A few photographs I had the pleasure of taking on the Isle of May yesterday...

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Isle of May originally appeared on Taexalia on June 13, 2010.

If you are going to climb Ben Nevis then I highly recommend not doing it on the first heatwave day of the summer. I don't recommend doing it during any other heatwave either - but the first heatwave of the year and climbing Ben Nevis is a combination that will leave you puffin, pechin, puggled an pitifu...

Last year we didn't heed this advice. Thinking about it, we didn't really not heed it, we just didn't really think about it in real terms. The day before we just thoucht "Aye fine weather, hope it huds for the morn."

When the Paternal Unit and The GemmaDog deposited us at the side of the road it was 8:15am. Before we even said goodbye, I decided that the fleece I was wearing was already surplus to requirements - and I added it to my rucksack, before lathering my exposed wintry white flesh with sunscreen.

Scottish readers will know how alien a concept it is to be applying sunscreen at 8:15am on a Sunday morning.

We were hot before we crossed the River Nevis and left the shade of the trees. Once we left the shade of the trees we were hotter still.

And then we started to climb.

That's the wonderful thing about Ben Nevis - you start basically at sea level and climb to 4406 (or 4409 depending who you read) feet above sea level. Unlike other Munros, where the car-park might already be at 1000ft above sea level and the summit is 3300ft, you walk all the way. Up. There is no gentle initiation, there is only UP.

We decided very early on that we had the freedom to turn back at any point, given that the heat was, well, hot and given that our recent portfolio of hill-walking was limited to Stac Pollaidh.

Being vaguely experienced, if out of practise hillwalkers, we were equipped with everything one needs to venture onto the Scottish hills. Here is a list of some of the things that were in my backpack... that added to the weight I was carrying... that added to the hotness:

• Aforementioned polar fleece jacket
• Sweatshirt
• Waterproof jacket
• Waterproof trousers
• Scarf
• Fleece hat
• Gloves
• Packed lunch
• Camera
• Water

Feel free to guess how many of those items I needed...

Here is a list of things I didn't bring:

• My own personal rain cloud and wind system

We were slow, we were overtaken, we stopped a lot. We put one foot in front of the other and kept going despite feeling like we might never make it. We were buoyed by the group of guys who kept overtaking us while we were stopped, who would stop further on and banter as we overtook them. One of these darling guys was to be found around the half way point straddling the waterfall and offering to soak people's hats for them. We accepted his offer. I have to tell you that the sensation of that freezing, dripping hat returning to my bonce was one of the best non-orgasmic moments of my life. Both Mither and I are convinced that it was this singular incident that ensured our success.

Yes, despite the heat, and a mile of thigh-deep-arse-muscle-trembling-banana-skin-polluted-snow, we made it.

I didn't have the energy to be euphoric and I didn't have the sunglasses to cope with the harsh effect of sun and snow (I am not one of those people that does things with snow and graphite shoe accessories). I didn't even really have the energy to eat much. But I did climb onto the trig point and feel funny knowing that for the moments we were up there, no-one in these Isles had their feet on the ground and their heads held higher.

What goes up must come down. Much of the downward trek we were kept company by a pair of conversational Ravens. We also discovered that sweat and sunscreen soup is effective in drowning midgies. When my knees made their final creaking downward motion I was already thinking about The Next Time...

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Getting High With Mither originally appeared on Taexalia on February 25, 2010.

Sunworship with my camera...

Burntisland Winter Sun Firth of Forth

Burntisland Winter Sunset

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Sunrise Over Edinburgh From Portobello Beach

Portobello Beach Sunrise

Portobello Beach Sunrise

Firth of Forth Sunrise at Portobello Beach

Firth of Forth Sunrise at Portobello Beach

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Solstice Burntisland Beach

Solstice Burntisland Beach

Sunset Burntisland

Red Sky Warning

Sunrise Burntisland Firth of Forth

Midwinter Sun

Midwinter Sun

Midiwinter Sun Worship blue

Midiwinter Sun Worship

Midwinter Sun Trees

Midwinter

Celebrate The Sun

December Sunrise

Dancing Trees Dusk

Sunset

Sunset over Lily's Pond Alyson's Orchard New Hampshire

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Sunscapes originally appeared on Taexalia on February 24, 2010.

I'm fiddling with my image plugins and trying to discover the coolest way to display a whole gallery of my images... So here's the NextGen Smooth Gallery with some of my landscape and scenery photos taken in Scotland. ..

