it was starting to tell on me. I felt unfocussed, off-rhythm, and deeply depressed. I wanted to curl up in a corner and simply cease to exist for a while. (This does not mean I wanted to die. I simply didn't want to exist.)

Martin, saw me sitting by my light box, leaning my forehead on it like it was my only friend. So, though he was unwell, he sent me out of the house while Fiona napped and Alex played video games. I decided to do something energetic and definitive: I would climb Arthur's Seat, and take some pictures on the way.

So I did. There wasn't a lot of light even out of doors, but what there was, I got. (I also took 75 pictures. Luckily for your bandwidth, dear reader, my usual 33-50% good photo ratio did not hold up! I was just short of 20%, partly because of the low light.)

Photos of big stuff

My camera isn't much on the big shots - I feel that it makes them all look like snapshots. (Or maybe I'm not a landscape photographer...) But I got a few wider-angle pictures that were special enough to post.

On the way up, looking north.

Taken 7 January 2006

The moon rose over the ridge as I left. (Note that this photo has been cropped)

Taken 7 January 2006

Coming down the hill, toward Newington.

Taken 7 January 2006

Rock shots

Stone from the wall by the Commonwealth Pool

Taken 7 January 2006

Fragmented rock at the summit

Taken 7 January 2006

Stone from the wall by the Pollock Halls

Taken 7 January 2006

Plant shots

A single thistle head in the grass

Taken 7 January 2006

Gorse blossoms

Taken 7 January 2006

Dead thistle heads.

Taken 7 January 2006

Gorse against the sky

Taken 7 January 2006

Bramble leaves

Taken 7 January 2006

Moss and dead grass

Taken 7 January 2006

Stone in the hillside

Taken 7 January 2006

Seed heads against the sky

Taken 7 January 2006

Back at work today, moved onto a project that I'm not expecting to be as fun as the one I've been on for the last 18 months. (That is a high standard - very little I have ever done professionally has been so enjoyable.) The rest of my gang is still together, launched onto something else, leaving me with the strong impulse to sulk and kick the furniture.

Rather than do that, I took a walk to the Botanics at lunchtime, getting my dose of daylight and my usual smattering of photographs. There were some OK ones, which I don't intend to post, and some entirely uninteresting ones. But four really stood out.

Fern leaf, belly-up on the grass.

Taken 3 January 2006

Pattern: the dead leaves of a palm, still hanging from the trunk (this photo has been cropped, a thing I usually don't do.)

Taken 3 January 2006

Lone bamboo shoot

Taken 3 January 2006

Bamboo thicket...another "pattern" shot.

Taken 3 January 2006

I also stopped by the California Bay Laurel again, just to smell the leaves. Then, completely accidently, I found the Botanic's only tan oak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), which I had planned to search for this month. Just walked straight to it, thinking, "That looks like tan oak." And so it was.

So the last day before I go back to work, the New Year's Bank Holiday, we decide to go to the beach for the day.

Actually, we managed about 45 minutes on North Berwick beach itself before the kids got too cold. And with everything shut for the bank holiday, we didn't even get to take refuge in any warm place but the car. Martin did a bunch of photography with the big cool camera while Alex threw rocks in the water and Fiona walked around exploring the sandy world. (There was also a certain amount of climbing on rocks, running about and shrieking, and generalised beach fun.)

Nonetheless, I did see a couple of things that just needed photographing, and as usual, the camera phone came through!

Rock and seaweed

Taken 2 January 2006

Roseate seaweed

Taken 2 January 2006

Rocks and sea glass. (I am particularly fond of sea glass, for long complicated reasons.)

Taken 2 January 2006

I love the dark trails in the sand under this bit of seaweed.

Taken 2 January 2006

Yeah, yeah, more seaweed. But I like it.

Taken 2 January 2006

I did a bit of colour messing with this shot - but only a tiny bit. I love the textures, but I know I may be alone in that.

Taken 2 January 2006

This is the prize shot. I tried it with the big fancy camera, but actually, this one from the phonecam is the best of the day. In my opinion.

Taken 2 January 2006

(And, by the way, happy new year.)

Although we didn't get the snowstorms that the north of England has been enjoying (?) the last day or so, we got a dust of snow last night. Today was cold enough that that dust didn't go away. I was out in it, getting some zippers for making sofa cushion covers, and believe me, it was cold. (Yes, yes, for Edinburgh, a mild day for the arctic, or Toronto, but I'm a Californian and a wimp at that.)

I took a walk through the Meadows, looking for things to photograph in the snow, but found more on the city streets.

