reflections

Walking along the Union Canal near the old brewery, some new buildings I've seen being constructed over the last year. Wasn't sure if they were small offices or going to be homes, but I've been told they are a modern version of town houses, although it looks like they have completed them just in time for them to lie mostly empty as no-one can get the mortgage to buy them. I walk this way quite a lot and I've shot this in colour and not really cared much for the resulting pics, but shooting in black and white (and my B&W shots are shot properly in B&W, not colour then greyscaled afterwards on Photoshop, it makes a difference) I was much more satisfied with the result.





(click for the bigger version on the Woolamaloo Flickr)

let sleeping swans lie

If you should let sleeping dogs lie then I'd imagine you should certainly not disturb snoozing swans, given how grumpy and bad tempered they can be even when fully awake, let alone being roused from a pleasant nap. This was as close as I dared get to a couple of slumbering swans basking in the last golden rays of the setting sun by the Union Canal not far from my home, contentedly snoozing just a couple of feet from all the walkers, joggers, cyclists and canoeists. Lovely to have this so close by in the middle of a heavily populated part of a major city. If you click on the pic you can go to my Flickr stream and click the 'all sizes' buttons to see the much larger version; it was worth edging slowly closer to the animal as I managed to get some details of the feathers into the bigger version.

ice, ice, baby

Damned cold at the weekend - dad and I walked along a bit of the Forth & Clyde Canal between Kilsyth and Dullatur; large chunks were slushy with chunks of ice floating in it, while other sections were frozen totally solid, even stones we threw in just skidded across the icy surface rather than breaking through to the water below. Some swans were having fun - a couple had come out of the few open water channels left and onto the ice. One seemed to be managing okay, walking slowly and carefully, the other was taking a step and those big webbed feet would just suddenly slip back and he'd land on his belly, get up, try again, another step, feet slip back, land on belly... After a few minutes of this he decided to turn and get back into the water. The sounds you can hear are from the vibrations resonating across the ice; sounds a bit like the sound sometimes heard in overhead wires or in railway lines before a train comes; the same sound could be heard when we skidded stones over bits of ice as when the swan's feet hit the surface, just a strange vibration sound which we really liked. There are some pics from the scene here on the Woolamaloo Flickr.

And suddenly there were canoes in Edinburgh

Heading up to Mel's to take care of Dizzy, the incredibly pretty kitty, close to sunset I paused on the bridge which crosses the Union Canal. It's always worth stopping for a moment there because sometimes you see something nice sandwhiched in between the Victorian tenements; sometimes ducks, geese or swans, sometimes just the sun reflecting off the water or, as in today's case, a group of canoeists paddling past. I guess they were making the most of an unseasonably mild and very clear, sunny day which was more like very early spring rather than early February in Scotland. Isn't it nice the things you can just come across walking round your neighbourhood? (click the pics to see the bigger versions on the Woolamaloo Flickr)

Quack quack

Walking along the Union Canal this weekend, ducks and other birds (sadly I do not know everything and bird types is one area I am weak in - anyone know what these black waterfowl with the white bills are?) swimming around. The ducks go past, the black birds swim past, their little red-orange webbed feet just visible through the greenish water, working away like the paddles on an old Mississippi steamboat. Then suddenly they start diving. Ploop! One minute they are there, next moment only concentric ripples spreading outwards on the surface of the water to show where they had been, then suddenly they pop up again elsewhere, like a WWII German U-Boat doing an emergency surface. I had a sudden urge to do my Jack Hawkins impression and call for the depth charges...

It was very hard to capture these sudden movements on the camera, so I switched to video mode instead. You can hear a voice at the start which is a tiny little girl with her dad shouting "quack quacks!" in delight. Nearby some narrowboats which are lived on the whole year long, the restored old Leamington Lift Bridge (I don't know why but it gives me such pleasure to see it raised and for holidaying folks to sail under it), the floating restaurant barge which cruises at the weekend, new waterfront cafes, offices and homes, the remains of the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery slowly being taken apart as the area is remade (Sean Connery lived just right round the corner from this spot as a boy and delivered milk in the area - now he comes back to the nearby cinema on a red carpet for the Film Festival every year). And this is all a short walk to my home in one direction and to Edinburgh Castle the other way. The little marvels we can see even in the middle of the city if we only stop and look for a moment and share that simple, childlike delight in these little surprises and presents the world offers us.



(apologies for the poor quality - my camera does very good video but that means big files so I need to reduce it so much to fit on YouTube it never looks right - oh well, it's free!)

Hunting werewolves

Full moon this weekend, good werewolf hunting weather (hey, everyone needs a hobby and it gives me some exercise and gets me out into the fresh air):



(all this scene needs now is Christopher Lee in his Dracula cape; click for the bigger version on my Flickr)



(the full moon reflecting on the Union Canal; fun to compare this to summer evening pic of this same location I took a while back on my Flickr)

No lycanthropes were harmed in the making of these photographs, although my fingers got sodding frozen.

Edinburgh raft race

Some video footage from the recent raft race on the Union Canal near me - all the rafts were made from found material (yes, there was someone with a floating bath-tub too at one point!). It's so cool to see life back here now, it was run down for so long, now the canal is refurbished, back in use with holiday barges and some barges moored around the new quays which folk live on year round, restaurant barges go up and down the way, the old derelict areas and the the former brewery are all being redeveloped with new apartments, cafes and bars, while the towpath has been repaired from the old potholed, overgrown mudbath it used to be to a good path for walking and cycling now. And as you can see here as the competitors for one heat try to get to the start the old Leamington Lift Bridge has also been restored to working order. I knew it had been fixed up but for all the times I've passed this spot I'd never actually seen it working until now. I know I'm easily amused but it tickled me to see it working again after all this time.



It isn't a real raft race until someone ends up in the water.