Tag: photos
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The Birks of Aberfeldy
The Scottish village of Aberfeldy is renowned for being the inspiration for Robert Burns’ poem, The Birks of Aberfeldy. A birk is the Scottish word for a beech tree and the Birks of Aberfeldy is a forested walk along Moness gorge. We did the walk this afternoon and met Robert Burns along the way. He’s…
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Perthshire for Christmas
We’ve taken off a bit early for the Christmas holidays; we’re spending it in the very lovely Perthshire. Here are a couple of pics from the drive today. We just managed to squish everything into the Co-Wheels car, including Creeper. There was a dusting of snow today which made the landscape look beautiful. Perthshire is…
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Automatticians in Edinburgh
I have had a sensational afternoon, evening, and day in Edinburgh with an amazing group of coworkers. We started with ice-skating at the outdoor rink for the Christmas markets. It was packed! Way more packed than I was expecting but lots of fun nevertheless. Then we had dinner at Mother India and a small group of…
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Frozen
We had our first frost last week and there’s another heavy frost this morning. I went outside to take some photographs. It’s very pretty. I used to miss frosty mornings like this when we lived in Auckland. Here are my cyclamen surrounded by frozen leaves. Can you see the pink flowers? Despite the frost in…
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Duthie Park in October
This afternoon I told the kids we were going to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and there was an explosion of complaint. I thought I might have accidentally pulled off their finger nails one-by-one given the level of protest. But I checked their fingernails and they’re all still intact. So then I offered an alternative: vegetarian restaurant…
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A rainy autumn day on the bike path
We ran out of biscuits today which was potentially disastrous. My choice was either to bake some biscuits or cycle to Newton Dee to buy some more. Of course the virtuous thing to do would have been to cycle to Newton Dee to buy the *ingredients* and then return home to cook them but I’m not that virtuous. And so…
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Exclusively Highlands Craft Fair at Drum Castle
We’ve been to Drum Castle more than any other castle now, mostly because it’s so close, but it’s terrific and one of the best in Aberdeenshire. It’s also open all year round although only on weekends over the winter. Most other castles close for the winter. Every weekend I check for events at Drum and other nearby…
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Photos from Aberdeen
I only just discovered this lovely rooftop garden in central Aberdeen about a week ago. A friend tells me it’s fairly new – a year old? It’s just above the St Nicholas centre next to Marks & Spencer on Union St. There’s a children’s playground, seating areas, and a stage. They’ve done a wonderful job with…
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My garden
I lay on the trampoline today looking up and this is what I saw. Very soon now the trampoline is going to turn into a gigantic bucket of leaves – they’ve already started falling – but I’d still rather have the trees. Here’s my garden produce on the dinner table tonight: Everything on that wooden chopping…
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Castle Fraser
My aunt and uncle have left now – I thoroughly enjoyed having them here. We went to Castle Fraser on Thursday and I’m only just getting around to posting the pics. I haven’t been there for over a year and it was wonderful. The walled garden is one of the best I’ve seen with a very…
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Crathes Castle
My aunt and uncle are visiting this weekend and we so enjoyed our trip to Crathes Castle last weekend that we decided to do it again. Much to my amazement we were told we could take photos inside provided we didn’t use the flash. The National Trust never let you take photos and so I’ve never…
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Sunflowers and cucumbers
I have a sunflower at last! One of the flowers opened up in the rain today. It was one of the smaller, sickly-looking plants so I was not expecting to get a flower out of it at all but here it is with a bee hard at work. It’s lovely. We also picked our first cucumber today.…
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More photos of Scotland
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Photos of Scotland
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Ben has been awarded a chair
There has been some good news this past week, despite all my misery over the trees. Last week Ben was promoted to professor of pure mathematics. In the UK this means he now has a chair. I have no idea why they call it a chair but when Elizabeth was explaining it to Daniel she said, “It…
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Photos from WordCamp Europe 2016
I work with so many wonderful photographers that I’ve stopped taking photos myself when I’m around them. There are always so many terrific photos that come out afterwards which other people have taken. Here are some of them. This one was taken by Elio. We look like gangsters, don’t you think? It looks like I’ve got…
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Mar Lodge, part 2
Two posts in one day because we’ve just come back from a fantastic walk in the hills and I like to relive the experience by writing about it and looking at all my photos. It’s a glorious day here today and so we decided to make the most of it and go for a medium length…
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Mar Lodge, Scotland
We have gone away for the long weekend and rather than going to a city where we typically spend our time racing around to all the sights, we’ve done the opposite and come into the heart of the Cairngorms to peace, quiet, and spectacular scenery. We booked one of the Co-Wheels hybrid cars, a Toyota Yaris, which…
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More snow in Aberdeen
Most of the snow melted yesterday but then it snowed again overnight so there are beautiful scenes outside again today. I wish we had more days like this each winter but I guess Aberdeen is too close to the sea and the mercury mostly hovers above 0°C over the winter. Still, I really love the…
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Stirling
9 years ago today I became a mother. Daniel’s birth was very quick and hideously painful. I did not get any pain relief for his birth because although I asked for an epidural, there was no anaesthetist available at the hospital in Christchurch to administer one. It was ghastly. But now he has grown into a…
