Hill Walking

Earlier in the week Lise, Eddie and I went on a great day trip to see waterfalls and to go hill walking near Loch Lomond.  It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day!

Rumbling Bridge Falls

The gorge just after the falls

Buttercups on the steep bank

Rumbling Bridge. The bridge is perched on the rocks on each side of the gorge, amazingly crafted. Apparently when the water gets high it makes a rumbling sound as it passes under the bridge, hence the name.

Loch Lomond

A hairy coo

And his friends

Lambs were everywhere

Lise and Eddie. Note the tshirts! It was warm. We headed up the valley west of Loch Lomond and hiked up the hill side - allowable because of very relaxed Scottish right of passage laws meaning you can walk just about anywhere you like.

The only clouds in the sky

These hill continue up the length of Scotland.

First glimpse of Loch Lomond from the top of the ridge

Standing on the second highest point of Ben Reoch

Looking at Ben Lomond across Loch Lomond

A stone sheep pen

It was quite a steep climb, and a steep decent, some of which was done sliding down the grassy slopes on our bums

The tiny spots in the middle of the photo are red deer

Blurry picture of the deer running up the hillside

The stream in the valley

More water falls! The stream had a little birch grove growing around it

Late afternoon light

Lichen on lichen on lichen

This week I've started my summer dissertation, and am researching potentials for urban agriculture in Edinburgh. There are a couple of symposiums happening here and in London in the next month about green spaces in cities and about urban agriculture, so the timing is working out quite nicely. I'm looking forward to a summer filled with more hill walking, lots of research and reading, a lot of food and hopefully some farm visits.

Sping is Here!

So I have been a little bad at posting in the past month, but have photos of spring this post so it should make up for it!  I have been looking forward to seeing the arrival of spring since I got here - not because it meant the end of winter, more that I'd heard it was a sudden change.  And it was!  A couple of weeks ago all the daffodils exploded everywhere in the city, the sun felt warm rather than just being bright and in the past week all of the trees have got blossoms and little baby leaves on them.  Beautiful! (Incidental spring fact for the UK, it starts obviously down south and takes a full 6 weeks to get to the north of Scotland - which equates to walking pace so you can actually walk along with the coming of Spring across the Ilse - how cool is that!) The down side to all this spring-ness is that I am currently writing essays, and will be until the end of April and am feeling a bit torn between needing to sit inside and write and wanting to go outside into the sun. 

New Leaves

Cherry Blossoms

I love the bright colours of new leaves

Holyrood Park wall looking east over suburban Edinburgh

In a woodland bit of the park looking north towards the Firth

Trees!  Not too common in Edinburgh

Hills in Holyrood

Daffodils and sunshine

Suburbs and industrial views

3 different housing types in one shot!

Princes Street Gardens

Carpet of daffodils

Today I'm wearing a T-Shirt!

Yes indeedy!  There has been a decidedly spring-ish feel to the air the past few days and I am soaking up all the sunshine I can get.  I have been amazed at how quickly the days are changing, just a few weeks ago it was still getting dark before 5, and now its still light at close to 6.  I did enjoy some aspects of the shorter days, late sunrises meant that non morning people like me get to see them a little more often.

The sunrise walking to the bus stop at about 8am a few weeks ago

There hasn't been much excitement happening, lots of work and some walks in the park.  I'm spending a lot of time in the computer lab drawing maps for the book publication, and have settled on writing about urban agriculture for my dissertation.
Pics from the past week:

The fox that lives in our garden came back

Holyrood Park

View of the palace from the hill

looking across to Carlton Hill

View over Dynamic Earth to the Parliament

The Craigs

Making shadows in the late afternoon sun

We also got presents from Australia. Another supply of Kingston biscuits from Mum and Dad and a hand made quilt from my very talented sister.

The quilt on the sofa

Crazy weeks!

So the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur.  School is back in full swing, the main project for the studio class this semester is producing a book about out research into Edinburgh and Casablanca - so have been having meetings about preparing content and have just started talks with a graphic designer about papers, bindings, printing processes etc.  The production process is quite interesting, particularly looking at how the content will shape the format of the book, and how subtle choices in layout, paper stock etc can affect how the book will be read.  We've also been making weekly presentations about the progress in the format of a Pecha Culcha.  Basically its a presentation with 20 slides, each timed for 20 seconds - its a good way to get good at getting information across succinctly.

Doing Pecha Culcha

Owen and I also celebrated our 10th anniversary by going to Malaga and Granada for a long weekend.  It was absolutely amazing, we saw Moorish forts and palaces (and the Alhambra, of course) and generally did a lot of eating and walking and looking at gardens, architecture and museums.  Down side was that we missed Burns night - but we did have dinner with friends on 29/1 which was the day Burns Night was originally celebrated (because the original celebrants got the date of Burn's birthday wrong), and there was haggis and tatties and neeps.

The courtyard at the Picasso Museum in Malaga

Tapas!

The fort at the Alhambra, one of the oldest sections of the complex

Detail of the carving in the Nazrid Palaces

!!!

View from the gardens to the palaces