Ever since my first real mountain walking trip, to the Cairngorm plateau, I have been fascinated by the idea that in Scotland there can exist at high altitudes, even in the summer months, a small portion of the arctic. This trip was in June 1983, and the Cairngorm plateau then truly was arctic in nature,… Read more »
Posts By: Eddie
Porcupine Tree
Last Wednesday, Lesley, Ali and I went through to Glasgow for the evening to see Porcupine Tree at the ABC venue. Lesley has also written about the gig on her blog here. Porcupine tree are an amazing band, playing what could be described as contemporary prog rock, but with a very heavy guitar sound. They… Read more »
Maiden Scotland and Geal-charn Mor
On Saturday I went to see Maiden Scotland, an Iron Maiden tribute band with Lesley at the Studio 24 venue in Edinburgh. She has written about it on her blog here. It was a good gig with some great Iron Maiden tracks played the way they should be, and Maiden Scotland really sounded good. The… Read more »
Don’t give Pickaweb Internet Services your money
Ever since January 2003, I have used the services of Pickaweb Internet Services to host my website, but a few days ago experienced such poor service that I immediately cancelled my account with them. The behaviour of their technical and sales support would be comical if it wasn’t for the fact that it was me… Read more »
The Ordnance Survey: evil or angelic?
Ever since I can remember, the Ordnance Survey (the OS; the National Mapping Agency of Great Britain) maps (particularly the Landranger 1:50 000 scale maps) have been the passport to many things that I do in my spare time: from cycling through cities to driving through countryside, they have been, and remain, invaluable and as… Read more »
Google Earth and other geobrowsing tools in the environmental sciences workshop
On Monday I travelled to Cambridge University to attend the ‘Google Earth and other geobrowsing tools in the environmental sciences workshop‘, organised by NIEeS and ReSC. The workshop consisted of one day of presentations and one day of practical sessions. I only attended the first day, which entailed an early morning easyJet flight to Stansted,… Read more »
The Australian Pink Floyd and The Whangie
Last Saturday (as well as moving flat) I went to the Glasgow SECC to see the The Australian Pink Floyd (a Pink Floyd tribute band) with Lesley. We’ve seen this band once before, and they’re probably the closest that you can get to seeing the real thing live, so closely do they recreate the sound… Read more »
Creag Uchdag
On Thursday last week, I climbed the 879m summit of Creag Uchdag with Chris, a colleague from work. Both of us have climbed all the larger and more well-known summits near Edinburgh, so we decided to climb something a bit more out of the way. The weather forecast was also not that great, and a… Read more »
Beinn Dearg
Yesterday I walked to the 1008m summit of Beinn Dearg, near Blair Atholl (photographs here). It was a very long walk, just over 30km and took me about 9 hours. A long walk like this, to reach a remote Munro summit, would normally be quite difficult this early in the year, but the weather was… Read more »
Has climate change already affected hillwalking in Scotland and further afield?
The answer to this is unquestionably yes. I’ve been walking in the Scottish mountains regularly since 1993 and in that time I have noticed a definite change in the mountain environment, specifically the conditions in the winter months. Since about the year 2000, the number of trips during the winter months where I have needed… Read more »
I am a software engineer / database administrator / web developer living in Edinburgh, Scotland. In my spare time I like to travel and take photographs (especially of mountains). See my main website here: Eddie's Photo Archive