Sunrise and Sunset

Best enlarged Taken from our holiday cottage garden.

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Best enlarged Taken from High Side Farm on the slopes of Ling Fell, Lake District, Cumbria, England

Best enlarged Taken from my back garden.

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Best enlarged Scanned from a 1972 35mm slide

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Best enlarged Staffin (Scottish Gaelic: Stafain) is a district with the Gaelic name An Taobh Sear, which translates as 'the East Side', on the northeast coast of the Trotternish peninsula of the island of Skye. It is located on the A855 road about 17 miles (27 km) north of Portree and is overlooked by the Trotternish Ridge with the famous rock formations of The Storrand the Quirang. The district comprises 23 townships made up of, from south to north, Rigg, Tote, Lealt, Lonfearn, Grealin, Breackry, Cul-nan-cnoc, Bhaltos, Raiseburgh, Ellishader, Garafad, Clachan, Garros, Marrishader, Maligar, Stenscholl, Brogaig, Sartle, Glasphein, Digg, Dunan, Flodigarry and Greap. The Kilmartin River runs northwards through the village. From where it reaches the sea a rocky shore leads east to a slipway at An Corran. Here a local resident found a slab bearing a dinosaur track, probably made by a small ornithopod. Experts subsequently found more dinosaur prints of up to 50 cm, the largest found in Scotland, made by a creature similar to Megalosaurus. At about 160 million years old they are the youngest dinosaur remains to be found in Scotland. A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the 7th millennium BC at An Corran is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at Sand, Applecross on the coast of Wester Ross. In the modern era this part of Skye retains a strong Gaelic identity with 61 per cent of the local population recorded as speaking the language in 2001. In September 2010,Comunn na Gàidhlig named Staffin as their "Gaelic Community of the Year", in the first year this competition has run. In 2011 it was reported that Staffin Island may be the last in Scotland where the old tradition of having cattle swim between grazings is still carried out. Crofter Iain MacDonald, who used to swim with the animals, now uses a boat to encourage them to swim from Staffin Island to Skye in early spring and back again in October. The maze of grassy hummocks and domes providing the backdrop to Staffin Bay are part of the Quiraing, the largest landslide in Britain. 2km wide, the Quiraing stretches all the way from the escarpment down to the sea and covers a total area of 8.5 sq km, but it’s actually part of a much bigger series of ancient landslides all along the Trotternish ridge. The name Quiraing comes from Old Norse 'Kví Rand', which means "Round Fold". Within the fold is The Table, an elevated plateau hidden among the pillars. It is said that the fold was used to conceal cattle from Viking raiders.

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Gairich is a mountain in Scotland situated on the southern side of Loch Quoich between Glen Kingie and Glen Garry in the Lochaber district of the Highland Council Area, 25 kilometres north-northwest of Fort William. With a height of 919 metres (3015 feet), Gairich qualifies as a Munro** by just four metres. Despite its relatively low height the mountain is rough and quite isolated with a substantial prominence of 552 metres and is conspicuous in the view up Glen Garry. It is seen as a conical peak when viewed from the Loch Quoich dam. The mountain was initially named Scour Gairoch on the original 1891 list of Munros and is still occasionally called this, however it is now referred to generally as Gairich which translates from the Gaelic as “roaring”or Peak of Yelling” and is believed to refer to the roaring of stags in the rutting season. ** A Munro is a mountain in Scotland with a height over 3,000 feet. Munros are named after Sir Hugh Munro, 4th Baronet, who produced the first list of such hills, known as Munro's Tables, in 1891.

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Last embers of the sun

Scanned from a 1972 35mm slide