Slioch

Otter water art

Freezing Fog

Warning Sign Loch Maree

Circle in the sand north Berwick

Circle in the Sand North Berwick

Calming Sea

Firth of Forth Sunrise at Portobello Beach

Firth of Forth Sunrise at Portobello Beach

Portobello Beach Sunrise

Portobello Beach Sunrise

Sunrise Over Edinburgh From Portobello Beach

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Mull of Galloway Cliff

Am Buachaille Sandwood Bay

Am Buachaille sea stack at Sandwood Bay North west Scotland.

Sandwood Bay

Stac Pollaidh Ledge

Stac Pollaidh

Ben Nevis Heads Above Everything

Ben Nevis Snow Cornice

Ben Nevis Summit

Ben Nevis

Burntisland Winter Sunset

Burntisland Winter Sun Firth of Forth

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Firth of Forth

Firemore Bay

Stac Pollaidh

Solstice Burntisland Beach

Solstice Burntisland Beach

Firth of Forth From The Lammerlaws

Sunset Burntisland

Red Sky Warning

Sunrise Burntisland Firth of Forth

Spey Bay

Bass Rock Firth of Forth

Hareheugh Craigs

Bass Rock Firth of Forth

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Scottish Landscape Gallery originally appeared on Taexalia on February 7, 2010.

The message from the Firth of Forth this morning was of light following dark. Yule, the shortest day, eases into the longest night. The wheel turns. Life moves on.

Bright Blessings

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Burntisland Solstice originally appeared on Taexalia on December 21, 2009.

Having bought a house and spent a week flying by the seat of our collective knickers before finally selling the flat, we entered March in a curious state of limbo. We weren't actually moving until April, yet we had kind of left months earlier in our own hearts. We didn't even have the twice weekly cleaning rituals for the no longer happening open viewing sessions to keep us occupied.

We took a trip to Fife to give various parental units a drive-by of our soon-to-be new home - this included one set of units totally blanking the instruction to "just drive past, don't stop" - which is nothing short of obvious on the soon- to-be our street.

Mortification did not stop the blinking of the camera as we explored some of the coast near East Wemyss...

The message seemed to be light coming out of the dark... or something poetic...

A previously booked holiday with my family units took care of one of the limbo weeks, a most well-timed break from The Waiting Game.

I confess to having a small change of mind when I saw this house at Firemore Bay...

We enjoyed a trip on a Creel Fishing Boat (that's sustainable fishing where the manny handles everything he catches and pits back onyhing nae fine or nae al enough...)

Mither, Gemma and I test climbed about a quarter of Stac Pollaidh...

We danced in a sunset...

And we caught a last few glimpses of our beloved foxes...

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Reflections 2009 ~ March originally appeared on Taexalia on December 18, 2009.

I have been to London several times, enough times that I can navigate myself around some areas without always needing a map - and can even be of help to resident Londoners who find themselves confused on the Tube (read one Londoner and technically it was the Overground - but I knew which train she needed and she didn't!). Until last Friday I had never been to the Tower of London.

I have been *this close* to the Tower of London, I have photographed it from the outside and I have even considered the length of the queue for tickets but I have never combined all of these things with an arrival time of 9am and the prospect of a full day to take advantage of my seventeen pounds down payment. I love history and I love buildings with stories in the walls, but if it's going to cost me seventeen pounds then I need to get more than a sweaty hour crammed in with the afternoon tourist mob. On Friday we were at the gates before they opened and I wondered whether any ghosts watched from the towers and marvelled at the keenness of folk to get in...

When we did pass under the gates, were too early for the first guided walk and so we decided to explore a bit in the meantime. A beeline was made for the Ravens, this blogger having somewhat of an affinity with the corvid ones.

I have mixed feelings about what I saw. Later, the first (only?) female Yeoman Warder would tell us that the Ravens are very happy and live much longer in the Tower than they do in the wild but I couldn't quite decide if it is better to have a long life with clipped wings or a shorter life with the freedom to choose... It seemed somehow cruel to watch a Raven try to take off as it interacted with its corvid cousins, the many Crows who also populated the area. As intelligent as corvids are, these birds never seem to have figured out that for them flight is curtailed.

We had the luxury of beating the rush and getting some time alone with the birds and were treated to some close-up action as two of the Ravens strutted up to us to investigate our worthiness. We are not sure of their collective conclusion, but we were excited to get so close to these wonderful creatures.

