Ben Cruachan

ben cruachan
Originally uploaded by flickrwegian.

Enjoyed a day out in Argyll with Alan. Spent time in Inverary and Lochgilphead. Had lunch near the Nether Largie monument in Kilmartin and took the back road from there to Inverary along Loch Awe. Fab weather - good time, and finished with a visit to the Loch Fyne Brewary for a taste of their real ales. :)

Easy

Listening to an old album featuring Lionel Richie and The Commodores. I love Easy. It reminds me of a summer holiday in 1977 in Whitley Bay. A heat wave, ice-skating in the local rink, extended family in half-a-dozen caravans, and great music playing everywhere like Easy, So You Win Again by Hot Chocolate or even Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols!

Daydreamer

I'm on a course for a new suite of software this week, and interesting it is too, a software analysis tool called CAST.

Anyway, despite the interestingness of the subject or the skill of the trainer, I surprised myself by drifting into a daydream at one point. I think I was thinking about music, or this blog or something, but I suddenly had to get my concentration back before I missed something vital.

I guess a lot of life is like that. We try to concentrate on the big things like Peace and the Environment, and being good to those around us, but all too often we slip into a sleepwalk, concentrating on the trivial and mundane instead. And then bad things like Iraq and Global Warming happen.

On the way home a car bumped up against us on the motorway. It was just at a nasty point on the M8 where five lanes are converging. The driver merged into our lane as if we weren't there and then tried to deny anything had happened. Luckily no damage was done and Alan just about kept his temper.

I wonder what the driver was daydreaming about.

Meanwhile on a wall in Switzerland...

... a videocam captures a fleeting glimpse of a photograph. I'm one of over 14000 contributors to the We Are All Photographers Now exhibit in the Musee de l'Elysee, Lausanne. Mundane? Cool? Can't decide. Flattering though. :)

Add your own at http://www.allphotographersnow.ch/form.php

Original: Boating Pond In Winter

High Living

I don't live as high as this but sometimes it's nice to take the lift nearer the top to catch a few sunset shots. I used to have a key to the roof drying area but was always conscious that creeping about up there might freak a few of the wifies hanging up their washing.

Winter Palace

Alan and I attended a family gathering at the Winter Palace in Glasgow Green last night. Superb location if a little draughty in corners.

The night was for my cousin Colin who had married his long-term girlfriend Liz in Las Vegas last year. It was great to see the extended family for a celebration rather than a funeral.

Wore the kilt and for once was in with a crowd. It seems more and more Scots are returning to "traditional" dress for weddings.

The band wasn't bad and just when I was thinking they were stuck in the 60s and 70s, they did versions of Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs' hits. Well, versions is perhaps being kind. :)

Highlight of the night - possibly the taxi-ride home with my sister and her boyfriend listening to Alan's plans to open a Sponsor-A-Giraffe website!

last.fm

I'm a late-comer to last.fm I know. Anyway here are my most recently listened to tracks:

Trimming The Tree

I've been looking at the family tree information I've been collecting over the years. This has mostly been gathered from looking at birth, death and marriage certificates either locally or at Register House in Edinburgh.

I'm looking at it specifically to pass some of the information on to an uncle who I'll see at a family get-together on Saturday night. My problem is that there is so much of it and it's badly organized.

So I've trimmed it back a little - concentrating on the main family lines and not including (at the moment) the extra data concerning brothers and sisters of the main forebears.

As I look over the names I wonder again at who these people were, not in terms of occupation or where they lived, but how they were to talk to, were they friendly, polite, cantankerous, bad-tempered, funny? I know at least some of them will have the same family traits I see in my own siblings and cousins, but would I recognize that family resemblance if I went back in time and I saw them in the street?

None of my forebears were wealthy so family portraits and heirlooms are scarce prior to the twentieth century. I guess I'll never know but I can't help wondering who of all of them I take after.