Scottish Summer Time

Even by Scottish standards we have had an exceptionally long run of wet weather this spring and so far this summer. A few hot, sunny days interspersed with heavy rain and skies as grey as battleships, then often days where we get both, one after the other, changing all throughout the day, so you are carrying both sunglasses and a brolly.

Spring Deluge 01

Spring Deluge 02

I was walking through the Meadows recently, warm and dry, picked up some lunch from the van near the University Library and sat on a bench to enjoy it. Ten minutes after I finished and was walking away, it started to rain, then quickly turned up to torrential downpour. I sheltered under a friendly tree for a few moments – it passed pretty quickly and was back to dry soon enough – and decided while I waited I may as well grab some photos of the deluge.

Spring Deluge 03

Spring Deluge 04

Vid - Spring Deluge

Of course, it’s not all dreich weather, we’ve had days of sun and warmth too – I took this recent sunset across the city from the upper deck of a bus as it crossed North Bridge:

View From A Bus - Sunset Silhouettes

And a glorious summer evening at Holy Corner

Sunset And Shadows

Water Wheel

After so many days and weeks of mostly rain, interspersed with the odd day or two of nice weather (even by Scottish standards it has been remarkably wet for a long time), unsurprisingly the grassy parts of the Meadows are a bit waterlogged. While the paved paths were fine, the grass paths many like to stroll between lines of trees were filled with large puddles and mud, which did offer some nice reflections of the trees, though!

Water Wheel 01

When I looked more closely at that scene, I noticed that some rotten bumbag had thrown away an old bicycle wheel, right there in the park. I mean why would you do that? To abandon this thing here, you would have to walk halfway through the park, passing bins closers to the entrances, but no, carry it right through the park then dump it right where people normally stroll. However, despicable as the lazy littering of a public park is, it did offer up a decent monochrome photo subject for my lens…

Water Wheel 02

Water Wheel 03