A wintry graveyard visit

The irony of my old camera dying while I was trying to take pictures of a graveyard was not lost on me! And no this is not it's gravestone above but it seemed appropriate to take the new camera back to the graveyard to take these belated pictures, in order not to incur a curse on the new Lumix.

I also brought with me the disposable camera I received for the A Million Little Pictures project and as before I took the exact same picture with that and with my digital camera so that I can show the pictures for the project on this blog before I get them all developed. I got carried away a bit and took a picture of this very elaborate gravestone with Celtic patterns,

as well as one of these two arches which sort of echo of each other. Very Gothic!

All the pictures were taken in the Newlands ruined old church. According to the information board (which we eventually discovered in the snow, and had to defrost before we could read it!) there has been a church on this site since the 12th century but the present ruin dates from the early part of the 16th century. The graveyard was still in use around the middle of the 20th C as we discovered by studying the gravestone inscriptions. The picture just above became my blip for the day.

We did not have the best day for this visit although I have to admit the snow and ice improved the general funereal atmosphere. But they also made getting about a risky business and I was reduced to seeking help from the dead to stay upright by hanging on to their monuments.

It is really strange (specially in view of the fact that I love graveyards) that I'd never been here before as the road to Peebles from West Linton runs nearby and from there you can admire the remains of church and graveyard, looking very scenic. But in the 15 years we've lived nearby, that was as far as we had gotten to an actual visit. Spurred on by the AMLP project as well as the need to take my blip today was the day we finally looked around here, and I'm pleased with how the camera performed so far. The sky was a bit grey, in fact the whole day was grey and extremely icy, so I could not test the camera with that. It was almost the thing the Fuji camera did best, photographing into the sun! Alas, no sun on offer today at all!