Sunshine, Summer And The Outdoors

❀ I got a bit distracted... ❀

I was supposed to be taking pictures in the cemetery on Friday; I took the bus to the city, arranged to meet up outside the gates with my friend Suzy, got there and found it was locked up. This was not that late in the afternoon, and I'd been looking forwards to getting some nice pictures of the run-down mausoleum at the back (which I have featured before on this blog) with the nice Canon camera (rather than my point-and-shoot Ricoh). I was not hugely amused. I went to the graveyard in Church St. instead but my heart wasn't in it and I didn't take any good photos. In the end Suzy and I took the bus and went to my place.

It was far too warm to stay indoors, so I went to go play in the meadow outside my apartment building. Suzy likes the meadow as it is always full of various creepy crawlies and wildflowers. Suzy is a wildlife photographer focusing  (pardon the pun) mainly on bugs and has blog ::Up Close and Personal:: and Flickr stream: ::Suzy Bugs::. I like the meadow because it is a nice green open space where I get a stunning view down across the valley and to the mountains. Suzy took some pictures of me mucking around in the meadow. I took the picture of the clouds and the meadow and suchlike. It was actually really sunny all afternoon - a rarity in grey and rainy Scotland! 

This is the meadow by my flat, and the little wood with the burn.
This really was taken in Scotland, I don't live in Canada or somewhere.

I much prefer being outdoors to being indoors; being outdoors instantly lifts my mood. Sometimes I just sit in the meadow with a recorder or a flute and practice, or read a book, or sketch, or take photographs, other times I have no creative secondary purpose; the outdoors fulfils enough. The meadow isn't particularly large, but it is large enough to be enjoyable. I think it was too awkward a space with too much of a slope to be developed, especially as there is the rather steep slope down to the trees and the burn. (A burn, for those who do not know Scots terms, is a large stream to small river.)

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❝The poetry of the earth is never dead.❞

~John Keats

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A lot of my poetry (which is terrible and never being aired on the internet) is inspired by nature, as are a lot of my musical compositions (also terrible and never being aired on the internet) and my art (less terrible and frequently aired on the internet) is inspired by nature, and I live in such a beautiful place that I cannot ignore it. I feel really privileged to live in such a beautiful place. 

Enjoying my natural habitat. Photograph by ::Suzy::.

I mentioned that Suzy took some pictures of me. I guess these pictures are fairly representative of my summer style; somewhere between Romantic Goth and Trad-Goth, with a lot of lace in order to keep cool. As the odd spot on my face will attest, that pallor is not foundation; I am naturally really pale. In summer I tend to slather on the the sun-cream and leave off the foundation as it just gets greasy and horrid when I get hot. I was, however, wearing eye-makeup and lipstick (as is fairly obvious). As is again fairly obvious, this isn't my real hair (that's a sort of plum colour at the moment) but one of Raven's wigs.

Sunsets are pretty, and distracting. Very distracting.
Photograph by ::Suzy::. Thankyou!!

Anyway, this is not supposed to be an outfit post! This is about my love for the outdoors! And I do love it, regardless of weather. Recently the weather has been a mix of sunshine and showers, and yesterday evening it decided to rain rather heavily. I was out in a forest a short (well, short by my standards) walk away, scrambling down a ravine to get a good look at the waterfall where the burn (a different one, my area has several) went down some steep rocks, and also to scramble back across because there happened to be a good fording point at the bottom of this ravine. I got rather muddy indeed, and wet when I stepped in the burn instead of on a rock, and I didn't care that I was wet, cold and muddy because I was happy. It was a couple of hours in the outdoors, away from the human race, in the fresh air, burning off some extra energy. 

I love my little skull earrings. Photo by ::Suzy::.

I do conservation work with groups like Trees For Life and BTCV, and last autumn spent a lot of time helping at the nature reserve. In my own time I like going out for hikes (for which my attire is a lot more practical than it was on Friday!) and tend to get distracted by any rocks present. I used to live in Oxfordshire, which is not known for rocks and boulders and things to clamber on. I now live in the Scottish Highlands, known for being well, mountainous as the term "Highlands" indicates, and am a very happy outdoorsy lady.