During August I went to Wales for a few days with my family. Wales certainly lived up to its reputation of being cold, wet and windy. Here are a few photos of our dogs Pippa (Lhasa Apso x Maltese) Bella (Lhasa Apso x Shih Tzu) and my mums dog Milly (Miniture Yorkshire Terrior) for you to enjoy.
As it generally gets a bit quieter for us during the winter (welcome, believe me) we try to get away for a week or two before the spring weddings begin in earnest. Over the last few years our winter retreat has centred around the area of Glen Coe in the Scottish Highlands. It’s a place quite staggering in it’s natural beauty, but is popular for outdoor pursuits with some of the best walking and climbing to be found anywhere in the country.
This time we once again stopped at the Loch Leven Chalets. The chalets are very spacious and comfy and the owners Ian and Sharon do a great job of keeping the place running with all mod-cons. Being up here, self catering suits us, as it means we can take the dogs (Pippa and Bella) and can keep our own time for meals. The dogs adore being here.
This time we at least tried to make some attempt at visiting some new places, but the old favourites pull us back every time. We took the Corran Ferry over to the Ardnamurch peninsula to drive over to the most westerly point on the UK mainland. It’s an absolutely stunning area, but with very bendy roads. If you don’t have power-assisted steering, forget it!
Something we’d not done for a few years was take the Old Military Road walk around the narrowest part of the glen. This gives you the best view of the three mountain buttresses known as the Three Sisters, which themselves are mere spurs of the highest peak in the Argyll area – Bidean nam Bien.
Weather was as usual a mixed bag. We had a couple of days of rain and some snow but as always in this area we got the “4 seasons in a week”. The glen has it’s own microclimate so whatever the forecat says, it’s best just to ignore it and try to venture out anyway. But the last day was absolutely stunning. The clearest I’ve ever seen the glen in the years I’ve been visiting there.
So enough of the wedding frocks, have a look at some mountains instead. Oh, and some very cute doggies…
Last Friday evening we attended a gig at Cox’s Yard in Stratford-upon-Avon. The band were Who’s Next – the UK’s leading tribute band to legendary rockers The Who, made up of four full-time professional musicians.
But what’s this got to do with wedding photography? Well, not a fat lot really but we are hiring Who’s Next for our OWN wedding in 2011!
We previously saw the band play down in Swindon and thought they were great, so when it came to booking a band for our wedding they were the first choice.
I took the camera along with the intention of getting a handful of pictures but ended up with over a hundred. A big thanks to Craig, Andrew, Paul and Alex for a cracking gig!
In March, we took a week’s holiday up in the Highlands of Scotland, specifically around the area of Glen Coe and Loch Leven. This was a break we’d been looking forward to for months so with the car loaded up and the phones switched off we headed off the 400-odd mile trip.
We opted for a self-catering holiday, stopping at the Loch Leven Chalets. This meant we could take both the dogs and come and go as we pleased rather than sticking to other peoples’ schedules.
In terms of scenery, Glen Coe and much of the surrounding area is one of most stunning places in the country. Formed through volcanic and glacial activity over the last 400 million years, everything here is on a huge scale. The drive along the A82 from Rannoch Moor up through the glen is a must for anyone visiting the area. The landscape is simply jaw-dropping and for anyone even remotely interested in photography, the area is often at the top of must-see lists.
Although we didn’t venture too far, we did take the drive up the A830 from Fort William into Mallaig, stopping by at the fantastic Morar beaches, famed for their white sand. Doggies had much fun on the beach and we literally had to drag them off it.
We’ve put together a little slideshow of images taken on our holiday. Enjoy!
Dogs on the beach – Wales
