Aviemore

I haven't really been on blogger for a while, as a result falling behind on events and breaking my promise of giving you up to date information. Most recently I've updated facebook with a hundred and fifty odd photos of the Aviemore bike show that I promised to put up here, and the lazy side got the better of me. Only now am I going to put up a (somewhat more concise) portfolio of that weekend.

So why were we up there? My friend had a family bungalow there; his girlfriend was having a birthday bash; many of us wanted to get away from the city; there was a bike show. Many very solid reasons for dashing off in four completely loaded cars to the North. Hurray!

Birthday girl's car

Where there's a birthday, there is cake. No exceptions

Funky pajamas

The reason why these two were wearing animal pajamas was that we were set a fancy dress challenge before going up: each car had a theme, like pajamas or geek-chic, and we had to wear such strange attire for the entire trip up. This included shopping to the local Tescos. Strange and disapproving looks were received from the locals.

Pool before the bike ride

More pool

The Sonic stayed with us all weekend

So now here's the fun part. Not to say that my friends aren't fun - quite the opposites. Most of you probably want to see the shiny bikes now, so I shall not delay any further!

Because this show's international

For more bike pictures go onto my Facebook. Next stop, Croatia!

Holiday's nearly two thirds over? You're kidding me on!

It's been nearly two weeks since I posted anything on this blog. I feel I should explain for the lack of activity on the photography front.

The main reason is that I have been in employment lately. Having a job that steals your weekend and leaves you weary after twelve-hour shifts does not bode well for photography - I dread to think the thickness of dust that will collect on my camera once I become a doctor. Moreso is the fact that I've been trying to get driving lessons sorted out. It turns out that driving is a tough one for me, for lack of experience or similar excuses. And then there's my beloved friends from home, with their tendency to draw me out clubbing or pubbing whenever possible. Bless them! They're brilliant.

All this, as you would guess, left me with no time to snap even one picture. Fear not however, fellow citizens of the internet, for opportunities (note plural) will arise once again. This time next week I will be in Aviemore, Scotland, hungrily snapping up pictures of motorcycle parades and smokey barbeques. A few weeks after that and I'll be jetting to Croatia with a Cambridge friend, letting you see Split, Dubrovnik and Sarajevo through the eyes of a seventeen-fifty. Then, in tremendously well coordinated fashion, I'll be in Cambridge on the 29th September, aiming to be there on the first second of the Normal Period of Residence. Sweet.

Meanwhile, you can help me by telling people about this blog or subscribing. There's definitely an addictive nature about blogging, assuming material for it Publish Postis available, and it means you can see the world as I see it. Colour, shape, form, opinions and all.

Have a good Sunday!

London

A little bit of a delay since my last post. I've recently taken up a job and so have been quite busy with that. There's not really been that much time for photography until last Saturday when I went to London to see some friends. It was quite an ambitious journey time-wise: night bus on Friday down and night bus on Saturday back on. There was no further money spent on hostels, but it did mean I had quite an uncomfortable sleep for those two days.

Regardless, I got the camera going, and managed to grab a few shots. There weren't all that many, since I was content just to have a nice lie at the Diana memorial in Hyde Park.

Holland Park

Fantastic Mr Fox was indeed in that direction. He gave me biscuits and a newspaper.

The Youth Hostel where I met a few of my Cambridge friends

View of the Serpetine at Hyde Park

The Diana Memorial

Pedalos! Many of them!

Children feeding ducks

Not sure what that building's meant to be actually

By this time it was about 3.00pm in the afternoon. A few people finally decided to stop lazing around and go visit places. For the sake of speed we hopped over to the museums for a look. First the British museum of science, and then the Natural History museum.

British Museum of Science

Are you my mommy?

Aeroplane

Watson and Crick's model of DNA - a replica at least

Discuss

Acting my age? Never

Natural History Museum now. We went through the back and got this!

More like what you're used to

Here's my pet monkey. His name is John

The small details in the museum are fantastic to get shots of.

Tree. Never quite got up there, but I thought this shot was pretty cool

Many species of minerals live in this room, composed of many different variation of chemicals.

I think this format is okay, but do let me know if you want more text and less captions. Peace out for now!

The brighter parts of Scotland

Crinan Harbour

My parents planned a little drive up to Argyll and Bute this weekend. It was not meant to be anything big, but rather just an opportunity to take a small break in their otherwise city-bound lives. The weather was not on our side; rather, it rained misery upon the entire country for the whole weekend. Regardless of that we decided that we should take the small window of sunshine forecasted on Saturday afternoon. Packing a couple of water bottles and some sensible clothing, we started heading Northwest.

It turned out to be a very good choice.

Inveraray Maritime Museum

Our first stop along this tour was to Inveraray. My parents and I took TLW (I will refer to friends by initials) up to the castle around this time last year. The weather was not as pretty this time round, but at least there was no rain. We decided to stay in the town and spend the little bit of time at the Pier, where there were quite a few fishermen hanging about.

The next stop was Crinan, a very small village tucked away between two hills by the seaside. It housed the end of the Crinan canal that let sailing boats into the Sounds of Jura - one of many straits dotting this part of Scotland. The town is delightfully small, with not much more than a Hotel, a Coffee Shop, a few houses and, most importantly for seafarers, a small lighthouse.

It is also (unsurprisingly) gifted with the brilliance that is Scottish seawater

By this time it was mid-afternoon. Although the weather was supposed to get worse in about an hour's time, around here it seemed to get brighter and brigher. I must admit though that I did not have my circular polarising filter with me (silly forgetfulness) and so the blue-ish skies are A) enhanced using Lightroom saturating/hue tool and B) not as dark as I'd like it to be.

Nevertheless, pressing on! Crinan has a smaller harbor about a mile and a half away from the actual village. It too is tucked away, edged between a small island and a cove. There was not too much to see, except for that stunning picture at the head of this post, and maybe below:

What the pictures did not catch was a family doing a little bit of crab-fishing just off the pier at the Harbor. It was pretty amusing to watch and listen. The dogs they had were pretty ravenous, eating all the bait and causing some hilarity to ensue.

About this time it was 4.00pm in the afternoon, coming to the end of the golden hours that we had for sunshine. We decided to head home at this stage, but not before stopping at one more lock. In this instance, some of the best pictures were saved for last!

So the conclusion to this piece is that if you want somewhere to have a good, cheap holiday where you can already speak the language (kinda), come to Scotland! There'll be plenty to do here.