A Messenger From The Afterlife ?

It has been written up in Scottish folklore that a white deer is a messenger from the afterlife. Well, I was back up at the Scottish stately home I mentioned in an earlier
blog and spotted a herd of them no less.

They are very rare, so I suppose it must be even rarer to find a herd of them.

Poor Old Pigeon.

I went to close my window tonight and found a dead pigeon lying on the sill.

The poor old thing must have flown into the window.

Exile Is Back.

Today saw the release of newly remastered Rolling Stones masterpiece, Exile on Main Street, complete with 10 previously unreleased tracks. Some are saying it is a deliberate ploy to extract money from those of us who already have it in our collection. Well, considering that I bought it on vinyl back in 1972, then on tape, then on CD and finally as part of a boxed set of CD's, I for one couldn't care less. Yes, I have bought it again and here is the proof.

First thing this morning!

Now some say that I am obsessed with the Stones and want to debate who actually is the greatest R&R band ever, to me that's like debating if the sun rises and sets every day.

There is no debate.

How The Other Half Lived.

Last week, I was taking some photographs at one of Scotland's finest stately homes. In the library I spotted an original 1935 copy of The Field magazine. Can you imagine the furore the tobacco advert would cause nowadays. I did like the style of the whisky one though.

Up in the attic, I opened a door and found a belter of an old toilet. They don't make em like that anymore!

On the way out I spotted a pair of nesting swans on the private lake.

In a word, idyllic.

A Slower Pace.

I spotted this barge on the Forth & Clyde Canal at the weekend.

The canal used to be one of the busiest waterways in the country and I remember "puffers" like the Vital Spark, which I spotted is now berthed at Inverary Pier, passing through the swing bridge on Kilbowie Road. The Vital Spark was a fictional Clyde puffer created by Neil Munro and later turned into a very funny TV show.

This barge is Dutch and at some point must have made the journey across the North Sea.

A rare sight by today's standards.

Urban Art ?

I was cycling along a track underneath the Erskine Bridge on the River Clyde recently when these here 'swans' caught my eye.

In the middle of nowhere, someone had sculpted them from what looked like reeds.

I liked them.