Cobbles on Buccleuch Street:

Taken 28 December 2005

Leaf from an Edinburgh University courtyard:

Taken 28 December 2005

Ice crystals between the cobbles:

Taken 28 December 2005

But the richest venue for photographs turned out to be the walk back from the bus to my house, over the football pitch and beside the weedy path:

Dead grass in the snow:

Taken 28 December 2005

Live grass in the snow:

Taken 28 December 2005

The blades corkscrew in the cold:

Taken 28 December 2005

Snow on the weeds:

Taken 28 December 2005

Due to a combination of factors (longer lunchtime walks, better camera phone, encouragement by commenters), I've been taking a lot more pictures of late.

I've been in love with photography since I was 15 or 16, when I got a 35mm camera (a Pentax ME Super) from my parents along with free run of the darkroom. I spent a year or two exploring the world as seen through a lens, and inhaling vast quantities of extremely interesting chemicals.

One of the things I learned early on is that other people don't see the same things I see. Yes, we both look at a tree and go "Big thing, brown on bottom, green on top." But something in me is also going "Oooh! Oooh! Pattern and regularity of leaves as they grow, shapes of trunks and branches! Wow!" Seriously. For every tree unless I consciously shut it off. I walk through the Botanic Gardens with my mouth open, or smiling irrepressibly, when I go alone. I also get that feeling from a lot of repetitive patterns and textures. (Ask Martin about my reaction to the hobbit cloaks in the Lord of the Rings films.)

But I found, showing my "Oooh! Oooh! Pattern!" shots to other people, that they didn't get the same buzz. My mother once said it looked like I'd just pointed the camera at everything and taken a picture. The two decades since then have been spent, at least in part, trying to find ways to show other people what I see all the time. I do things like choosing a contrasting element against the patterned background, or photographing patterns with other redeeming features, such as good colour saturation.

But the other day, I found a link to a set of photos by professional photographer Jim Brandenburg. Although I'm intrigued by the specific challenge he set himself - 90 days' photography permitting only one exposure a day - what really delighted me is that some of his pictures are ones I would take myself (if I were his technical equal). He can use pattern, and pattern alone, to lead the viewer into the shot. His quaking aspen shot, the Patterns of Branches, and most of all his picture of Norway Pine grove are all part of what I have been trying to capture for twenty years.

I'm not discouraged to have seen these shots - far from it. I'm excited by the chance to learn from them. Maybe I can find other ways to lead people into the world I see, and show them how beautiful it is.

Today, at lunchtime, I made my first attempt at a "pattern" photograph that did not use a contrasting foreground element to focus the viewer.

Taken 20 December 2005

On an unrelated note, I also got my camera to do this ghostly image (entirely untweaked, I promise you!). It's of the disused Scotland Street tunnel, which has one brave plant trying to eke out a single-leaf existence in its shadows.

Taken 20 December 2005

I think I need to set more challenging objectives for my lunchtime walks. I found two of the three madrones (Arbutus menziesii) on the first day of searching. The hunt did take me into a bed that I hadn't wandered through before, but actually, one of the madrones is visible from the road outside the gardens.

Anyway, the proof:

Taken 13 December 2005

One of the reasons I like madrone so much is its papery bark. On the younger branches, it peels off in entire sheets, exposing the green underbark. On older wood, it alligators like a charred log, which is much less dramatic.

Taken 13 December 2005

The thirteenth was an overcast day, which made it difficult to take photos in natural light (I don't use the camera's light). The ones I got were either against the sky (this one has been lightened considerably to bring out the red in the leaves),

Taken 13 December 2005

...or lucky shots, still enough not to blur but slow enough to get the tremendous colour saturation that comes from overcast day photography.

Taken 13 December 2005

I will have to pick a more evasive plant for my next quest.

Over the past few weeks, I've been engaged in an occasional search to find my favourite California native plant, the California bay laurel, in the Botanic Gardens near work. As you can see from the link, although the website has a bed location, it does not have a clickable link to the bed map. This made me wonder if the entry were old and outdated. Was the tree still there?

Even if the bed map entry was correct, I wasn't sure where in the bed the tree would be. That bed happens to include a building as well as a number of plants, so it's not the easiest place to search. Particularly for a plant I wasn't sure was there.

But today, I found it.

The proof:

Taken 12 December 2005

I knew the tree before I saw the label, of course.

The bay laurel grows in all of the places I spent my childhood. It's an integral part of the species mix up at my parents' cabin, where it was a traditional headache cure for the native Americans in the area. It grows on the UC Berkeley campus, and indeed I got into occasional trouble for climbing it there. And for many years, one grew just outside my bedroom window in Piedmont.

