Regulations as seen

A real and untouched photo: This sign, of unknown age and origin has been placed high up on the wall of a building but not quite as high as the hydrant symbol and guide. It's located in the popular theme park known as Edinburgh, just outside of Scotland. Presumably the excessive height positioning is necessary to allow the sign to be viewed by all and sundry in the event of a heavy fall of snow, at least 10 feet would be required. This is how the powers that be remind us that they are the powers that are in charge of such things as regulations. I've no real objection to this other than it's small and halfway up a building so looks a bit daft. Perhaps the regulators are just quietly reminding us that they can be a bit daft from time to time. Human even. Anyway nobody passing by can say they've not been told. Including you now.

Noodling

Some things were vague and badly edited. There was veiled criticism and a chilly breeze from the west.

Yesterday was a day of extensive nationwide noodling. From the far reaches of Scotland to the balmy shores and lakeside temples of the rain forests of Watford. On the way wildlife was spotted and exotic food partaken. Travel was by golden chariot both in a southerly and northerly direction with odd spells of east and west thrown in. Two bananas were eaten with little or no fuss and then there was the Land-Rover coffee with a tiny biscuit. The day was not just about food and drink. There was radio, music, chatter, laughter and opinion. There were great feats of engineering and quick but key conversations with vendors and partakers. The weather was also kind if predictable, a key note in the behaviour of British weather. Truly nobody cares about any of that. When I got home I was very tired but pretended to myself that this was not the case. My relaxed attitude fooled no one and soon I was asleep. Another adventurous day in the can, firmly.

Some things were too close and detailed to really matter or be understood as they lacked depth and context.

Hi-vis in low lighting situations

A badly distorted bonfire was the centre of attraction at the Hopetoun House fireworks extravaganza yesterday. The flames could barely contain their enthusiasm and jumped across the black sky to greet us.  Nice woody / carbon smell and safety cordons everywhere, people often behave in a silly manner when confronted by fire. The fireworks, set to a modern pop soundtrack were impressive and not affected by various weather warnings. I concentrated on watching them rather than take even more poor photographs.

In the distance are the various bridges that span the Forth. The darkness reduces them to abstract pin points of light that glow and flicker out and across the water. The water is milky and solid looking, hardly moving and reflecting the cars and buses that pass us by. We trekked in and out by the waterside, very therapeutic. 

Selfies in extreme conditions of darkness seldom turn out well. This one being no exception, Ali is smiley fine, I'm more of an awkward walrus. A decent enough band name if I ever needed to use it which I wont.

Hazy shades of autumn

Every autumn this shrub looks like it's on fire. It's not.

Chips, cheese and gravy

Cactus in a Cafe.

Poutine is a fancy term/word/what have you for chips, cheese and gravy: in a Canadian style. The dish is of French origin and is popular in Quebec (apparently). The cheese is actually cheese curds, how different they are from actual cheese I don't know, just a bit more buttery and bland than cheese. Perhaps it's actually just natural stuff rather than the processed cheese I'm used to. Now it seems it's slowly taking Scotland by storm despite the many well established local variations on chips (with just about anything else for a topping) that currently obsess the feeble and fickle Scottish mindset. Gentrification by poutine, a social equalizer and the cheesy answer to all our polarized streets and housing schemes, who ever saw that coming?

The cat returns

After a mysterious four months absence our once regular "stray" cat, known a Twink, decided to return to us the other day. His motives for a visit seem pretty straightforward and honest. Food. He scoffed two tins of premium cat food, a bowl of cat cereal, some chicken breast and a handful of Dreamies. Not a bad score for a regular sized cat. So where has he been all summer? The last official sighting was some time in late June, then nothing till now. That's the way of things with cats. I imagine he's been reasonably happy in his self sufficiency wandering the fields and hedgerows effectively living on whatever game he could catch. Or maybe not, perhaps he's a resident at the nearest village (at least a mile away as the crow flies), reasonably looked after and all that but just likes to explore over a wide area from time to time. We'll never really know, he comes and then...he goes.

Back to business

I've returned to the honourable profession of anonymous eBay seller/salesman. I'm putting my soul on the on-line line and my heart in an electronic box. There will be bids and questions, wrapping and excessive postal charges, waiting and more waiting and maybe nothing at all. It's all part of the grim charade of maintaining status and stars in the kick-ass world of on line selling. Not for the soft hearted or the clumsy user of a Stanley knife or large awkward pieces of cardboard. It also involves taking photographs and stringing meaningful and descriptive words together. Then more waiting, clock watching. There's a lot to learn and a bit to lose. I'm hoping to receive a decent offer for the carpet.

Naked blue machine

It's like some terrible Tory advert, a campaign message or a description of Glasgow Rangers fans on the march. It's a  until they investigate the outcomes. Blue isn't really a healthy colour, except for blueberries, grapes and blue cheese. Minority foodstuffs. God made them blue so we'd all just stop and think a little before scoffing them. Our instincts warn us against such folly. Blue is a poison. Today we're blue with the cold as the clocks change  and feeling blue because it's an easy status to describe. Nobody ever feels red, they just see it. Somewhere the hastily penned lyrics of "Axis, bold as love" are calling to my subconscious but I can't quite make out the detail. Nothing modern really makes any sense, not fashion nor fashionable eating. Never did I suppose. It's all been pushed through and processed via some naked blue machine operated and promoted by a Soviet based bot. In the brave new morning we'll jog around the block and beat those winter blues.

