Worth getting up early for

I pitched up at Kinross swimming pool this morning and embarrassingly tripped over a bit of kerb whilst a man coming out of the building was watching me. He said something but I couldn't make it out. I assumed it was something about me tripping so I just laughed and said "Yes". My embarrassment continued though as he spoke again and I heard it this time: "The pool isn't open this morning". He must have wondered why on earth I had said "yes" earlier. Anyway, turns out that there had been a power cut and the pool wasn't going to be open now till 8am. It was 7.40am by this stage and so I drove down to Loch Leven to pass some time and think about what I could do (the morning swimming finishes at 8.45am so I wouldn't get my usual duration in there).

When I saw the loch I was really glad I'd come here. It was one of those slightly hazy mornings and the reflections on the water were gorgeous. I liked the reflections of the boats at the pier, and the reflection of Benarty Hill, and the reflection of the view out to the loch - I took photos of them all as my eye moved from right to left. And then I looked to my far left and saw something I had never seen before. A pair of Great Crested Grebes doing their mating dance. I watched them for ages and then I noticed another four pairs swimming about, some of these occasionally stopping to face each other and move their heads back and forth. It was wonderful just to stand on the pier and watch them, and made even better by the fact that I was just there on my own, in peace and quiet, on this beautifully lit morning. I ended up watching them for about 45mins so there was definitely no point going swimming in Kinross after that. The grebes were too far away to take a decent photo as I only had my phone - hadn't expected to be taking pictures when I came out this morning. Have put on one of the main loch instead. It's things like this that make early mornings worth it!