Pictures I’ve taken and, very occasionally, others I’ve seen
It’s a sad state of affairs that it takes someone from abroad to encourage me to see something under my nose. I try to be good at making the most of the amazing scenery and history on my doorstep, but in the case of the Fyrish monument, about half an hour north of Inverness and…
A passing comment to someone on Twitter a little while ago about how much I enjoyed Berlin despite being there only very briefly, got me thinking. Sometimes it’s all too easy to pass through places, to float in and out of them, and in doing so fail to scratch the surface, let alone dig deeply…
If you read Dave Gorman’s blog – and it’s always an entertaining and informative read – you’ll be aware of a difficulty he’s been having with Flickr, the photo community he (and I, and millions of others) are a part of. You can read the full saga here (1|2|3). But in a nutshell, the problem…
Inverness really feels like the middle of the country at times. Though that’s not far from the truth. If you were to draw a straight line from the top of Shetland to the bottom of the Scottish mainland, then draw another from the westernmost inhabited part of Scotland (the south end of the Western Isles)…
We went for a walk this past weekend around Reelig Glen, a wonderful gem of a walk just a short drive from Inverness. I’d been there before, but on this occasion the time of day allowed for great winter afternoon sunlight penetrating the deep, thick forests. The trees in Reelig Glen are tall – one…
I’ve been zipping about a fair amount this past week. I’ve been ambling around in Inverness… …loitering between trains at Perth station… …and exploring Glasgow at night. The Glasgow visit was for an Explosions in the Sky gig on Monday night. It was my third time of seeing them and they were excellent. Beautiful, uplifting,…
Inverness, a city that depends heavily on the tourist trade, really feels like it comes to life in the springtime, with the clocks changing to usher in the longer days, Easter holidays, and flocks of visitors that give the place such character (and, let’s face it, money) over the summer. That change is a nice…
Nicole and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary this past weekend (it’s a great fortitude that our anniversaries are on the same day, really). We’ve set a pattern of taking it in turns to organise a surprise for each other, and last year I took us to Austria. This year was Nicole’s turn and she…
In which I reflect on the debate around Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens, and wonder whether everyone’s missed the point somewhat – by a several hundred metres, in fact.
I think it comes from being a over a hundred miles away from any place of a similar size and thus being in no other city’s shadow, but there is a great confidence to Inverness. No more so is this true than in the city’s music scene. Half-decent (or, indeed, full-decent) bands can crop up…
If you ever want to know what it feels like to travel to the other side of the world, but don’t have the time or money to do so, then allow me to suggest that you take the overnight bus from London to Inverness. The feeling of exhaustion, plus the desperate need to sleep during…
I’ve begun uploading photos from our time in beautiful France and neutral Switzerland. We’ve been staying with friends in Annecy, a lovely medieval town in Haute-Savoie, and have also been to Geneva for the day. I’ll write more soon, but keep your eye on the evolving photo set in the meantime.
This past weekend, we hit the west coast with a group of friends to go hillwalking. We climbed a mountain at Torridon on Saturday (Mullach an Rathain, for those are interested). It would have been two peaks but the weather was against us. Then on Sunday Nicole and I drove around the spectacular Applecross peninsula…
In which I reflect on the changing face of Dundee, and the threat to its curious yet compelling aura of abandonment.
You may remember me speaking back in June at A Night of Adventure, a fundraising evening in Edinburgh for the great charity Hope and Homes for Children. It turned out to be a really fun evening, and very inspiring because I was rubbing shoulders with fellow speakers that included round the world cyclists, mountaineers, endurance…
In which I take a couple of hours out from a work trip to explore the surprising charm of the Yorkshire city of Leeds.
I was away hillwalking this weekend with a group of friends in Kintail, in the northwest Highlands near Skye. It is a beautiful part of the world, but one I had frequently passed through rather than stopping to explore, so it was nice to see something of the area. The weather was pretty rotten –…
Nicole and I went for a walk up Craig Phadraig this afternoon. It was the first time I’d been up there in years, which is a shame as it is one of the few hills close to Inverness which allows for great views – or at least they would be great if it wasn’t for…
Until my previous post earlier today, it was three weeks since I last blogged. Perhaps a record. Not that I have ever committed to any frequency on here, but the absence does reflect a similar lack of finger-to-keyboard when it comes to other writing, and most acutely the sequel to Up The Creek Without a…
This afternoon I’ve finished uploading my photos from our trip to the Western Isles and Skye (from which we returned a week ago). The slideshow above contains what I think are some of my better ones, though I’m disappointed not to have got, at least in my own opinion, any true crackers. I shot mostly…