scottishdailyphoto

2006-03-26T04:11:00.000-08:00

My mate Grant has now launched the wonderful EdinburghDailyPhoto. When I started ScottishDailyPhoto I knew that a fair number of photos would be of our fair capital city but also knew that I wouldn't be around here often enough to take a daily photo, hence the countrywide snapping.

What I didn't realise is that this doesn't fit into the format of the CityDailyPhoto gang. As few link in from the DailyPhoto fraternity there's been less motivation to post to a blog each day, with only a few readers. So I'll draw a premature close to this blog and become one of the many who stop blogging after 3 months. There's also plenty of blogging to be done at edu.blogs.com.

I would encourage you heartily to visit Grant's postings at EdinburghDailyPhoto. If you want more photos from my travels around Scotland with my new Canon 350 you can see them all at my Flickr page.

Fair farewell.
Ewan

2006-03-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

My mate Grant enjoying a half of Leffe in a cool Edinburgh pub. Grant and I were at university together 10 years ago. I went to live in France, he went to Japan and all this time later we've both ended up back in Edinburgh as teachers. Meeting in pubs in winter is one of the best things you can do and, in just over a week, it will be illegal to smoke in the pubs, too. Even better!

2006-03-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

Snowbound - the entire country is under snow today. Overnight, 3000 partygoers had to take refuge in a Glasgow nightclub and bus station. All the trains and air routes are disreupted. I'm happy to say that I was able to snap this from the the relative safety of a train en route back home from Inverness a week ago - I can only imagine that the route was far more whiteout than this

2006-03-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Happy 1st Birthday, Paris Daily Photo! This does qualify as a Scottish Daily Photo, too, in some ways. Every year I take 42 kids to Paris on a school trip. It's great fun and we always have a laugh trying to get back to our hotel just behind the Pigalle area. After laughing and squirming at the ladies of the night the cameras go crazy as we pass the legendary Moulin Rouge. A little bit of Scotland in Paris.

(I also used to live in the rue Joseph de Maistre just 5 minutes down the road from here.)

Joyeux anniversaire, Eric et PDP! J'espère que la vielle alliance entre l'Ecosse et la France continue en photos pendant encore une année de plus.

2006-03-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

I was recovering from my day in London this morning and thought I would take a photo of the place that pays me: the Scottish Executive. I've always thought it looks like a building from James Bond films, where the baddy sits in the top 'radio control tower' part and decrees to his minions how he wants the universe to be shaped. Probably quite true to real life, then ;-)

2006-03-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

I worked 22 hours today, on a trip down to the BBC in London. This was the amazing reward at the end of the day. I think it's in Scotland, but I'm sure the English had the same sunset that day at 35,000 feet.

2006-03-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

I was setting off for work today to Stirling. Instead of running for the bus I stopped on the bridge in Leith and took this serene scene. It's not that often that the water creates such a still life of the images above.

2006-03-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

I was working at Queensferry High School, South Queensferry today. This is the view from their playground: the imposing Forth Rail Bridge. This was one of the first and biggest suspension bridges made from iron. It's painted every year and, as they finish on one end, they have to start painting again back at the beginning. That's why, in Scotland, if something is a task that never seems to end "it's just like painting the Forth Rail Bridge" - it never ends.

2006-03-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

This was taken from Leith, a view of Arthur's Seat (left) and the Salisbury Crags (right) from Ocean Terminal in Leith's waterfront. I'd have loved to be up one of these volcanic plugs, just 10 minutes on the bus from the flat, instead of running around central and West Scotland preparing for the Communicate.06 conference I am running. Anyway, maybe I'll get up when the weather - and timetable - improves.

2006-03-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Coming back from Inverness - and very worried that the train will make it all the way back home. This is just north of Aviemore.

Breaking yards at North Queensferry

2006-03-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

Breaking yards at North Queensferry
Originally uploaded by Edublogger.

I am currently right up in the North of Scotland at Inverness, just next to Loch Ness. However, this is the picture from this morning at 6am as the sun rose above the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh. A beautiful journey.

Hopefully I'll get back before the snowfall stops the trains!

2006-03-03T05:25:00.000-08:00

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! I was working form home this morning doing a phone interview with a lovely journalist from BBC Radio. As I spoke to her I noticed it had started to snow. And about 30 minutes later... this.

2006-03-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Armadillo on Clydeside. This is where the SETT Conference happens each year and today I finalised my two proposals for seminars there this September.

