Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 27

November night, nearly

I see this view across Strathearn nearly every day on my way home, and very often at sunset. Sometimes I forget to look and appreciate how nice it is. Not today though, as it rather demanded my attention. Well worth stopping and getting out of the car for. All gone now, back home, all dark.

In the final hours

of October, 2017, never to return

Blue Gloaming

Pentland sunset

Cabot Tower

In the 1890s this fine tower atop a hill in Bristol was built to celebrate the journey from Bristol of John Cabot, to "discover Canada", landing first at Newfoundland. There are, or were, of course, quite a few people already there who would disagree about who discovered what. Still, it offers a fine if vertiginous view. So vertiginous I retreated before remembering to take a photo, unfortunately.

A complex mix...

which some might call a messor a metaphoror a muddleor a pubor a baror a boreStill, it's lifein still life

The trees are not fooled

It is sunny, it is warm, but it is late October. The trees know what is coming

Here we go again (8 am)

Moody water

The White House

I stumbled upon this house while wandering through Leith and immediately remembered being taken there when I was very young, perhaps five or six years old. It is called Lamb's House, which I assumed, on my first visit, was because it was very white. I do remember wondering why it was not called Sheep's House, however, as it seemed a bit too big for a lamb. It was used as some sort of day home for the old and frail in those days, and I was taken in by my mother to visit my terrifyingly aged, tiny, old and crinkled, wrinkled grandmother, not long before she died. Its name, I now know, derives from the original owner, Andrew Lamb, and apparently Mary Queen of Scots spent about an hour inside it in 1561, just as I did in around 1960. To quote the historical record - of Mary's visit, not of mine - the Queen "remainit in Andro Lamb's hous be the space of an hour". And the house has had many coats of white paint since young Mary "remainit in" it, and a few since I myself remainit in it. This day, in 2017, I just remainit outside of it, pausing, looking, remembering, thinking of my little self in short trousers and new school blazer, and of how the eyes that were seeing and the sight being seen were little changed since my only previous visit, unlike most other things within and around; then having thought, I moved on.