A walk in the frosty neighbourhood

A frosted gate

I was feeling grumpy yesterday so I decided to go for a walk. It was a grey day and fog had covered all the trees in frost. One of the photographers I follow just loves to shoot in mist so I thought I’d haul out my phone and take a few shots. Such photos are fairly pointless because I’may not look at them once I’ve taken them. I like the process of deciding what to photograph and how to photograph it and that was a good enough reason yesterday.

One of the first photos recorded the beginning demolition of a block of houses. That’s going on a lot lately. We have one empty block with the big machines drilling holes for pilings. There’s another block where the houses have just been demolished and even the concrete stairs, the last things to go, have been broken up and hauled away. Instead of half a dozen family homes with yards on that property there is going to be a six storey building with 92 units. The homes that are coming out in the other property are being replaced with another 6 storey building with over 100 units. That certainly will densify the neighbourhood but I can’t help being a little sad when I see homes the same age as ours reduced to rubble.

The last few days of this house

After photographing the demolition site, I turned my attention to the frost and the trees. There is an intriguing black and white quality to the landscape in these conditions and I walked and snapped for just over half an hour. When I came home my mood had improved considerably. Even though there are many things I love to do indoors, nothing is quite the same as getting outside even for a few minutes. I wonder if I’ll be smart enough to remember that the next time I’m out of sorts.

Dark berries, white frost

This spot feels like countryside

A visit to New Lanark: Scotland to Iceland #7

Another bus ride

On June 16, 2023 it was another bus tour, this time to the world heritage site of New Lanark. https://www.newlanark.org/ New Lanark is a working woollen mill that was part of a community founded by Robert Owen. He had a vision of a better life for workers and the possibility of schooling for all the children in the community.

It was a very interesting tour complete with a virtual/ actual ride narrated by one of the workers in Robert Owen’s factory. Let me explain that. The ride part was actual. We got into a gondola that wove through the exhibits where there were movies and still photos of the various goings on at the mill and in the community.

Boarding the gondola

Sometimes the people in the movies spoke directly to us and sometimes we watched them going about their tasks.

Life in New Lanark

The only downside was the wait times to actually get a gondola. When you have a ship load of people all descending on the facility at once it creates quite a long lineup. I was a bit disappointed that the machinery wasn’t actually working the day we were there.

Apparently it had been the day before. I did, however, avail myself of the extensive gift shop and picked up a lovely pair of heavy wool socks to wear around the house.

When we arrived back at the ship we got the word that we were to sail in the wee hours of the morning. Because we lost two days in port, one stop was cancelled and two stops that were scheduled for consecutive days were combined into one. Finally the beginning of our trip to the Scottish Isles was in sight.

Last sunset before we sail 10:40 pm