Later in the day we returned to the spot for another look, but by then there was a throng of people chattering and shouting. We were somewhat amused as they all aimed their cameras at a bird strutting along the fence who stopped to pose for them - a Crow taking up the slack as the Ravens watched from the hill.

I would have paid seventeen pounds for that alone

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Corvid Cheek originally appeared on Taexalia on October 28, 2009.

I love the way I feel when I walk into the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Sometimes I wonder if I even need an installation at the other end, or if I could just be satisfied with the imposing hulk of space. What would I do with the space? How would I move in it? Would I start to build something?

Today there is a big black box looming at the end of the hall. Half-term children are running and screaming underneath the huge steel structure, trusting the construction won't start to creak and bend and collapse. A sign depicts that photography is banned as cameras flash and catch me right in the retina.

We turn and look up the ramp at the black space peppered with the faint shapes of light coloured garments. It reminds me of a puppet show I saw as a child where the performers dressed in black so that only the dragons and crows could be seen against the blackout curtain at the back of the stage.

We walk together up the ramp and into the blackness. I am tickled by the way the box seems to eat the light. I observe my reactions as my senses try to figure out the right course of action... In a city where shoving a tourist is almost polite, where queue jumping is an act of survival and worthy of a category in the next Olympics and where personal space is at a premium - it is interesting to walk into the black box trusting that no-one will barge into you and there is an almost communal feeling as everyone becomes nothing in nothingness.

Then confusion as I guess we are at the wall but I cannot believe that just because everyone else has stopped that I must stop. I need to stretch my arm and feel the solid wall before I can turn and look at the light. I find myself wishing it was bigger, longer, blacker.

Miroslaw Balka - How It Is - Tate Modern

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How It Is originally appeared on Taexalia on October 27, 2009.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, forget about the calorie count and stand in line with the locals. I am told that in Philadelphia there are three places that sell worthwhile Philly Cheese Steaks. Two of them are right across the street from each other and I am told this is where the tourists go. I am told that to get the real deal one must hand dollars over to Tony Luke.

Tony Luke's had a big line when we arrived (that's a queue to some of you) and a big line when we left. I wondered if that line was a constant for the whole 24/7 that the beef is cooking and being thrown into sandwiches. I wondered how many cows it takes to keep Tony Luke's ticking over.

I wanted to take a picture of the menu hanging on the building but my hostess suggested that might not be a good idea. We didn't know who might be in the line and who might be objecting to possibly being in the background of my picture. We did take a picture as we drove past in the car and it was suggested to me that anyone who saw that would think we were Feds. I have no idea if my chain was being pulled or not but since the person telling me all this is involved in law enforcement, I took the advice.

I'm not sure the picture describes fully the size of this thing. But apparently Philly has one of the highest obese populations in the US and I'm laying that right at the door of this singular frankly delicious item.

It's messy. There is no clean polite spill free way to eat this. You collect it from the window and go round the corner and load up with gherkins, peppers (spicy bell ones), mustard and hot pepper sauce. You can add ketchup if you like but I didn't like. Then you pick it up and bite in. Juices slide down your chin and your fingers get all gooey, but after the first bite gets your taste buds going you give up any pretence of etiquette. Put simply, you eat.

Guilt be damned when you have twelve inches of juicy and delicious pleasure to devour.

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Philly Cheese Steak originally appeared on Taexalia on September 9, 2009.

Oh how things change.

For years I have travelled to America visiting many interesting places, spending my tourist pounds and being curiously welcomed by strangers asking if I know any Ferguson's in Falkirk as that is where their great grandfather's second cousin twice removed came from.

The only thing I've ever done in Falkirk is visit the Falkirk Wheel. My closest link to a Ferguson is the tractor my Granda drove around Belt Croft. My knowledge of my family tree is like a small shrub. I am Scottish because I was born here, raised here and I live here in the tangled mess of assumptions, cultures, pretty stunning landscapes and ugly sectarian traditions that can all be lumped under the name Scotland.

We are not any more special than any other country with its own version of democracy, its own legal system, its own flag, its own heritage and its own landscape.

Except we aren't really recognised as a country - the Saltire they waved at Tripoli airport is usually missing from any book of official country flags and our parliament falls a bit short of my idea of democracy on many levels. (Actually that probably makes us quite similar to many countries with their flag in the books!).

