With Friends

I spent Friday night with friends in Callander.  It's a lovely little town which holds some very happy memories for me.  In fact, outside of Lewis, it's a place I could settle and feel at home.

There are several 'traditions' associated with my visits.  One is an evening visit to The Waverley on the main street for a wee libation with friends and acquaintances.  The other is the tradition that the same friends have of meeting for breakfast each day.  On Saturday it is usually at Dun Whinny's: which is where it was on Saturday.

The beautiful little Dun Whinny's Café  

It's very welcoming but hard to photograph because there is usually a car parked in front.

On Paradigms and Things

I arrived at Anna's late Saturday after a long lunch in Glasgow with David (of David and Molly Dog).

She recounted the story of asking her 13 year old that afternoon what she was reading.  The answer was "It's a book about subverting the paradigm."  Now I don't know about you but I certainly don't recall subverting any paradigms when I was 13. 

I do like this door at the end of Ancaster Square in Callander though:

A Day Out in The Trossachs

It's a long time since I ventured into the Trossachs: the mountains, lochs and glens in the area shown in the map.  So today I set out from Callander where I'm staying with old friends North through the Pass of Leny from Kilmahog to Lochearnhead and then down Loch Earn to St Fillans.  I returned to Kilmahog and drove West to Loch Katrine and then South over the Duke's Pass to Aberfoyle and thence via the Port of Menteith to Callander.  The weather was indifferent: warmish, still, dull and fairly humid and pretty good for midges but pretty poor for photography.

With no landscape photos I concentrated on some photos of the SS Sir Walter Scott on Loch Katrine.  

After that I had a walk with Sandie and her 1 year old granddaughter around Callander where I managed a photo across the river.  

Back at the family's art gallery the Galleria Luti  I was fortunate to get a few of the best Jackdaw photos I've achieved.

Across the main road through the town is the rather photogenic Callander Fudge Shop:

Morning Over Callander

After the wedding in Callander I woke up to a beautiful morning as seen from the bedroom window of my lodgings:

Boys Will Be Boys

Who says that when you get to my decade you grow up? 

A Walk To A Bridge

Yesterday Peter and Bill and I went for a walk.  A very interesting walk.  A most enjoyable walk.  We walked from Callander town centre (where the friends I'm staying with live) up to the Bracklinn Falls on the Keltie Burn and then back through the woods to the end of the town and back along the old railway track. 

The new Keltie Bridge opened in November 2010, the original bridge having been swept away by flash floods in 2004.   This 20 tonne  bridge  made of local Larch and four 12 metre long Douglas Fir trunks was brought to the site in sections, constructed on site and winched across by hand.

The view up the burn from the bridge

The Bridge from below the Bracklinn Falls

Setting off for home

A startled Roe Deer decides whether we are a threat (this was taken with the equivalent of a 660mm telephoto lens - we are not really close