Local wanderings

 I'm trying out a new camera, but I'm not sure I'm that impressed so far. It was an emergency buy, which usually doesn't work for me. Anyway, this is a typical 3rd. New Town crescent in Edinburgh, with its central gardens - in Murray's day it's possible they would have grazed sheep there, as they did in the older squares.

Then it was off to Perth, where I overlooked the underrated Tay and the new flood defences. The weather was beautiful the first day and the river was racing when I first checked in.

You can see the dark rectangle of a flood gate towards the bottom left of the picture. Then a sculpture caught my eye and annoyingly the camera doesn't zoom, so I set off to take a closer look.

From above it had looked like a moulting peacock sitting on a carp, but it's a gull on a salmon, as you can see from the shadow!

Then I took a closer look at the flood defences. Every pillar has a carving on it, so I pottered the length of the wall, snapping them. Here are a few favourites:

They hadn't stinted on the metalwork, either!

The river was glorious, and starting to calm a little.

and by the early evening it was a soothing rush to lull me to sleep.

Well, if you've lasted this far and you haven't already bought it, A Murderous Game is 99p till next Wednesday! No particular reason - think of it as an early Easter egg, and much less fattening!