Category Archives: Relationships with Cities

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Hail, Hail!

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.

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Taken 21 February 2006

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

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Taken 21 February 2006

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

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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.

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Taken 20 February 2006

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

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Taken 19 February 2006

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

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Taken 19 February 2006

Edinburgh, a love letter, Personal, Photography

Happy Birthday to Me

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Today was my birthday, and a very good one it was, too. From the flowers the kids gave me first thing, to the cards and the presents that started my day so well, to the very good day with my colleagues at work, it was both ordinary and magical. Even got my usual walk through the Botanics, taking the odd picture along the way, seemed a little special, though I don’t know if that shows in these phiotos.

Something sprouting through the rocks

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Taken 15 February 2006

Something about this drystane wall spoke to me too.

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Taken 15 February 2006

Then, on the walk home, I was struck by the beauty of these balustrades in the raking sunlight.

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Taken 15 February 2006

But that was nothing to the sky over Calton Hill! (Photo cropped to remove a crane)

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Taken 15 February 2006

The best moments came at the end of the day – playing tag with the kids on the walk home in the last of the sunlight. Noticing that Alex has finally figured out how to moderate his pace so Fiona can catch him. Chocolate cake. Silly kids in their bubble bath. A chance to talk to Martiin in the evening (and to thank him – I am aware that the flowers, the presents, and the cake only seemed to appear magically at the right moments!)

In some ways, having such an ordinary working-day birthday was better than having an all special day, because it made me look at my everyday life afresh and see it sparkle. I hope I can hold onto that for a while yet!

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Walking Home At Sunset

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.

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Taken 8 February 2006

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

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Taken 8 February 2006

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

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Taken 8 February 2006

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

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Taken 8 February 2006

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

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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.

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Taken 8 February 2006

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Ice balls

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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.

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Taken 31 January 2006

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Frosty Day

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.

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Taken 30 January 2006

Frost-rimmed leaves, a pattern shot.

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Taken 30 January 2006

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

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

January Walk Shots

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.

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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!.

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Taken 12 January 2006

Wrinkled rose hep, on a back path through Gilmerton.

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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.)

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Taken 18 January 2006

View through the fence, Powderhall.

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Taken 18 January 2006

Reddening ivy 1, Powderhall.

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Taken 18 January 2006

Reddening ivy 2, Powderhall.

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Taken 18 January 2006

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Up the Hill

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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.

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Taken 7 January 2006

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

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Taken 7 January 2006

Coming down the hill, toward Newington.

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Taken 7 January 2006

Rock shots

Stone from the wall by the Commonwealth Pool

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Taken 7 January 2006

Fragmented rock at the summit

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Taken 7 January 2006

Stone from the wall by the Pollock Halls

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Taken 7 January 2006

Plant shots

A single thistle head in the grass

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Taken 7 January 2006

Gorse blossoms

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Taken 7 January 2006

Dead thistle heads.

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Taken 7 January 2006

Gorse against the sky

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Taken 7 January 2006

Bramble leaves

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Taken 7 January 2006

Moss and dead grass

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Taken 7 January 2006

Stone in the hillside

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Taken 7 January 2006

Seed heads against the sky

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Taken 7 January 2006

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

First Day Back

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.

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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.)

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Taken 3 January 2006

Lone bamboo shoot

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Taken 3 January 2006

Bamboo thicket…another “pattern” shot.

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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.

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Snow Pictures

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:

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Taken 28 December 2005

Leaf from an Edinburgh University courtyard:

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Taken 28 December 2005

Ice crystals between the cobbles:

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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:

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Taken 28 December 2005

Live grass in the snow:

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Taken 28 December 2005

The blades corkscrew in the cold:

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Taken 28 December 2005

Snow on the weeds:

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Taken 28 December 2005

Edinburgh, a love letter, Photography

Treespotting

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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:

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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.

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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),

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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.

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Taken 13 December 2005

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