Wanderings

Photographing Scotland - Project Update: February 2017

The first step in my Landranger maps-based project to photograph Scotland is figuring out where I'm starting from - I think I've got images from 35 of the 80 or so Ordnance Survey Landranger maps of Scotland, and probably one or two more that I've missed on my initial haul through the picture archive - I knew there wasn't enough metadata!

The next step is to figure out routes through various bits of Scotland (with suitable photo-stops) to let me tick off the missing locations!

Sheet 1 Muckle Flugga HP 607 197 DSC_2326

Sheet 2 Whalsay HU 571 635 DSC_9186

Sheet 3 Eshaness HU 206 785 DSC_5079

Sheet 4 Compass Head HU 408 094 DSC_7306

Sheet 6 Ring of Brodgar HY 293 135 DSC_1584

Sheet 8 Port of Ness NB 638 538 DSC_5647

Sheet 9 Kyle of Durness NC 380 661 DSC_9629

Sheet 10 Torrisdale Bay NC 700 620 DSC_7346

Sheet 12 Dunnet Head ND 205 765 DSC_1570

Sheet 13 Callanish Stones NB 214 330 DSC_5619

Sheet 14 Luskentyre NG 070 990 DSC_5355

Sheet 16 Loch Naver NC 608 367 DSC_9324

Sheet 17 Strath of Kildonan NC 224 904 DSC_1499

Sheet 18 St Kilda NF 095 995 DSC_5628

Sheet 19 Loch Maree NH 965 678 DSC_5812

Sheet 21 Dornoch Firth NH 748 855 DSC_2575

Sheet 22 Lochboisdale NF 791 193 DSC_5265

Sheet 23 Uig NG 388 634 DSC_2516

Sheet 24 Loch Torridon NG 866 542 DSC_5829

Sheet 26 Inverness NH 665 455 DSCF3451

Sheet 27 Findhorn Bay NJ 037 646 DSC_7671

Sheet 28 Lossiemouth NJ 238 705 DSCF3679

Sheet 30 Peterhead NK 137 457 DSC_1988

Sheet 31 Kisimul Castle NL 665 979 DSC_4852

Sheet 33 Eilean Donan Castle NG 882 258 DSC_5275

Sheet 35 Ruthven Barracks NN 765 988 DSC_0262

Sheet 36 Loch an Eilein NN 898 084 DSC_3793

Sheet 38 Ythan Estuary NK 005 260 DSC_9731

Sheet 43 Glen Shee NO 126 704 DSC_5417

Sheet 45 Dunnottar Castle NO 881 839 DSC_7780

Sheet 49 Lismore Lighthouse NM 778 351 DSC_4784

Sheet 54 RRS Discovery, Dundee NO 404 298 DSC_8905

Sheet 66 N Queensferry NT 132 803 DSC_0071

Sheet 67 St Abbs NT 921 673 DSC_8637

Sheet 78 Annandale Water NY 104 928 DSC_7377

One Slice at a Time

There are lots of old jokes about elephants.

One of them poses the question “How do you eat an elephant?”, and the answer is simply “One Slice at a Time”.

This came to mind this morning when I was contemplating a photography project that has been slowly coming into focus over the last few weeks.

Those of you who follow my twitter feed will have spotted that I’ve been buying a lot of Ordnance Survey maps recently, mostly of northern Scotland. Aside from a long-standing desire to have a full set of OS Landranger maps of Scotland, I'm planning to use this as an excuse to explore some of the bits of Scotland I’ve not yet got to, and to revisit the ones I don’t have any decent photographs of.

Any project with quite such a vague goal is going to appear somewhat daunting. I can plough through my existing photograph collection and pick out the places I’ve been to already. This is inevitably going to be heavily biased around places where I regularly spend time, and isn’t really going to help me pick out the places I’ve not been to recently (or indeed at all) or help me know when I might be able to declare the project finished.

This is where the OS maps kick in - they are going to be my framework. There are just over 80 OS Landranger sheets covering Scotland and my aim is to have one image from each sheet. I’ve got about half the sheets, and I think I’ve probably also got relatively recent photographs from about half the sheets too (after last weeks shopping trip I’ve got a few sheets without photographs, and I know I’ve got photographs without having the relevant Landranger sheet).

I need to set myself a few rules for the project.

An image needs to be representative of the sheet (i.e. not generic interior images - this rules out images from my extensive collection of Premier Inns, Costa Coffee outlets and motorway service areas)
An image can only represent one sheet - I’m looking at you sheets 11 and 12, which almost completely overlap - I need to find a unique image for each sheet!
All the images need to be taken in (and be of) Scotland - will need to do some detective work on sheets along the English border.

And rule four, I’ll be talking about Sheet Club. You can expect blog posts.

So, to paraphrase the first paragraph. “How do you photograph Scotland?”

