A couple of weeks ago I went up to Scotland for a short retreat with some colleagues, staying in a cottage near Gatehouse of Fleet.

It was great to get out of the city for a while, especially to somewhere so remote. For the first few days I was still getting used to the lack of unnatural sound and light, and by the time I’d settled in to the simple life, we were back in London. The weather wasn’t amazing – it was Scotland, after all – but it didn’t rain on us too much, and I managed to lug the camera up several hills in thick fog without causing any (lasting!) damage. I must, however, find a better solution to carrying my tripod than the case it came in.

This view is from a hill overlooking Loch Whineyeon, which we walked up to a couple of times. I had a sneaking suspicion that the sun would rise on the left of this shot, in the small dip, but never managed to get up early enough to get there for it. (I’m sure the beers every night didn’t help!) This is definitely a place to go back to – I really want that sunrise shot!

The full set on Flickr can be found here – it will be updated every day for a while.

I’m back home for Christmas in Lowestoft, which is the most easterly place in Great Britain. It’s not the most amazing place on Earth – it produced The Darkness, for goodness’ sake – and was described in unflattering terms by Gene Simmons during the second series of Rock School. It is, however, by the seaside, and that’s always good, right?

The worst thing about being home this Christmas is that my mother decided to downsize while I was at uni, which means I am left sleeping on a sofa for a week. (I’m not complaining. Too much.) This means I can’t really sleep, and when she’s up for work early, I wake up too.

All of this adds up, basically, to an early morning walk to the beach – the new BBC Weather site helpfully told me that sunrise would be as late as 8.02am, which meant I could laze in bed (on the sofa) until 7am.

It’s not the prettiest coastline, but there is some interesting stuff around that made for some interesting shots (I hope). Of course, jumping down from the seawall onto a narrow stretch of pebbles and sand while the tide was coming in to shoot it wasn’t my brightest idea, but I blame the early start and lack of tea. Anyway, you can see the rest of the set on flickr.

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