Spring scenes

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iPhone 14 Pro Max | Nikon D850 and 135mm f2 DC

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When you close your eyes and daydream about what makes you happy and glad to be alive, what do you see? Are you aware of a kaleidoscope of images? Are you aware of your responses to all that you see, hear, smell, touch and feel? Are there elements of life – activities, art, nature, people, places, things that have the effect of making you feel particularly happy?

Spring scenes in Edinburgh are among the sources of joy in my life just now, as so often before. I saw a bright poster the other day that featured a blossoming tree and the words ‘something’s stirring …’ and I’ve resolved to keep an eye out for the number of times I recognise ‘something stirring’ in my own life, and in all the life around me, in the coming days.

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Every time I look up

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iPhone 11 Pro Max

Every time I look up, from year’s beginning to year’s end, there’s something fabulous – sometimes very old, at others very new – just asking to be photographed in Edinburgh. The crafts and voices of history speak to me daily, in company with the sights and sounds of modernity in the present. Echoing …

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Dynamic Earth

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Dynamic Earth, Holyrood, Edinburgh: here’s a place, nestling beneath the great volcanic Crags in Scotland’s capital, that celebrates Earth’s beginnings 4.5 billion years ago, AND the light and far-reaching creation that’s still taking place right here in the present. There’s such an energy here, such a history, such a present, such a future …

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Scarves, gloves and puffas

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Christmas shoppers are enjoying blue sky, bright lights and all-round fabulousness in winter-sunny Edinburgh this afternoon. By ‘eck it is cold though. Two shop assistants told me that the fastest selling items in their stores today have been scarves, gloves and puffa jackets. And I’ve been among those who are glad of all of them.

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Screenshot: Guardian Online

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Pride in The Meadows

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I’m not sure how impressed these lions are with today’s ice – but they’re beautiful. As is the icy mist, lit by the low winter sun.

The 24 bronze lion sculptures have emerged on the Meadows and St Andrew Square in Edinburgh as part of the Born Free (link) wildlife charity’s touring art exhibition that aims to raise awareness and much needed funds for wildlife conservation.

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Hushed

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Winter-Time

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Walking home …

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No matter the hour in Edinburgh, wherever you’re walking home from, whatever the season – hot or cold, wind or calm, there’s always something cheering and inspiring to see along the way. Among tonight’s gifts was the sight of a beautiful young fox, sleek and gorgeous, on the Royal Mile – perhaps too shy and certainly too fleet of foot to oblige with a photo.

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