So in the past my Scottishness has always been welcomed even if my idea of Scotland seems at odds with the Tartan Shortbread Tin version perpetuated by the American genealogy movement.

Having said that, sometimes I have had trouble spending my tourist pounds. Like the time the bank in Carmel By The Sea wouldn't change my emergency stash of Sterling into US Dollars - the woman had no qualms about telling me I needed to travel to either Los Angeles or San Francisco (you do the maths) as no-one else will change my money "because of 9/11".

She actually said that.

She would have been able to give me a cash advance on a credit card though.

The message: all non-Americans are to be prevented from exchanging cash for cash because any attempt to live life free from the stranglehold of credit card debts and related bank charges is a clear sign of terrorism.

There I said it. Terrorism. It's a loaded word, isn't it? Sometimes I think the word is used to control us more than the weapons of any terrorist. A terrorist is a bad person, rather than a participant in a war. War, you see, only has one good and valid side. It is the Goodies (read USA, read Britain) against the Terrorists (read any people or movement or nation who oppose the Goodies).

Terrorists butcher innocent people, murder innocent people and terrorise innocent people. The US military and the British military shoot the target, albeit it in a carpet bombing kinda fashion, and reduce innocent people to the term collateral damage.

Surely a terrorist is just someone who instills terror, regardless of national identity, political leanings or colour of skin? I am thinking of recent inhabitants of Westminster and the White House. Sometimes even Alex Salmond instills terror in me, albeit in a weapons free way.

But the big story this week is the release on grounds of compassion of the convicted terrorist Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison. The Lockerbie Bomber no longer resides in a reportedly well appointed cell with internet access and curious privileges. The special treatment is rumoured to have been going on since he was imprisoned and this release could be seen as just one more piece of an incomplete jigsaw that suggests a miscarriage of justice and even that they got the wrong man.

Talks of business deals - oil exploration in Libya, retail interests such as Marks and Spencer opening shops in Tripoli - lurk in the background of a decision that has been marketed as "A decision for the Scottish Government". Gordon Brown broke his silence to congratulate the English cricket team on their victory and he appears to be living in hope that Kenny MacAskill and the people of Scotland will take the brunt of this decision that is increasingly looking like politics as usual - and deeply linked to Westminster and Brown himself.

If we believe al-Megrahi was the bomber, are we looking at the release of a terrorist on grounds of compassion which conveniently oils the wheels of deals and talks had by Gordon Brown with the leadership of Libya?

If we believe al-Megrahi was wrongly imprisoned, are we looking at justice being done in a way that still oils those business wheels but allows the people involved in the cock-up (like vocal FBI Director Robert Mueller) to save face. Megrahi curiously dropped his appeal to clear his name despite still claiming his innocence - why?

Justice has not been done when so many questions are circulating about whether al-Megrahi was the real bomber and there is now little chance of legal recourse to prove the truth one way or another.

Who is really benefiting from the muddy waters???

The people of Scotland don't appear to be. In fact the people of Scotland are currently the focus of yet another American Boycott from the Fraternity of Freedom Fries as they are declared a terrorist friendly nation. The people of Scotland are being targeted financially in an attempt to bully politicians to - well to do what exactly? go to Libya and get him back???

The funniest comment on the Boycott Scotland website, though, is this one directed at Kenny MacAskill:

"You have shown to the international community that your government and the United Kingdom as a whole will stop at nothing to pursue the neverending and relentless acquisition of oil revenues."

So anyway I'm Scottish and I'm dancing the swords between amusement, disillusionment, disappointment and frustration as I try to figure out what is really going on with this debacle.

Whilst I don't agree with the release of al-Megrahi leaving so many questions dangling in the folder currently marked Case Closed, I don't agree with the bully boy stance of the perpetrators of the Boycott Scotland campaign - who seem to be suggesting that Scotland must always act in agreement with their views to avoid being shown a lesson. That isn't democracy and it isn't showing respect to the families of the victims on the ground in Lockerbie, is it?

I'm looking forward to my trip to the USA next week - which I won't be cancelling because I don't hold my friends and loved ones responsible for the highly questionable acts of their politicians. I'll change my currency on this side of the pond though!

Boycott Scotland

or

Boycott Scotland

~

You decide!

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Snake(s) In The Grass originally appeared on Taexalia on August 25, 2009.