Ola

Rosemary was out well before me. That is rare. She was doing a 100miler on the bike with our friend Glen. I thought about going but then decided it's not a middle-of-winter fun thing to do. 

Rather, I jumped on the bike to have a day taking pictures in the Pentlands. I parked my bike at Ola's and then headed into the hills. My camera stayed in my rucksack most of the time. I saw one nice composition in the distance, walked around 1/2 a mile to get there, and found a family 'parked' in a hollow in the middle of the frame. 

In a nice wooded area, light was hitting the trees & I thought a nice 'black n white' square image would work. That was until a labrador came bounding over, hit my camera had and left slobber all over my 14-24. "No it's not a bad dog" I said to the owner. "You don't shout at a dog because it's counterproductive, you keep it on a lead if you can't control it and you say sorry if it misbehaves".....all very politely. It ruined the moment.

2 minutes later, I felt my hands cold....'gloves' I said to myself. I hadn't picked them up with my camera bag. The trees all looked the same and I spent 5 minutes hunting without luck. Fortunately, a nice lady asked me if I was looking for gloves and a lens cap. 'Lens cap?' She took me back to the place I had left them...about 50-m away from where I had been looking. 

Ola called me, asking if she could come and find me. I shared my location on my phone and set off to Torduff. I was on a hill above the reservoir, trying to work out how to get down when I heard Ola shouting....she was just a little dot! But that little dot is a mountain goat and she was soon up beside me! Wow....she moves fast in the hills. It wasn't helped by the fact that I had my camera rucksack on but her 'normal walking' suggested that she could be a competitive fell runner. She's rapid on a bike too! I got this very nice portrait of her. 

Most of my other pictures were rubbish. One nice composition was ruined because the VR function on my lens hadn't been flicked (by me) and it was all blurry. Definitely not a good photography day.  But Ola is my honoury wee sister (we are quite alike in many ways) and it always makes me happy to see her.

I seemed to be more tired than Rosemary in the evening though!