Gallery

All of the cover pictures here on the website are images that I’ve taken over the years.  The website uses a randomiser to choose which one to display when you log on, but on this page I’ve collected them all together with a little of their story.

This is the sun setting behind the bell tower of the Old Kirk at St Ninians.   Its all that remains of a building used by the Jacobites to store gunpowder when the laid siege to Stirling Castle in 1746.  When the Duke of Cumberland and his army hot on their heels, the Jacobites fled Stirling (and on towards their eventual defeat at Culloden a few weeks later).  They didn’t have time to collect their gunpowder, so simply blew it – and the church – apart. There’s a great deal of debate as to whether this was an intentional or an accidental act!  I snapped this picture while campaigning in the Stirling Council Elections in 2017.  It was the end of a long day of campaigning and I was walking back to my car after running out of leaflets, but had to stop and grab my iphone to take this picture.

St Ninians Sunset

I nearly stood on this little fellow on a walk to the Bannockburn Falls in 2014.  I was out walking on an assignment for work, researching the “Stirling Heritage Trails”.  There’s a path that runs from the end of the village and follows the burn to a manmade brick cascading set of falls that were build to harness the energy of the water to power the nearby (and long gone) garment mills.  This frog was sitting on the middle of the path and sat quietly as I put my camera on the ground about a metre away and snapped this picture.

Bannockburn Frog

I took up beekeeping when Braehead Community Garden introduced an apiary in 2016.  It is a fascinating hobby and one I’ll talk about elsewhere on this site, but this little fellow could be one of our bees flying in a patch of flowers just along the road.  Stirling Council began experimenting with replacing bits of grass with wildflower meadows a few years ago.  I was driving past this patch of flowers one day in early summer and loved the colours and loved the hundreds of bees collecting nectar.  I pulled over, grabbed my camera and waded into the flowers and started snapping away, almost randomly.  This image captured the flowers, the bees and the sunlight perfectly.

A Braehead Bee

The Battle of Bannockburn Visitor Centre is run by the National Trust for Scotland and is a great walking destination.  On the western edge of the city, the site also offers wonderful and unspoil views of the 1314 battlefield.  This picture is a panoramic image taken on an iphone and shows the landscape and the famous statue of Robert the Bruce on his horse, sculpted by Charles Pilkington Jackson.

The Bruce

Walking along the beach and collecting shells has been a family pastime I remember doing with my parents when I was young, and love doing now as a parent with my children.  This picture was taken on a beach near to Southerness in Dumfries and Galloway.  We were all amazed at just now many shells were there and had a great time picking some of our favourites to bring home as a souvenir of the day.

Solway Shells