Rural scenes

 

Fields of Yellow

I had another lovely though completely different day. The weather had done a U turn and was back to wet and cold so I got in the car to go to Hobbycraft. I was talking about my paints with friends yesterday and that put me in the mood for some buying of them too. I came home with a gorgeous collection of colours and will have lots of fun playing with them very soon. On the way I spotted my first field of rape seed this year, and even better with flowering gorse in the background. To top if off there was also very convenient parking nearby. Love that yellow, and surprise, surprise exactly that yellow is one of the acrylics I bought!

Gladhouse Reservoir

Today is my 700th blip anniversary which means that I have posted a photograph consecutively for the last 700 days. I've only had to back blip (i.e. upload the picture after the actual day had passed) once, when our dial-up wasn't working due to a power cut. During that day I've blipped mostly from home but also from a nearby farm and the Penicuik library, both due to internet and/or power problems. Since the end of May this year I've been using our WiFi at home (oh the relief!). Blip celebrates some birthdays in style but the 700th isn't one of them as within 30 days you reach your 2 year anniversary. But I didn't want the day to go by without having my own little blip party and for that I needed to come up with a good if not great photograph.

I also am very, very busy so didn't want to venture too far from home. This morning was rather dull and grey for photography but the afternoon promised a bit of sun and so we drove to Gladhouse Reservoir, about 15 minutes drive from home, where I took a previous blip last year in April.  And it proved to be a very good choice. There was hardly any wind. The surface of the water was undisturbed by any ripples and thus the reflections were out of this world! In the end I took so many photographs that once again I had a very difficult time settling on the one I wanted to blip. The photograph at the top of this post won, although the one at the bottom was a very close contender. Let me know if you think I made the right choice.

 From the reservoir the water is led over stone steps (seen below) into a trench, under a bridge. You can see that in the above picture and then, not too far away, seems to plummet down a steep dip. A very strange sight giving the illusion that all the water stops in mid flow.

We drove on a bit further and came upon more fantastic photo opportunities. The interest was not just the water or the reflections, splendid as they were. but also the wonderful cloud formations. They changed from second to second, and the sun kept appearing and disappearing, producing ever different effects. 

All the pictures seen here were taken within a 20 minute time frame but some look like it's very light and others very dark. It just depended on whether the sun was on view or not.