Weekly Photo Challenge: Abandoned

Bangour Village Hospital

Bangour Village Hospital is an abandoned mental hospital in Scotland, near Livingstone. It has it’s own church, and many buildings which lie abandoned, boarded up. It would have been prime development land, and was purchased by a large development company, but with the GFC, wasn’t considered worth developing.

I am not usually keen on the over-cooked HDR look, but for the mood I wanted to bring out, I pushed things a bit further.

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Sign Says

Just a few short months after we met, my wife-to-be and I escaped for a week on the Isle of Skye. Skye is as beautiful as you might imagine, although if you are planning a trip around September, make sure you take plenty of spare clothes and waterproofs.

We took the ferry to Raasay, a small island between Skye and the mainland one Sunday. It seemed…quiet. Which was wonderful. We seemed to have the whole place to ourselves. What I hadn’t realised, was the religious traditionalism that is woven into everyday life on the west coast islands included shutting everything on a Sunday. We did eventually find a hotel to get some food at, but if we’d wanted a go on the swings…

No Playing on a Sunday

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Love)

Heart of Midlothian

On the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, lies the Heart of Midlothian.

From Wikipedia:-

Visitors to Edinburgh will often notice people spitting on the Heart. A tolbooth (prison) stood on the site, where executions used to take place. The heart marks its doorway: the point of public execution. Some people spit on the Heart. Although it now said to be done for good luck, it was originally done as a sign of disdain for the former prison. The spot lay directly outside the prison entrance, so the custom may have been begun by debtors on their release.