Our Garden in Birnam

Let it Snow

I love the snow. I fear the snow. In 2011 the snow piled up against our car-port gates and before I'd had a chance to clear it away (again) it had turned to solid ice. I couldn't get the gates open for a couple of months – until the sun can clear Birnam Hill there's no sunlight to melt the ice on our dirt-track street – and by then the car battery, having frozen in the meantime, had to be replaced. Ouch!

Still, I love the snow. It transforms the view and deadens the noise from the traffic on the A9. Here's a movie I made of our garden in the snow on the 22nd of January. The music, by my friends Tracing Arcs, works marvelously well with the visuals, I find. Enjoy!

Christmas Day in Birnam and Dunkeld

Genie and I had a quiet Christmas at home in Birnam. Very quiet. It's probably the only day of the year that the pubs are shut, and either folk are away visiting family and friends or they are celebrating at home. The streets are deserted.

Unusually for the time of year there was no snow to be seen here. The heavy rains of the previous days had melted it all. We decided to walk to the Hilton Hotel (Dunkeld House) in the afternoon for a couple of drinks, and I took the new Sony HDR-CX730 video camera – my Christmas present from Genie and myself. In this short film you can see the River Tay from Telford Bridge, The Cross in Dunkeld High Street, Dunkeld Cathedral, and the river walk from the cathedral to Dunkeld House.