Mountains

I spent several days last month in Braemar, walking in the hills in the south east edge of the Cairngorms. Some of these hills are very remote – one day was one of the longest I have spent in the hills, a 25 mile round trip (that's almost a marathon, with a couple of munros to climb thrown in, too!) from Linn of Dee up Geldie Burn, halfway to Blair Atholl: there were clear views of the Bheinn a Ghlo massif directly south, mountains which mark the western edge of the Cairngorms.

There were a couple of shorter days, too – a lovely walk up Badoch burn to An Socach, and a much harder walk into the face of a 50mph wind up Glas Tualichain.

There were some beautiful evenings and mornings, too.

I took pictures, natch…

Going around in Circles

After my long day’s walk, I took a rest day. I had intended to spend the afternoon in Royal Lochnagar distillery, or perhaps a bar, but instead I went off hunting stone circles.

I went first to Midmar, one of the strangest circles I’ve seen – I had been there before: the circle is in a churchyard, which was built around it. It is quite bizarre, and feels quite wrong: Christianity appropriating an ancient sacred site.

On the way back – towards Lochnagar – I noticed another circle marked on the map near Tarland, so I diverted and sought it out. Almost destroyed by quarrying in the 19th century, Tomnaverie is on the brow of a hill, where the setting sun in mid summer apparently sets over the peak of Lochnagar (the mountain, not the whisky!).

Tomnaverie is managed by Scottish National Heritage, and they had a map of other sites nearby; and so I hared off around Aberdeenshire, looking for a couple of others. Next up was Easter Aquhorthies, which took a while to find (not least because of obscure signs marking the “Gordon stone circle trail”).

Last up was a circle at Daviot. Like Midmar, this had also been appropriated: the circle at some point had been filled with stones, after the main circle had fallen into disuse. Another curious place!

All these circles were easily accessible: more alive than Stonehenge, say, and far less crowded than Avebury.

(I recently came across negatives from Callanish, my all-time favourite group of circles and a magical place; sometime I shall scan them, and post them here.)

My Mis-spent Youth

Hunting for half-forgotten photos of an old friend – and clearly long-lost, since I couldn’t find them – I came across these photos taken at gigs a while back. Over thirty years, to be precise.

I now take pictures at jazz gigs; back then, I wasn’t such a jazz fan (though I did dig up some negatives from jazz gigs, too – they’ll wait for another time!). Instead I took my camera – a large, heavy Zenit E, the first SLR I owned – to rock gigs. I thought I had more pictures of rock gigs from my teens – I only found four gigs.

These were my favourite pictures.

Motorhead, the Roundhouse, London. 1977.





Wilko Johnson’s Solid Senders (watched by Lemmy), the Marquee, London. May 1978.



Hawkwind, the Roundhouse, London. 1977.