Sep. 10th, 2010

Mountains

Sep. 10th, 2010 05:10 pm
rhythmaning: (sunset)
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…

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rhythmaning: (sunset)
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.

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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!).

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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”).

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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!

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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.)
rhythmaning: (Default)
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.

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Motorhead, the Roundhouse, London. 1977.

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Wilko 5 Wilko 9

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

Hawkwind 2-11 scan 2 Hawkwind 1-13

Hawkwind, the Roundhouse, London. 1977.

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