08:30 I had to get up for this and will you thank me? Well, Kristin probably won’t.

It was cold, and the drifts were up to my knees, but it was pretty. But it can melt now, and Spring can start if it’s all the same to you. What do you mean that’s 3 months away?

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The Loanhead of Daviot stone circle on a cold & frosty November dawn.

I would have liked to have got out to a few circles over Christmas but too much snow got in the way – maybe later in the month.

More circles on my Bigstones website.

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Dawn was due to break at just after 7 and when I parked the car with half an hour to spare, the sky was already lightening. A short walk up the farm track and I was at the 4000 year old prehistoric site and sorted out my tripod and camera. I am surprised by how un-spooky it is arriving at these places in the dark – you would think it would be creepy being in the middle of nowhere in the early hours, but I would definitely rather be there than walking the streets of a city at that time.

Nonetheless I could feel eyes boring in to my back as I waited for the sun to crest the horizon. Slowly turning I found myself face to face with a cow wearing the most human ‘what the f…. heck are you doing here?’ expression I have ever seen on an animal. Satisfied I didn’t want any of it’s grass it went back to chewing.

Dawn broke and I started firing off the camera. It’s amazing how fast the sun comes up once it’s made up its mind, and the light was continually changing as it advanced across the fields towards me. Pinks, oranges, reds and yellow all came through with varying intensity. Then, in less than 20 minutes, it was gone. The sun slipped above the clouds and wasn’t seen again for the rest of the day.

But I saw it:

More photos at my Stone Circle website, and you can see this photo larger on my Flickr page.

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And was very pleasant. As you can see it’s a huge dark loch, contained within a steep sided glen. Our side was often in shadow on the way out, but the sun falling across the loch made for some good photo ops. The boys were as ever up for a good hike:

We don’t tend to take any chances, no matter the time of year, and although our rucksacks stuffed full of wet weather gear got the odd funny look, by the time we’d reached the top of the 2nd mountain on the left in the top photo (the one in sun) we were glad we had. The clouds raced over Lochnagar, the temperature plummeted and the wind began to howl. It was a tad breezy on top:

It was pretty freezing, and a mixture of rain and snow began to fall. It was a relief to turn and begin the long decent down the side of the hill, but even that wasn’t easy as a slip of old snow covered about 20 feet of path on a steep angle. We edged across on all fours, with the prospect of a 300 yard slide down the mountain focussing the mind wonderfully and returned to the valley floor, where again our gear attracted sneers from those in trainers and carrying umbrellas (using an umbrella up top would have resulted in me taking off and landing in Norway).

We finished off the thick end of 10 miles and 7 hours with a walk in soft Spring sunshine as seen below, feeling privileged to live in Scotland, but also reminded not to take it’s countryside lightly…..

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It’s seen a few: The 4000 year old Tyrebagger stone circle.

I took this photo in September for a photography competition but didn’t get anywhere. Which wouldn’t be so bad but the finalists were almost without exception awful – haloed HDR abominations, dull subjects and shots that looked like the camera went off by accident. Still, I’m not bitter.

Anyway, I like it and it was worth walking up a hill in the dark at 5am…… I think.

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Anyway, should you wish to keep up with my pics, Autofocused has a new look and some new photos, plus I’m putting some of my course photos up on Flickr. In the meantime, here’s a shot of a rock pool we came across on a recent trip to Macduff on the north coast. It was a bowl set into a big rock sitting a few feet offshore, and when I scrambled up into it, the rock was covered in a bright yellow lichen, and contained a V-shaped rock pool that lead your eye to the horizon. Throw in my 10mm lens and the result could be a fjord from another planet……

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50 reasons to come visit More photos, and bigger versions of the above here.

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Incredibly for the UK in general, Scotland in particular and definitely for a Bank Holiday it was sunny and really quite hot. You can find more of my landscapey shots either at my photo blog and/or on my Flickr account, but here’s a shot of Braemar Castle, which is now owned by the village itself and has just opened after some lengthy restoration work:

As you can see, it’s under attack…… It was a nice friendly place and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The boys wore themselves out as you can imagine, and I’ll leave you with the full horror of them charging towards you: just scroll down quickly for the full effect.

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Although the traveling was OK, the weather was generally awful, with strong, cold winds and driving snow & rain.This meant that my camera had a nice ride in the car without coming out much, but it was still a really nice break. Despite not having had any snow in Northern Scotland, we were greeted by this after driving 500 miles south!

Thankfully it didn’t last long, and despite us eating them out of house and home, Andrew & Caroline were fantastic hosts as usual. The boys love them to bits, and rarely gave them a moments peace – Steph & I nearly slipped away on several occasions!

The boys got to see their first ever football (soccer if you will ) match on Saturday, watching the mighty Kettering Town defeat Nuneaton Borough 3-2. It was actually a good match despite the frequent blizzards that swept the ground, followed by sun & blue skies. The boys enjoyed it, and Pat in particular got into the spirit of things by telling the Referee that he needed glasses (which he did).

We went on to the National Space Centre (in Leicester of all places!) which despite being a modern museum (i.e. lots of flashing screens, little hard information and a confusing layout) was quite enjoyable and had some cool stuff on show:

We also went on a simulated ride to Europa, getting shot out of a magnetic tunnel before crash landing, which was impressive, but a little rough. Despite the following photo, the boys don’t want to be astronauts anymore!

The weekend was over all too soon and we headed home via a night in the Lake District. We were still pursued by snow, so most of it was spent in the car, but it was very beautiful and amazingly busy given the weather. Still, I managed to get out of the car for this shot at Castlerigg stone circle:

Incredibly cold, but I wish I could have stayed longer!

All this and not a chocolate egg in sight – how was your Easter then?

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Adhering firmly to a groyne (no sniggering) on Aberdeen beach, and found on my Flickr account. Must get camera out soon, it’s been too long…..

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