Looking for cars

Looking for cars can get complicated, too much choice but actually very little. Web sites and apps, lists of features. Hyped up and cramped up but all black and shiny with interiors and exteriors. Statistics and performance. Things that matter. Choice and toys and the complex but straight forward payment plans where no matter what you choose to do you will lose money. Every car points down a road. Every car promises a sweet free life except for the optional running costs that aren't. The extras and the externals. Top down price up. Price down smell a rat. Everybody wants to make some money from your innocent desire to just roll out there.

Black crow in a blue sky

I saw  black crow in a blue, blue sky. Watching and waiting. Possibly for me to take out my phone and snap a couple of pics, crows are clever for birds and very clever for humans. They see everything we do (that's outside). They like fast food waste, roadkill and worms recently turned up by plows. They refuse to socialize with seagulls and other less intelligent types of bird. They are brave, a little reckless but always alert and on the look out for an opportunity. They are bandits and heart breakers but... and that's about all I know on crows.

East Neuk Daily etc.

Still life with bird, shells and salvaged cactus plants. No significant meanings deduced so far.

The Bill O'Ness or the Billowness or even the Billy Ness. I'm not sure. The scene of much childhood exploration on my part, now more or less paved over and padded up for safety and comfort by the local golf course.

Anstruther harbour seen from a safe distance close to the site of the former "Regal" cinema. A cinema so close to the water that life belts were issued to the audience during showings of the Cruel Sea and Exodus. My mum's ashes were also scattered here a few years ago. The water has done it's job and there are no traces left.

I inadvertently walked into an unsigned black and white zone specially created for older people. Yeah that's how life appears when you're looking backwards.

Aberdeen daily photo

Underpass sunflowers.

Ships at anchor.

Lego Daily Photo

Niagara Falls - detail.

The Grand Canyon - detail.

The Hoover Dam - detail.

Pretty much anything and everything has been converted to Lego by now so these worlds are easily recognizable and familiar. Despite that they are still (for me) highly engaging and fun and I admire the skill, dexterity and imagination that creates them. Nice to get up close to these exhibits, three of many currently on display in the ancient heart of Stirling Castle oddly enough.

Wood, Iron, Stone

I suppose Instagram was really invented for photos like these but due to my quirky and unbalanced relationship with social media I'm posting them here where ... they'll do no harm and be relatively unseen and they wont compete for likes and comments with better, more exotic shots.

Milestone

It's my birthday today. Shame the weather's a bit gloomy but it's October and I'm having a nice day so far. Another milestone except it's not strictly a milestone birthday but I can confirm that the milestone above is an actual milestone complete with real miles and fractions of miles. Also made of cast iron.

East Neuk Daily Photo

I've been working in the East Neuk villages of Fife for the last few days. In the autumnal sunshine it's been great to take a break now and then and just wander around snapping scenes and odd things stacked against the new. There's too much to share in a single post, so many stone, timber and iron items and places that have rotted, rusted or weathered into wonderful shapes and textures. It's a treasure trove of old and modern oddities and cast off pieces. Strange how the whole "artisan" labelling has caught on too, every coffee shop, bakery and food emporium now has that tousled, shabby-chic look to it and of course the tourists lap it up (so it seems). I'm ambivalent about the changes, much of my childhood was spent here when things were less rosy, fishing was in a sharp decline and there was a hard and genuinely poor feel to these communities. Life was rough. It's all changed now and has become some frozen and preserved showpiece for the distant past and tougher times (?). Yes the old fishing and mining communities struggled and scraped and just about survived back then, when herring money built the piers and harbours in a quiet gold rush,  now all gone . Now they woo the visitors (like me, no longer local) with fish and chips, coffee and scones, lobsters and shellfish, pottery and the hard stones and wreckage of yesterday cemented back into place. 

Spy mode

There in the distance is the USNS Robert R Peary berthed at the MoD base next door to us (well a few miles away), photographed from the beach in the early morning light. She's a large logistical support (cargo) ship obviously visiting these parts for a short while. I did hear the hydraulic thunder of what I imagine to be her cargo hold covers' opening system yesterday but dismissed it as another weird sound coming up from the river on a still morning. Today I sauntered down to the shore an saw her tied up and loading cargo. What's she doing here? Probably engaged in some support work for the UK's new aircraft carrier as none of the UK's current supply ships can actually support it at the moment. That's down to the thumbnail size of today's RN and a direct consequence of some strange and stupid governmental decisions. Nothing new there then. 

1797

Local wanderings: Defiantly shining brightly in the October sunshine, the strangely fresh and clear carvings on a headstone that's over 200 years old. Browgh is an old Scottish name, probably of Viking origins. Whoever F, K and D were remains a mystery, 1797 wasn't a great year for them I guess but their memorial has remained undamaged and unmarked over the centuries. 

Cloud dog

When I took this picture of a cloud it looked like a dog. Now I've processed it by downloading it etc. it just about looks like a dog but really is more like just another cloud with odd features (though normal for a cloud). Looking at it again, with a fresh and indoor perspective it kind of looks more like a sheep, that's pretty normal for a cloud, white and fluffy etc. When I say a sheep I mean the head of a sheep, if you look at it carefully anyway. So in the end I'm now less likely to bother to take any further photos of individual clouds that seem to look like something at the time because despite all that "camera never lies" stuff that you hear over and over again, they do, or at the very least they tend to mislead in and irritating way.

The funny smell of agriculture

Normally I quite like the (preferably faint) smell of dung on the fields. It's a pleasant, familiar, evocative odour that's strangely enjoyable. It says countryside and promotes a sense of wholesomeness even if it's only cow shit sprayed across a field. Anyway these days our local fields are smelling like they've been burned, trampled and raised by rampaging Vikings. Fields of fire. Fields of fracking maybe. Deep beneath the tranquil Fife countryside, there's a raging fire ... and the mice are escaping and heading in our direction.