Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Goodbye Galloway

by admin - 18:00 on 30 January 2012

Matchgirl and I arrived home last night, after the five-hour journey from Kirkcudbright, to be greeted by a cat who pretended she'd not been fed since we left. So much for Uncle James's efforts. Cats have no gratitude.

I left Bonnie Galloway with just three snaps I wish to add to the Bassman archive, but with a new-found respect for my tripod and the manual setting on the Pentax. PhotoActive Philip would be proud. Whether this new enthusiasm will lead to increased snappery remains to be seen – today's been so busy with work I might as well have been back aboard the good ship GNoME.

Here are the three snaps that survived a possibly over-rigorous quality control, beginning with a view down the ginnel beside the former home of Glasgow Girl Jessie M King. Judicious use of the white balance setting gives it the golden glow.

An abstract created from a close-up of a dilapidated boat, rusting quietly near Kirkcudbright harbour, was another view to catch my eye.

The last snap is of The Master himself, captured during an impromptu portraiture session inside Broughton House.

Today, as already mentioned, has seen no time to put my new skills to good use. Much of the day was spent at the Mac, creating fine pages for the imminent spring edition of Chatterbox, with a break for lunch and my overdue Great Garden Birdwatch survey.

I'd have put money on tree sparrows being our most populous species, but chaffinches took top spot today. Others seen during the survey hour were blackbirds, coal tits, robins, blue tits, great spotted woodpeckers (three at once!), dunnocks, yellowhammers, siskins, pheasants and a brief sparrowhawk. Absent today were greenfinches, goldfinches, house sparrows and our occasional treecreepers.

Matchgirl has also been busy, back in marathon training after a weekend of hill-walking – a combination she now knows is not recommended, if complaining muscles are to be believed.

So tonight will be a lazy one – just us, BBC iPlayer and Borgen. It's good to be home.

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