Tag Archives: rain

Fringe Time Approaches

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It’s nearly August once more, and in Edinburgh that means the insane frenzy of the festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, joining the Arts Festival and the already-running Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival.

Wet Reflections On The Fringe 02

It’s unbelievably busy – Edinburgh, as you might expect, is pretty full of visitors year-round, and especially in the spring and summer months, but then add the festival season on top of it, and it bursts at the seams. Simple things like trying to get across town becomes an exercise in frustration for locals trying to get to appointments or work, because the sheer numbers slow the bus service to a slow treacle trickle in the city centre, adding hugely to journey times. When you are off and can enjoy the sheer energy of the festivals, it’s amazing, when you live here and are trying to get to work or to a hospital appointment and it takes twice as long, that’s a bit different!

Wet Reflections On The Fringe 01

Wet Reflections On The Fringe 03

I was walking home from my book group the other evening, through Bristo Square at Edinburgh University. Normally an open space (often filled with skateboarders as well as students and tourists), it was now being set up for the Fringe with temporary venues for food, drink and box offices, while nearby George Square Gardens is filled with temporary theatre structures. It was a rare rainy night – after a lot more hot, sunny weather than we normally get in Scotland, this was a dreich evening of dark, grey clouds and rain. But as I passed the illuminated Fringe show posters, the rain made the lights and colours reflect on the wet pavement, and it was begging for a few photos, so of course I stopped and stood there in the rain to take some pics.

Awaiting The Fringe Crowds 01

Awaiting The Fringe Crowds 02

Awaiting The Fringe Crowds 03

After The Rain

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After The Rain 01

A week of very mixed weather, bright, warm, summer sunlight and heavy showers and gusty winds, then back to sunshine. While unpredicatable, this weather does offer up one of the smallest but loveliest of simple pleasures: raindrops on flower petals. Sometimes something as simple and everyday, such as the stroll to work, yields such precious, little moments.

After The Rain 02

The older I get, the more important it feels to pause, even if only for a few seconds, to admire such things, when the world offers them up to us; they make our days more magical, and remind us, regardless of how full the news is of dreadful happenings, that we can still find little, magical moments, if we pause and look.

Slowly Unfurling Beauty

Scottish Summer Time

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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

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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

Dreich Night

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Walking back from my long-running book group on a cold, very wet winter’s night through the New Town, I was heading for the bus stops on Princes Street late evening. Despite the pouring rain and the hour, there were still a few folks going around the festive market on the Mound and Princes Street Gardens, most clustered around the food stalls.

Dreich Night 01

Dreich Night 02

Dreich Night 03

As I was coming from my book group, I wasn’t carrying my tripod, so all these night shots were freehand, with the zoom, in the rain – not exactly ideal situation for taking nice, clear, sharp shots, of course! But you take wat you can get with street photography, which left me with a choice of rough shots or nothing. The way the rain and the lights made the streets glisten was too irresistible though, so I fired off a few shots – perhaps the roughness of the shots actually suits this kind of night street photo (even if it doesn’t though, it was all I could manage with what I had!).

Dreich Night 04

Dreich Night 05

Dreich Night 06

Dreich Night 07

(as ever, click on the pics to view the much larger version on my Flickr)

Stormy weather

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Ferocious storm in a nearby river or stream swollen from rain? Nope, this is right outside my work in a sudden huge deluge a few days ago, enormous droplets bouncing off the pavement, turning the road into a river so quickly that cars going past caused a wave which washed right up over the pavements to the edge of the buildings. Then hailstones, thunder and lightning. Ah, Bonnie Scotland in the summer! Didn’t last long, but while it did it was torrential. Later on when it was simply drizzling I passed a couple of Canadian girls (you can tell them my their maple leaf flags almost all Cannucks stitch to their backpacks when touring abroad so people don’t mistake them for Americans), poor souls over for a summer trip in light tops, shorts and flip-flops walking through the puddles while I had my trusty John Steed style umbrella. Not as summery but much more practical for the Scottish weather.