2006-03-01T05:19:00.000-08:00

Loch Fyne - and barely one hour from the office in Glasgow!

2006-02-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

OK, not strictly from today, but when you're homeworking you can only dream of spending the afternoon in the pub with some Scottish Blogger mates.

2006-02-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

Having momentarily misplaced my digital camera I am having to do as most digital photographers do these days: use the mobile phone. Here, you can see the side of the Scottish Parliament building from the Royal Mile. The rocks in the side come from every area of Scotland, thus a little part of Scotland will always be present at the home of our democracy.

2006-02-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

The return commute from Fort William to Glasgow and then back to Edinburgh brought me this view at one point. Seconds earlier the sun had been shining but then the clouds drew in and creeated this. It is a colour photo but the tones of the landscape make everything look black and white. Outside it was about 4 degrees and most of the rivers we passed on the way down south were frozen over.

2006-02-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

This was the view this morning from my hotel next to Neptune's Staircase in Bannavie, near Fort William. I think this is Ben Nevis, but need some help on that one. I, in any case, would not have been climbing that. Some were, though, as the storms gathered at the peak.

2006-02-24T06:11:00.000-08:00

How's this for a commute to work? I travelled up to Fort William in the Highlands for a talk tomorrow and managed to take hundreds of photos from the train - the Flickr tag is fortwilliam. These are some of the highest mountains in the UK. Breathtaking.

2006-02-23T15:44:00.000-08:00

28 Today.

2006-02-22T18:07:00.000-08:00

The Scottish Border where I managed to catch the sunset as the rain swirled around the rolling hill tops. This is on the way back from London just at the point where the train nips over the border into Scotland.

2006-02-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

Pulling out of Glasgow Central station on the way to London for a meeting this is the ever-beautiful view of sunset over the River Clyde. The Finnieston Crane photo was taken about a mile furhter down stream. This is the City Centre, more famous now for its banking houses and call centres than the ship building that happened not so far away.

2006-02-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

Ferry from Dunoon to Gourock, West Scotland. I went home for one night to teach the German class of my old German teacher. Very strange feeling, but the end result - a podcast auf Deutsch - was really impressive. As is normal at this time of year the sky was grey and dingy, the rain coming on the minute I stepped off the CalMac ferry.

2006-02-19T03:53:00.000-08:00

This is the last whaling harpoon gun of the Christian Salvenson whaling company which operated out of Leith and Grangemouth from 1843. In 1963 the last whaling boat left Leith Harbour, but after a boom period where this one company had two factory ships, five supply ships and 10 whale catchers supported by offices in Leith, Antartica and South Georgia Island. 2000 people worked on this remote island solely for the whaling industry.

2006-02-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

This is my daily commute view about 20 minutes into the journey. This trip today was beautiful. In the foreground Linligthgow's church. The mushroom in the background is emanating from Grangemouth refinery, a monster construction spouting fumes above this idyllic landscape 24/7.

2006-02-17T02:12:00.000-08:00

The 400-ton Victoria Swingbridge makes the link between two parts of the Shore and Leith Docks. It used to carry the tram link, too, that would feed the ships and warehouses either side. It now looks likely that the bridge will carry trams once more when the city-wide tram network starts construction in the next year or so.

2006-02-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

A cold wind from the Forth and clear blue sky - a perfect day on the shore. In the distance you can see the ships you may recognise from other photos and on the left the Leith Lighthouse right at the point ships came in with their whale oil and wine. And more on that lethal instrument in the foreground tomorrow.

2006-02-15T02:07:00.000-08:00

Spring is on the way. This shot from Leith Links shows the view up towards town, happily obscured by the first buds of spring. Is it me, or is this really early?

2006-02-14T23:11:00.000-08:00

Today we had a beautiful, sunny, slightly chilly walk around Leith harbour and the Shore. Every time we pass this life-size bronze statue of Sandy Irvine Robertson we have a wee smile to ourselves, and sometimes take a seat next to him. The statue, by Lucy Poett, was paid for by his friends in recognition of the work Robertson did to help Edinburgh's businesses burgeon.

Robertson set up his own wine business in Leith, but died in 1999 at the age of 57.

The larger-than-life wine merchant and Lothian businessman helped raise £2 million for charity and was a prime mover in bringing the Royal Yacht Britannia to Leith.

2006-02-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

The tollbooth in Musselburgh High Street. A town's Tollbooth is its town hall and prison. We now use the building to carry out team-building and drama activities with children. No change there, then.

