Well it is nearly pantomime season and my last blog boasted about how mild it is , well now it isn’t. I am catching up on this blog on the eighteenth and having just had a weekend away to Ayrshire (on the West of Scotland) in fairly mild conditions we came back to home at noon to find the overnight temperature here went down to minus seven C and even at noon it is still minus four, so a fair change.
15th.
On the way to our sons we stopped off by the Firth of Clyde at Prestwick, a rainy day and if you look carefully on the brick pier you can see a brave soul actually fishing.
Even though it was raining I went for a walk just as this plane took off from Prestwick Airport and soon disappeared into the mist and low cloud. At the moment Prestwick is being used by American and Canadian air force transporter planes on their way to supply Ukraine.
16th.
My son is head Ranger at Culzean Castle (pronounced with a silent z) so we went for a walk around the extensive grounds and you start off in what was the farm courtyard with three impressive entrances. One to enter from the main drive, second looking towards the castle and the other looking at the Firth, so I have just put the two interesting views above.
The view through another arch is of the castle, the triangular roof structure in the background, is the apartment were General Eisenhower stayed during the war.
A rather beautiful looking glasshouse that is now used as a wedding venue and function area.
As I have stated all through this month that it has been really mild and the three flowers above should no way be out at this time of the year, but they were and I just thought how good this leaf looked.
I can never visit Culzean without photographing this woven statue in the water on the Swan Loch, just love it.
19th.
Back home and the temperature has really plummeted, overnight it went down to minus ten C, not the coldest we have experienced, but still pretty cold. I have a shed outdoors that is purely used for a bit of a gym when I can be bothered to use it. Below are some shots of the gorgeous patterns provided by the cold weather.
The last shot was taken of the whole window from the outside. The others were all taken from within the shed, with the sun shining on it, the green hues on the frost is from external evergreens, soon to covered in lights for Christmas.
21st.
Previously I have put on loads of snow post’s so even though we had a good showing of snow over the last few years, so have decided to not cover what Storm Bert gave us over the last few days. But nothing will stop me from grabbing a few shots of birds in the snow. The Collar Dove in the first shot always seem to be to delicate a bird to be walking in the snow. The Blackbird eating the berries is one of the migrant birds come from Europe identified by the all black bill, most of our native birds are orange , yellow or brown. So it is only winter that we see these black beaks.
20th.
Spent a couple of days in Edinburgh, spending to much money, but enjoying the shops, not enjoying the overcrowded over priced market, loving the food and a walk along the estuary at Leith where we stayed overnight. These were a few of the early morning shots from our walk to work of a bit of my huge breakfast.
Across the Firth looking at the rail and rail bridges at Queensferry.
Looking across to the Kingdom of Fife in the distance.
Newhaven harbour in early light.
The lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour.