08 January –
I had surgery on my mouth yesterday. Eating is tricky, talking is uncomfortable and my face is sore. But the sun shines and, bored of laying in bed feeling sorry for myself, I decided to dose-up on pain-killers and drive over to the neglected eastern edge of Glasgow. After all, there is no requirement to speak or eat when taking photographs. I’d left it a bit late (and taken a wrong exit off the M8) so the sun was already low as I passed the back of the Glasgow Fort shopping centre. It was about to disappear behind ragged cloud as I caught the sheen of steel cladding contrasted with vapour trails from trans-atlantic jets.
I moved on a mile or so, pulling-in beside Gartloch Pool. This must be an area to return to again and again in different light and seasons. Walking to the water’s edge I put up a congregation of some thirty Lapwings, and a startled Heron grumbled away to a more comfortable spot, part hopping, part flapping through the rushes. To my left a group of Gadwall were cruising the shallows while a pair of Scaup took turns in diving below the centre of the loch. On the far side of the water, seven yellow-beaked Whooper Swans arranged themselves, like the pretty maids, all in a row. I waved the camera around a bit and pressed the shutter a few times in a hopeful attempt to record this sea of tranquility, but the light had gone and my fingers were growing numb. Back in the car, I looked in the mirror before pulling-out and saw this view of the road and the approaching storm.