2006-02-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

This is more my cup of tea when it comes to waterfront living. These are old bond buildings from Leith's whisky and wine trades now converted into great little flats. They're not too expensive either. I've never worked out where one appartment ends and another begins and I think that's what I like best about these big long windows.

2006-02-11T10:06:00.000-08:00

Ronaldson's Wharf, and its like, is what Leith has come to know as "Luxury Appartments". The fact that, until ten years ago, those who could have been characters in Trainspotting would have quite happily shot up on the very ground these £7 million flats were built is neither here nor there for the luxury inhabitants, ready to pay £300,000 a shot for the waterfront views.

I like the building, I have to admit. The waves of the glass reflect the waves of the Water of Leith (although I don't see any suitcases containing bodies up on the penthouses). But every time I pass in the evening no-one seems to be at home. Too busy working, no doubt, to pay for the mortgage.

2006-02-10T07:06:00.000-08:00

This is the view most tourists have as an Edinburgh bus driver on the Number 44 takes a corner. Far from running too fast or without due care and attention (that distinction has to go to Dublin bus drivers in my experience) Edinburgh drivers are wonderful. But their buses do have strong brakes.

So when you arrive in Edinburgh for your hols you, too, will be welcomed by the soothing classy colour schemes of Lothian Buses, together with Ned TV. Ned TV is the screen at the front of every bus that allows you to see what the people at the back and on the stair up are doing. Great entertainment when you're on the move.

2006-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

The view at Loch Lomond, speeding back from a meeting up North. This was a beautiful drive back south, with the Munros and Bens reflected almost perfectly in the icy waters.

Loch Lomond is the second biggest loch or lake in the country, after Loch Ness. This isn't because of its size on the map (37 kilometers long) but rather its depth. Normally 37 metres deep it can get as deep at 190 metres. Ben Lomond is the southern most Munro (a mountain over 3000 feet high) and lies on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond (.wav)

2006-02-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

I was working in Musselburgh this afternoon, the place where I started my teaching career and where the pupils reassured me that the town was certainly not a suburb of Edinburgh. Indeed, it is a town in its own right, the 'Honest Toun', in fact, where every year the Honest Lad and Honest Lass are crowned, celebrating this place's fascination with not telling porkies. Or something like that.

This is the River Esk snapped from the top of the Number 44, cutting the town centre in two and offering plenty of nice walks down to Fisherrow and the harbour. Musselburgh, as the name suggests, was once (and still is to a lesser extent) a fishing town serving Portobello, Edinburgh beach area and the towns and cities beyond.

2006-02-07T04:09:00.000-08:00

This is the view that greets me most mornings. It might just seem like any other train station but Edinburgh Waverley lies at the bottom of Britain's windiest steps (I've not tripped down... yet) and occupies the spot that, around 250 years ago, was the city's communal sewer. Some would argue that things haven't changed much, but I still get a thrill from taking the train in the morning, wondering what would really happen if I slipped onto the train to Plymouth, Newcastle or London. From Edinburgh to the world...

2006-02-06T01:30:00.000-08:00

The Vital Spark, Inveraray, is just what I need this Monday morning. This week I'll be travelling around the central belt of Scotland, Stirling, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Musselburgh... the peace of the weekend will be gone for another five days. Enjoy this one while it lasts.

The boat was immortalised in the BBC's 1960s series of the same name, following the adventures of master mariner Para Handy.

2006-02-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist another photo of Loch Fyne, taken at the back of Inveraray. The sky changes on a minute-by-minute basis making it really tricky to choose one photo over another, and even more difficult to catch the scale of the sky, the water and the hills that surround this sea loch. As I took this photo the oystercatchers (they're birds, not people) were rising vertically from the rocky beach allowing their mussels and oysters to crash to the ground before swooping back to see if they had managed to open up the shell for the flesh inside - not a bad breakfast. But too difficult for this photographer to capture - the RSPB have some oystercatcher video and audio here to help capture the scene.

You can see all the other Inveraray photos that didn't make it here on my ScottishDailyPhoto Flickr page.

2006-02-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is an early morning preen from a pigeon on the pier at Inveraray, where I've spent part of the weekend speaking to Scottish teachers about the MFLE project that I help manage. It's brilliant to wake up in a place like this and go for a walk along the side of this sea loch, Loch Fyne. Especially when just an hour away you can have all the city life you like in Glasgow.

