Missing mountain

In August I vowed to take a photo of one of my favourite stretches of the River Spey each time I was home. This is the shot from late October - yes, I'm a bit behind. If I hadn't decided on this sequence of photos I wouldn't have taken this shot, as the weather during our visit was grey and flat. Nothing remarkable here, just a little breeze dusking along the water, and the bad weather-to-come sign of Ben Rinnes having disappeared from view.

At least the gean trees (wild cherries) along the river bank shone out. Now the leaves will be gone.


The wooden cabin is a fishing hut, where the wealthy people who come to fish for salmon take shelter if the weather turns nasty. There's one thing at least money can't buy!

I am feeling pent up in the city just now. Life is streets and pavements and the orange glow of sodium lights. We had hoped for a walk at the weekend on our way down to Moffat to hear our daughter play in a concert, and drove up to the lonely road beside Talla Reservoir. But on an afternoon of gales and heavy rain, with the light fading by 3.30, and the reservoir dangerously high, we turned back when the car began to lift off the road going through a flooded patch. A wild, isolated road over high moorland, with no mobile phone reception, is not a place to get stuck. So the walk had to be postponed. Still, the Moffat concert made up for it. Rutter, Bach, Vivaldi and Corelli (the 'Christmas' concerto) in the stout red sandstone church was a good way to keep the elements at bay.