“One Sheet at a Time.”

HP 607 197 : Sheet 1 : Shetland Yell, Unst & Fetlar

HU 571 635 : Sheet 2 : Shetland Sullom Voe & Whalsay

HU 206 785 : Sheet 3 : Shetland North Mainland

HU 408 094 : Sheet 4 : Shetland South Mainland

Missing Dora

Long long ago we bought a house in Oxford, and with that house we acquired Solomon, a lovely ginger cat who stayed with us for the next 11 years.

When Solomon died we really didn't have any immediate plans to get another cat. However, the word had clearly gotten out around the local cat community that our house was a great place to spend a feline retirement, and Dora came calling.

Having checked the place out Dora (at that point already 13 years old) announced her arrival and moved two doors down the street to join us - and she then stayed for another 7 years, until the years finally caught up with her this week. She's been a fantastic companion over the 7 years and is sorely missed.

At the moment it's difficult to imagine getting another cat, but there again we really don't know what the local cat community has planned.

Retirement

No, not me, although it’s very tempting at times.

Retirement beckons for my first digital SLR. My elderly Nikon D70 is finally going to be traded in for a new shiny Nikon later in the week.

Still with original packaging!

The D70 was my main camera from 2005 to 2007, and my ‘second’ camera until 2010. Other than going out on loan to a budding young photographer a couple of years ago, it’s not seen much action since 2010 so it’s finally time for it to move on.

When I first bought it (for £699.99, in case you were curious) it really did have a pretty decent specification - including a 6.1MP sensor and a battery that seemed to last forever between charges.

Over its career this D70 has taken over 20,000 images and travelled as far north as Iceland and Greenland, and as far south as the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. It’s been to both the east and west coasts of North America, including lots of Canada and about 15 US States. It been to China and Kyrgyzstan and stopped off in Nepal and Bhutan too. And closer to home is been up and down the length of the Outer Hebrides and had the chance to document our initial explorations of Shetland.

Here are, just a few, of my favourite images from the D70 collection.

Takla Makan Desert, China

Ice, Greenland

Iceland

Solomon, Oxfordshire

Great Wall of China

Wester Ross, Scotland

Paradise Harbour, Antarctic Peninsula

Glacier National Park, Montana

Chinstrap Penguins, Half Moon Island

Up Helly Aa, Shetland Islands

Saunders Island, Falkland Islands

Gentoo Penguins, Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands

M-Day

M-Day is a moveable feast.

It doesn’t cling to any religious or astronomical cycle, it just depends on when I can get hold of a big bag of (preferably organic) Seville oranges to make my annual supply of marmalade.

M-Day, traditionally celebrated on a Sunday, has been as early as 13th January and as late as 18th February over recent years. This year M-Day is relative early (22nd January).

Each year (and we have records going back to 1993) the marmalade gets a name.

1993 Frostie’s Valentine’s Day Marmalade

1995 Flying Toaster Marmalade

1997 Seaforth Marmalade

1999 Stile Road No. 1

2000 Ross’s Organic Seville Marmalade

2001 Real Millennium Marmalade

2002 Candlemas Marmalade

2003 Crystal Marmalade

2004 Poacher’s (Pocket) Marmalade

2005 St Clement’s Marmalade

2006 Quandary Marmalade

2008 China Marmalade

2009 Stile Road No. 10

2010 Stile Associates Corporate

2011 St Ninian’s Marmalade

2012 Aurora Marmalade

2013 St Scholastica’s Marmalade

2014 Remote Marmalade

2015 Mountain Marmalade

2016 Scatness Seville Marmalade
2017 Pomerans Marmelade
2018 Moon Dog Marmalade
2019 The Black Douglas
2020 Burns Night Marmalade

2021 Twelfth Night Marmalade

2021 Seville Spring Marmalade

2022 Marmalade 2022

2023 Pearl Marmalade

2024 Imbolc Marmalade

2025 Mungo Marmalade

2026 St Knut's Marmalade

(list updated in January 2026)

And just in case you feel the urge to celebrate your own M-Day - my (very simple) recipe requires 3 kg of organic Seville oranges, 3 or 4 lemons, 6 kg of sugar and 3 litres of water. For that lot you’ll need a muslin bag, a pan that holds about 12 litres to boil the marmalade up in and 25-30 jars to put it in later on.

Step 1 (on M-Day Eve) chop up the fruit and put the pips into a muslin bag. Leave chopped fruit and water (and bag of pips) to stand overnight.
Step 2 (on M-Day) gently boil fruit, water and pips for 2 hours.
Step 3 Remove pip bag, add sugar then boil rapidly for another 2 hours.
Step 4 Let it cool a bit then pour into the jars.
Step 5 (Daily for rest of year) Put marmalade onto hot buttered toast.