The Scottish View

Playing around with Photoshop’s new Neural Filter…
The Neural Filter – Richard Broom Photography
More images of Portsoy here.
If you look carefully, you can see, on the horizon, the mountains on the other side of the Moray Firth – and the odd boat! Read about Portsoy here.
Houses in Scotland….built to last. The Romans couldn’t take on Scotland and win and nor, it seems, can the weather. This house as solid as a rock (well, more than a few rocks in fact).
Bounding up this street in Banff with vigour is out of the question these days. A slow, up-hill crawl, in low gear, with frequent rest stops is a better strategy and the ‘slo-mo’ approach is easier on the creaky old knees! Going ‘down the way’ (as they say here in Scotland) is much easier.
We’ve noticed quite a few trees up here in the Cairngorms that appear to be dying. Disease? Polution? We’re not sure but a pity to see trees dying off…
Grantown-on-Spey in the Cairngorms.
Until Dr Beeching came along, Banff was connected to the rest of the United Kingdom by a railway line. The railway line to Banff finally closed in 1968. A pity. Given the general state of the roads in the UK (overcrowded and often in disrepair) and the need for us to reach climate targets, perhaps greater use of modern railway trains might have helped us in the longer term. But then, UK governments (especially the so-called Government we have in place now), can’t seem to plan beyond the end of the next week, let alone a year or more’s time. Long term planning? Forget it!!!
Where there were once railway tracks, there are now walking/jogging paths. Every cloud has a silver lining…
Twice a day the sea rolls in and covers these rocks which, it turns out, are high-rise blocks for marine wildlife. Also, something of a smorgasbord for the local sea birds when the tide rolls out…
It takes more a little more than a King Canute type approach to hold back the tides and the sometime furious seas here in Banff, Scotland. Ironically, we have a number of politicians about us these days who think they have supernatural powers – but, it turns out, like Canute – they do not!! It is quiet clear (especially from the image below) that, thankfully, our coastal defences are more effective and in much better shape than the grubby crop of duplicitous politicians we have to put up with these days…
We have arrived at our new home in Banff, Scotland and I am back in business!!
The Valley
The Hillside
The Marina Sunset
The Windmill
The Backwater
The Boat House