Incholm Abbey

I finally made it to Incholm Island and the Abbey last Saturday. It was actually on my list of places to see, but I totally forgot until the @alycoste invited me for a boat tour of the Forth River with a landing on the Island. So close to where I live yet I still have so much to see that's a stones throw away from me. I think I often forget that!

The shot to the right is of Alayne, who was kind enough to pose for me while I tried to do some artsy stuff... 

The island is dominated by Scotland's best preserved monastic buildings. It was established in 1235 when Augustinian canons built a priory, which was later given full Abbey status. The Abbey has an amazingly dramatic location and looks beautiful from the boat when passing on the south side. I can only imagine how great it most look in a storm, or with deep snow! Fortunately we had great weather on the island even though it was raining when we left South Queensferry.

The boat trip also went round the bridges; The Forth Rail Bridge, The Road Bridge and of course the new Queensferry Crossing. Have you any idea how difficult it is to take a good shot of bridges  when on a boat? Well, I do. Hence the lack of shots below! :-)

Ok, I got one and you can see it here.

Celebration

Champagne is mandatory at 40

Just a short note to congratulate my friend, Clare, on reaching her 40th birthday earlier this week. I had a splendid time at her celebration and have had time since then to reflect upon my upcoming 25th (ahem) birthday.

I am constantly impressed by her bravery of stepping out of a conventional job and starting her own company doing something that she loves. It should be an inspiration to us all.

 

October

Maple Leaf

September, I just got to know you and now you are gone. 

For those that poo-pooed my "it's autumn" post at the start of September, for sure it's autumn now, look at that leaf, you don't get that colour from an Indian summer. Or maybe you do, I don't know, I'm not a botanist, but the 7 degrees this morning tells me that winter is on it's way!

October looks busy for me, lots of training courses on (Python, QGIS, PGAdmin) and new projects; building an interactive map using Leaflet (a javascript library) for this website. I am going to update it with locations of where I have taken photographs. I am thinking that it would probably be easier to use a database of locations than program every location into the code, which would also allow me to have a date, meta data and a link to the photograph. Eugh, suddenly my brain is bursting with the thought of how much work that would be. Perhaps I'll use it for new photographs from the time I get the map running and use the GeoJSON that it supports out of the box. Maps...so much fun.

I spent Saturday night at the Forth Bridges (yes, again) took some photographs and had coffee at the Hawes Inn. The coffee was required because it was cold because it's Autumn. I got three shots that I like that I have included below. I like the photograph that shows the three bridges that I managed to capture using a wide angle lens. I like the way that there is still some light on the left side of the photo that eventually fades to black at the right side of the photo, there are also a few stars that can be seen (faintly). This is also the first time I have visited South Queensferry since the Queensferry Crossing has been opened.

 

 

Something for the weekend

Fuck Yes or No

I recently discovered an old web browser bookmarks file that I hadn't uploaded to my browser when I last upgraded my iMac. This led to an inane amount of time re-discovering websites that I used to haunt and waste time on. I re-discovered a site that I used read a lot, Mark Manson. It's a hard site to describe, he is basically someone that became popular on after publishing an article on Medium that was originally published on his website titled "Fuck Yes or No". He describes himself as an Author, Thinker and Life Enthusiast. He published the NYT bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. 

I noticed the post on Medium quite a few years ago in which he suggests that we should apply this question to relationships and other aspects of our life. It's either Fuck Yes... or No. That we should be 100% behind our choice or not  it. It's an interesting idea, one which I have used in the past and perhaps not enough of late. As you can probably tell his use of profanity is a theme throughout his website.

I thought I would link to some of his articles that I like here as I can think of a couple of people that could be doing with reading some of his work.

Fuck Yes or No – The most important rule of dating and relationships.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck – The most popular article on the site. And for good reason.
Screw Finding Your Passion – You already know what you love to do. You’ve just forgotten how to do it.

Check out his website, it makes for interesting reading whether you agree with his life views or not.