As Guillaume’s very pleasant Scottish neighbours, the ones from Perth who added to the weight of opinion that Fort Dump was a William [:)], were packing to leave for home today, there was a glimmer of hope; I spotted a weak shadow. Sure enough, though the sun was not at all clear, it was just about showing through a thin shroud of cloud. We bade farewell to them and, in the hope of some brighter weather in Glen Coe and Rannoch Moor, set off to give Francine the chance to play with her filters again and, perhaps, have a more pleasant walk.
The faint glimmer of hope remained as we drove up through Glen Coe to reach Francine’s chosen subject on Rannoch Moor. She began studying shooting angles and setting up her tripod. As she was doing so, the glimmer of hope became fainter, occasionally disappearing. Although there had been a few brief hints of sun, the air seemed even murkier than usual, the slightly distant hills all looking as they had been covered in a thin veil of grey. Having gone to the effort of setting up, Francine tried gamely to make something of nothing; she was only wasting reusable pixels, after all. A panoramic crop seems to work best.
With all glimmers having disappeared, we went in search of another location looking for views to convey the bleakness of the moor and climbed a small hill to get a higher angle. Shortly, ein Reisebus pulled into the same layby and discharged a large abteilung of heavily armed Sturmbanntouristen which immediately began a determined assault on our position. Greatly outnumbered, we made a tactical withdrawal and grabbed what, for me, was the best shot of the day. A passing Scottish gentleman play-acted machine-gunning them with his walking stick. They did make a good target against the skyline. 😀
The light now being a complete waste of time, we descended back into Glen Coe and paused for a short walk to Signal Rock, from which the massacre of Glen Coe was initiated. For once this was Scots killing Scots and the English weren’t involved. The rain began at about 1:30 PM on our way back to the car.
It’s now raining heavily and the opposite side of Loch Linnhe has once again vanished in the rain-sodden atmosphere. So much for our glimmer of hope.
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