The fragrance a broken leaf brings me right back to those places and those times. I brought one back to the office (bad of me to take it, I know). Each time I smelled it, I had another tiny flashback to my past, and another microburst of homesickness. The mix of bitterness and memory reflects the nature of the bay laurel itself.

Bay laurel is in the family Lauraceae, the same family as European bay, laurus nobilis, (as well as cinnamon, avocado and sassafrass, but that's another story). Bay laurel has about a third more resin ducts in its longer, narrower leaves than its European cousin. The fragrance and flavour are slightly different between the species: the California bay is sweeter and sharper, the European slightly more bitter. It can be used in cookery much the way its relative is, but one should use only part of a leaf where the recipe calls for a whole bay leaf. Californian bay is also more of a tree and less of a hedge than its European counterpart, and is useless for topiary.

Soup, anyone?

Taken 12 December 2005

(Next target: Arbutus menziesii, also known as Pacific Madrone.)

Ivy stems.

Taken 8 December 2005

It was a damp and muddy Monday for a lunchtime ramble. I was going to go to the Botanics to try to track down a California bay laurel (the tree I miss most from California). I stopped on the Rocheid Path to take some pictures and chat to a chance-met colleague, and never made it to the Botanics.

Fallen leaf on mossy wall.

Taken 5 December 2005

Golden leaves and black stems.

Taken 5 December 2005

I don't know what this wee plant is, but it's cute.

Taken 5 December 2005

Surprise! We're in the middle of a city!

Taken 5 December 2005

I know that not all of these pictures are worthy of Ansel Adams. My camera is extremely limited in what it can do, and even with a good camera I can't always capture what it is that I find beautiful. I simply hope that the delight I felt in seeing these things comes through in the images.

It was a lovely day, cold but bright. The autumn is turning to true winter, with bitter winds, with the last leaves dropping from the trees. But with the bright sunshine, I hardly cared about the cold. I walked along the Rocheid path by the Water of Leith, then through the Royal Botanic Gardens back into Canonmills and back to work.

The last leaves on the oak tree on the Rocheid Path.

Taken 29 November 2005

Piece of a wrought iron fence, Arboretum Avenue. Sunlight and shade.

Taken 29 November 2005

Taken 29 November 2005

Holly leaves, Aboretum Avenue. I love the shapes of these leaves, but I think I need a better background next time..

Taken 29 November 2005

Red leaves with the green, Royal Botanic Gardens.

Taken 29 November 2005

With a walk like that, on a day like this, the world is a good place.

I changed my phone a few months ago, leaving my old Nokia for a new Sony Ericsson K750i. The ostensible reason was that the Nokia's keyboard was wearing out, and I could no longer reliably answer calls. The real reason, of course, was that phone camera technology has moved on. Martin got a better camera phone, and all of a sudden I wanted one.

The new phone coincided with a greater emphasis on my lunchtime walks. The past few years, I've tried to be rigourous about going out at lunchtimes, since noticing the effect a midday walk has on my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Between the weather and my work patterns, this autumn has been a particularly good one for walks - possibly one of the reasons I have not sunk so deep into myself thus far this year.

I tend to go along the Water of Leith Walkway, through the local park, across the Botanic Gardens or by whatever other approximations of nature I can find in an hour. These times refresh my spirit, and my new phone has been a good tool to make myself see and appreciate the things I pass.

Here are the best of the bunch:

Taken 19 September 2005

Taken 19 September 2005

Taken 29 September 2005

Taken 17 October 2005

Taken 18 November 2005

Followers of the Gum Fence Saga will recall that in Episode one, your heroine found over three hundred pieces of chewing gum stuck on the points of the wrought iron fence by her employer's car park. Episode two found our narrator with delusions of grandeur bemused by the activities of said employer's fence painters, who appeared to have primed over the gum rather than removing it. I'm sure you, dear readers, joined our viewpoint character of very little real significance in wondering what would happen next.

I can now confirm that our most cynical expectations have been confirmed. They painted over the gum.

Taken 19 April 2005

In my last blog entry on the Gum Fence, I didn't mention my employer's fence-painting program. Even while I was photographing lumps of chewing gum on top of every spike at the back end of the property, painters were priming (grey) and painting (black) the fences round the front doors.

I wasn't clear on the ownership of the land, so I didn't know whether the painting program was going to reach all the way to the gum fence. I wondered, when I did think about the possibility of the workmen getting to that section, what they would make of it. What would they think of the thankless task of picking all those bits of gum off of the spikes?

Well, the priming effort reached the gum section a few weeks ago. The weather was windy, cold and snowy until just recently, so I didn't particularly rush to investigate their progress. It's only now, with the sun out and the temperatures up, that I've gone to check. Quite frankly, I hope our property people do so too, because it's not impressive.

