Winter is Here – And it’s Not What I Wanted

Winter is upon us, and for many nations around the world, it’s a time of lavish snow, snowplows, snowmen, snowballs and an abundance of other snow-related commodities. But for the few people living in the same county of Scotland as me, it’s quite the opposite. Just take away the ‘snow’ from the list of things in the first sentence and that should give you a solid idea of what kind of winter I’m currently up against – it’s going to be an interesting one to say the least. However, after many years of enduring torrential rain, gale force winds and snow flakes that are only able to touch the drenched concrete for a split second before vanishing into the soaked ground, I’m slowly beginning to accept that these are the sort of winters that I’m just going to have to get used to, and try my best to enjoy and survive.

I can’t lie, this sort of weather is perfection for me as a writer – perching by the fire on a cushion devoured chair by the roaring fire while the furious wind and rain try their absolute best to take the roof off, is a mildly therapeutic writing experience for me. The only downside to the severity of this gloomy weather is the fact that I’m unwilling forced to go through at least three cigarettes and a decent hairdo every time I step an inch outside for one smoke.

Despite this, there’s definitely a real sense of Scottishness that comes with this type of weather. Last night, I was forced to drag two very reluctant border collies on a walk into the woods at around eight o’clock at night – which promised a monsoon worth of rain, cyclone winds and pitch black vision. Of course, it wasn’t one of those experiences that I’d put on my resume, but despite its harshness, I somewhat felt like a true Scottish warrior as I battled my way through the slapping branches and leaves of the forest, as the two collies took flight behind me on two stretched leads.

The absence of snow around here is of course due to the fact that I live contiguous to the sea, which I’m yet to visit in these vicious months. I caught a glimpse of the fury last night while on my way to an interview for another chef position and oh boy is it not a force to be reckoned with – the treacherous wind and rain certainly pay great compliments to the unforgiving waves. It’s times like these that I wish I had a half-decent camera to capture these moments of mother nature at her most livid.

An Image I took last winter on the West Coast of Scotland showing off those bustin’ stormy waves!

This is the most riveting time of year for me. The weather gets frightening, the temperature of the house is heightening and every other nation on the planet is whitening! Why not us!?

Happy winter people, embrace it!

Winter Wonderland (Photography)

This evening I found myself curiously rummaging through an archive of lost content discovered on a forsaken netbook that I hadn’t seen in almost two years. Along with finding a massive heap of useless pictures and videos from my earlier teens and more porn than any man knows what to do with, I stumbled across some old pictures that I’d snapped with a bridge camera two years ago. And I am genuinely stunned by the quality and creativity of the work that I had little confidence in at the time. It wasn’t until now that I realised that these pictures might legitimately be worth sharing.

Here’s a photograph I snapped during the winter of 2012. One of my best ever photos, taken merely with a standard Pontax bridge camera while out and about in the snow one blissful winter morning.

Trudging through the vast blankets of snow, and completely unaware that I’d be digging this picture up for an online blogging site two years later, I captured this winter scene only while passing a small slip street while trekking to a more desirable location for photographs, the forest. It wasn’t until I was back into the comfort and warmth of my house with a sweltering cup of tea by the fire that I realised, the other pictures that I had taken in the forest that morning were nothing compared to the split second I’d captured on the way to that location.