The loch (Scots for lake) is incredibly famous for being home to the world's best oysters and salmon, and there's the well-known Loch Fyne Oysters, a restaurant and shop (they do online, too) where you can buy some of the freshest seafood you've ever seen. I remember going in here quite often when our family made the 80 mile round trip from Dunoon every Sunday to go to Inveraray's church. We'd pop into the Oyster shop to pick up something for tea. The smell in the shop is pure sea. Not salty. Just sea.

2006-02-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

I'm heading towards some of the last days in the beautifully quirky buildings at Dowanhill where Learning and Teaching Scotland staff plough on in search of educational nirvana. This is a view of sunset from the NGfL room, where all my favourite content editors and development officer pals create websites, content that would make Tony Hart blush for its creativity and eat cake.

It's set deep in the West End of Glasgow, hence the residential areas and trees that surround this old secondary school. Outside children scream in the playground of the primary school that is part of the same building (and Development Officers scream at having to upload their resources again) and the hip, trendy bars of Byres Road attract office workers and poverty-stricken students for their last drop before heading off on the Underground towards home.

A great place - shame we're leaving it in two weeks, don't you think?

2006-02-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Today marks my first step against the grain as a DailyPhoto blogger. I'm probably trouncing some unwritten Code of Conduct in the DailyPhotoUnwrittenManifesto.

Today features a guest appearance from another country.

Having spent the morning in Glasgow and then rushing back through to Edinburgh this afternoon I didn't manage to grab any photos, despite having a chat with Robin Harper, the Green Member for the Scottish Parliament on the train and being desperate to snap 'im.

No, this afternoon I am 'virtually' in Winnipeg, Manitoba, having spoken with Darren Kuropatwa and his team of teachers learning to blog. So, to honour our Canadian cousins (there are enough of them who are Scottish anyway) I am posting ScottishDailyPhoto of Winnipeg, via my appartment in Leith.

A DailyPhoto first?

2006-02-01T01:50:00.000-08:00

Today I really will try to take that day off. It didn't happen on Monday, which turned into one of my most productive 'working from home' days ever. No, today, I am taking walks. Here is another cool view from my 'hood. This is the Water of Leith, about 20 seconds from my flat (10 seconds if you run). The Water of Leith is a small river that runs right through Edinburgh and following it up through the city is one of our favourite summertime walks. It begins to open up here into the Port of Leith, still in operation, although further out towards sea than it was in the past. A hundred years ago this part of the Water was where the ships ended their voyages, offloading Bordeaux, Whisky, Whale Oil and Whaleskin. The boats pitched there now are an architect's office and a soon-to-be-opened wine bar and restaurant. How things change. That large white ship was once the Indian Princess, a ship that did indeed travel back and forth through the various ports of the British Empire.

It's almost certainly for that reason that there are so many Leiths in the world now. If you want to sail from a Leith somewhere else and arrive in the original Leith, Edinburgh, you can even get your ship repaired at the white Building, George and Sons, the only steelworks and ship-related industry still open on The Shore, the cute name for this cute part of town.

Not always cute - 10 years ago I passed through here. It was a place the prostitutes and pimps dealt with the clients and pushers. Where Irvine Welsh set Trainspotting. The pushers are still here but getting pushed themselves by the young and upwardly mobile - the latest unsavoury bunch to be inhabiting the town's warehouses and luxury penthouse appartments.

Read a full history of Leith - it's better than I can do.

2006-01-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

Let is snow, let it snow,let it snow! Well, it had to come at some point. Here, just before I dived into the depths of Waverley Station on the way to Ayr, I was able to snap some of the oldest skyscrapers in the world with the top of St Giles' Cathedral pushing in form behind. These interlocked buildings are the last part of the Old Town before the sweep down into Princes Street Gardens (once the city's communal sewer, now a minigolf and place where world class acts play their toons at Hogmany, 31 December) and the climb back up to where I am standing - Princes Street and the beginning of the New Town.

These buildings are about 13 floors high, and although most of the floors are visible here many are hidden from view depending on from which street you enter the building. From the Royal Mile, behind these buildings, you can only see about 7 floors. If you were to go into Mary King's Close you would, in fact, be under all of these buildings. It's an entire street (well, three streets called 'Closes') that was filled up during the Plague. With everyone inside it. Everyone that is, but for a girl who was playing down in the murky sewer waters of the Loch (now Princes Street Gardens). Apparently, and I can kind of vouch for this, you can feel her presence when you go down Mary King's Close now. You, too, can visit it with the City Cooncil.

