I will return to Eastern Washington soon enough, but this week’s post introduces a new series of photos that were taken while traveling in Scotland in 2010. I hesitate to classify them as travel photos because they are not really documenting our vacations but rather just interesting things that I happened to see while ‘on the road’. For me they bring back memories and sometimes have interesting stories.

Edinburgh from the castle.

 

Scotland is a beautiful country and deserves much more time than we had.  As anyone that has spent any time in Scotland knows, the weather can switch from good to bad to ‘badder’ any time and frequently does.  As we rode a taxi in to Edinburgh the weather was absolutely beautiful with blue sky, puffy white clouds, and only a very slight breeze. Our driver remarked, “The weather will stay like this for the next few days and then it will return to normal.” Perfect, we could only stay for a few days.

Greenhouse, Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh

When we travel we often seek respite in Botanical gardens from the common tourist problems of getting lost, unfamiliar traffic situations, jet lag, too damn many tourists, and language (yes understanding English as spoken in Scotland can be a problem especially for those of us with poor ears). Botanical gardens are quiet, restful, seldom crowded, a good place for a picnic, and offer interesting photo opportunities.

 

I seldom do people pictures anywhere but since I more or less spoke the language here I decided to approach a few people that I encountered in a park. When I asked permission to take their picture two young ladies responded “Not the way we look this morning!”

Three young men responded “Sure” and then continued to ignore me.

And then there was Meghan. “May I take your picture?” “Tee Hee, yes.” Meghan was a 60 something spinster that chattered on and on. I heard about her friend passing recently “but it was ‘too much like rain’ to visit the cemetery” so her brother went instead. “Last winter was the worst ever; I couldn’t get out for three weeks.”  Fortunately the chip shop and Chinese takeaway delivered. She loved all of the tourists and foreign immigrants, “even the blacks from somewhere, probably Africa, and the Polish because they had it so bad in the war…”

 

 

WORDS BEHIND THE IMAGE

“Words Behind the Image” (inspired by  work of Yammamoto Maso) is a series that warrants more of a discussion later. For now I will just say that each image in this series has a title and a caption or ‘discussion’ affixed to the back.  This  was photographed while making a short stop on our way to Inverness.

Each week from now on I plan to include a photograph from the ‘Words Behind the Image’.  Normally it will have nothing to do with the days post.  That is what the series is about, absolutely nothing, or perhaps everything.