Sunrise over Davaar Island

12.1C starting bright with a sunny morning. Cloud building from late morning. One or two light showers in the afternoon. Light ESE breeze increasing to moderate. The weather is changing.

I saw this colourful sunrise this morning when I went out with Maeve the Deerhound around 7am.

From our kitchen window we can see into one of the yards of the Springbank distillery which often has stacks of barrels in it. This morning about 8.30am I noticed three of the staff had arranged 15 or 16 barrels upright in a grid of three rows in the middle of the yard.

Next time I was in the kitchen they were working on the tops of the barrels so I watched for a minute or two. I soon saw that they were working with circular stencils, the circles being the size of the end of the barrel, painting the lettering and numbers on the barrels. Through the morning I had a look now and again and it appeared that more than one stencil was used on each barrel, and the method of painting seemed to be similar to the pouncing that artists sometimes use to transfer an image onto a canvas through holes punched in an outline drawing. Rather than brushing the paint on with strokes of the brush they were dabbing with a brush or a sponge or something similar, a technique that is designed to get a crisper mark when using a stencil.

Before lunchtime the barrels were tipped over individually and rolled to a fork lift which took them away to somewhere else in the distillery.

After lunch Maeve and I went for the repeat of our usual morning walking route across the road and round to the park and the harbour and back along through town. I had rather thought I might follow the forestry road up Beinn Ghuilean today but the clouds were coming over the top of the hill and looked dark so I decided to leave that for another day.

Once Maeve was back home and settled I went for a walk. Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham (Portrait) then Runrig (The Big Wheel) on the Clip. I went out Low Askomill to the old shipyard and kept going out the North shore path past Baraskomel farm and out as far as the gate before the last stretch to Macringan's point where I turned round and came back. I only saw two boats out in the loch. On the way back there was a light shower so I didn't walk round the esplanade to the harbour but cut through by Aqualibrium to get home quicker.

Other things I saw today:
Oystercatchers.
Herons.
Robins.
Plenty of crows and gulls.
No ships at the new quay.
Big dark clouds.

Afternoon music ... Gloria Estefan, Destiny. Cher, Heart Of Stone.


DMC-LX7 f/1.4 1/20 sec. ISO-400 5mm (35mm focal length 24mm)