2006-01-30T19:39:00.000-08:00

Working from home is becoming an ever-rarer luxury for this Development Officer, but today was a great day to be out and about in Leith, the Port of Edinburgh and the place where I live. Having forgotten to take out my camera this morning when I was over at the sunny Ocean Terminal and home of the Royal Yacht Brittania, I have just been out again in an effort (unsuccessful) to get a haircut. This view is in my street, one of Bacchus, the Roman God of wine and intoxification.

What is he doing in a street in Leith?

Well, my street is full of the warehouses where the finest wines and whiskies were kept before going on to those who coud afford them (Mary Queen of Scots had her Bordeaux delivered to one such warehouse just round the corner - another day for that building). I live in an old whisky bond building - one can still smell the vapours sometimes, the angel's share of 2% liquid that evaporated from every barrel. This building opposite my flat, though, was a former wine warehouse, hence the old Bacchus being carved out of the window.

2006-01-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

This blurry photo was taken as a cab flew me off back to the station after a successful workshop in Glasgow, next to the Armadillo (that'll come another day). It's the Finnieston crane, marked in my mind since it formed a key element of the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival when Glasgow was deservedly European City of Culture (about time Edinburgh got that, no?).

In 1988 it carried the straw locomotive structure of local artist George Wyllie. But when Crane No. 7 was completed in 1931, it was capable of lifting 178 tonnes of boilers, engines, steam locomotives and tanks into awaiting ships on the River Clyde. So it is really a key piece of Glasgow's industrial past as well as its cultural future. It is also part of our world heritage - it was once the biggest crane in the world.

2006-01-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

OK, so it's not a beautiful site in Scotland - some would argue it's not even a beautiful sight. However, last night, a few days late from the national bard's birthday celebrations on January 25th, was our friend Jo's Burns Supper. Here are the steaming piles of haggis, neeps and tatties.

The haggis is the sonsie beast that contains sheep bits, spices and oatmeal contained in a plastic sheep's gut (the real sheep guts were banned by the European Union some time ago). The neeps are the bright orange turnip which I have never been able to find in any market outside Scotland. Indeed, creating a Burns Supper in France I went to the Place des Lices in Rennes only to find that rutabagas, the closest thing to orange neeps, were fed to the animals. The stall holder was shocked that I would want to eat something in 1998 that in 1940 the French were forced to eat through rationing. The tatties, meanwhile, are the mashed potatoes. It was all great food, coupled with a night of singing serious and silly songs and poems as each of the invited guests 'gave their turn'. Back to places tomorrow.

2006-01-27T03:05:00.000-08:00

This is not some lost loch in the heart of the Highlands, but Stirling University, the place where I work. It is set just outside the city of Stirling and the buildings line this lake, complete with swans, ducks and heron. If you ever come to Stirling take the Uni bus out here and have a walk around the lake and over to the Wallace monument. If you bring your swimming costume you could go for a swim in the Olympic swimming pool - the Scottish Sports Institute is next door!

2006-01-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

Edinburgh Castle, perched on top of its volcano cap, had to appear sooner or later. This might not be the best shot in terms of the light that can turn this castle into a warm, glowing landmark across the city. But it does show one of my favourite statues of a Scottish military figure - have to find out who and update the post accordingly when my foot is better.

2006-01-25T14:41:00.000-08:00

The Firth of Forth at sunset - nothing better on the way home to Edinburgh. And no-smoking, too!

2006-01-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

This weekend involved a trip to Elgin, right up in Moray in the North of Scotland. It seemed to be in perpetual darkness in Elgin itself whenever I had a chance to escape the conference. This is the scene in Aberdeen station. After already having travelled more than an hour from Elgin to get there it seemed that most of Aberdeen was shut down. What can a blogger do other than take a photo?

2006-01-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

I now live in Edinburgh and this is one of my favourite quirky buildings, although most people just walk straight past without noticing its flashing lighthouse. The lighthouse lets people in George Street, central Edinburgh, know that they are approaching the Northern Lighthouse Board, the governmental organisation responsible for keeping every lighthouse and buoy in Scotland and Northern Ireland going. It's a beautfiul Georgian building, just next to Castle Street.

2006-01-21T04:42:00.000-08:00

Travelling from Aberdeen to Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful train trips you could do in our country. This is the quiet water next to Montrose where the fishing boats lie waiting for a new week of trawling.