Fact one: the rails are primed but not painted, and have been for over a fortnight. This is a drastic change from the speed at which they did the railings at the front of the building, where there was a 3-day turnaround from ugly to painted.

Fact two: they haven't removed the gum. They've just painted the primer on over it.

Taken 2 March 2005

Really - who paints over a lump of chewing gum? Who primes 300 lumps of chewing gum? Surely if you want the paint to stick (which is why you prime) you should remove any extraneous substances?

Taken 2 March 2005

On the plus side, if they ever finish painting, the black enamel will preserve the gum for the edification of future generations.

Somebody has a marker pen and too much time on their hands.

Taken 25 February 2005

Someone has stuck a piece of chewing gum on top of each spike on a fence near my office.

The fence runs along Fettes Row, separating the road from the slope down to my employer's car park (or, more properly, the piece of waste ground on which my employer permits its employees to park their cars; it's a tax distinction). The pavement here is narrow and uneven, made up of old cobblestones, imperfectly pointed. Shrubs grow through the railings, and cars park close beside, making it an awkward side of the road to walk on.

The chewing gum starts beside a long-disused gate. Taken 12 January 2005

Whoever is doing it missed a spike, buried deep in the ivy. Taken 12 January 2005

They put dabs of gum on the stubs of broken-off spikes, too. Taken 12 January 2005

Even when the uprights were broken off quite low down. Taken 12 January 2005

The gum continues over 17 fence divisions. Each fence division has 20 spikes, so even allowing for the 5% or so spikes that are missing altogether, someone has put over 320 tiny dabs of chewing gum on pointy bits of iron. Assuming that each dab represents a third of a stick of gum, someone has chewed over a hundred of them before methodically sticking a piece on each spike.

It makes me wonder. How long did this take? Did they walk by, one day at a time, sticking dabs of gum on spikes? When did they stop, and why? (Have they stopped, or will I find two or three extra spikes covered the next time I walk that way?) Do they now have such well-exercised jaw muscles that they can bite through a walnut?

And, most importantly, Why?

I work in Edinburgh's New Town (it's relatively new, dating only from the late 1700's. In comparison to the Old Town, which has buildings from the 1400's, it's new.). And the beautiful old Georgian buildings have an interesting feature: many of their windows are blocked.

This is because of progressive taxation. The Window Tax, which was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1696, was levied on homeowners in proportion to the number of windows in their houses. A common tax avoidance scheme was to block off a window so that one didn't have to pay. Some homeowners even painted the blocked-off sections black, with white lines to represent the mullions.

Building with plain blocked-off windows, at the intersection of Dundas Street and Eyre Place. Taken 10 January 2005.

This building's main windows are blocked off with plain stone, but someone went to the trouble to paint the one over the front door black. Why do one and not the other? I walk by it every day - it's cattercorner from my office - and I've always wondered. Taken 10 January 2005.

Which windows are real and which are fake? The ones with the curtains are genuine windows, of course, but so are many of the others. In fact, only the bottom left window is blocked off and painted. But a casual glance on a sunny day sees no difference. Taken 10 January 2005.

In 1851, the Window Tax was abolished in favor of a flatter taxation system, which allowed the government to extract a greater proportion of its income from the growing middle class. But many of the owners of houses with blocked-up windows must not have wanted to go to the inconvenience and expense of unblocking them. And now, of course, most of the buildings are subject to conservation laws that determine how much they can be changed.

Every workday, I try to walk part of the way home. When the wind is gale-force or the sleet is dripping down my neck, I don't do so well at it. But the rest of the time, the walk is a good wind-down after work, a chance to adjust to my home life, and an opportunity to immerse myself in a city I love.

Walking through the city has made me want to photograph it. And I have been, with my camera phone. But the pictures have been sitting there, stuck on the phone, until I got it together to get the cable and software together to be able to download them.

So here are a couple from December walks home. If I can get it together, I'll start a regular column on what I see as I walk, with photos. The picture quality isn't anything to shout about, but phone shots are better than none at all, which is what I would take if I had to bring a digital camera with me all the time. (I can barely keep track of my keys, some days.)

All of the trees in Edinhurgh's main park, Princes Street Gardens, are lit up during the holiday season. But instead of going around the trees, the lights go along the trunk and branches. Taken 8 December 2004.

Smily found in chalk on the side of a burnt-out Bank of Scotland building opposite the Museum of Scotland. Connected to the arson attack that destroyed the branch? Probably not. Good use of symbols? Yes. Meaning? Unknown. Taken 8 December 2004.