I mentioned the Balbirnie House Hotel a few posts ago and again here.

One day last August I noticed on our daily walk that a whole load of tents had sprung up in the grounds.

This was the hotel’s response to Covid restrictions on gatherings inside. Instead they had introduced al fresco dining.

A brave move in Scotland!

The video below is from YouTube.

Does it show fireworks?

Sparklers perhaps?

No. This is sprite lightning captured on film at 100,000 frames a second.

I first saw this on Astronomy Picture of the Day for 4/1/21.

Stitch of two photos to get the whole rainbow in. It’s actually a double rainbow.

Photograph taken on 6/2/15.

At the game against Berwick last Saturday there was a cracking sky just before and during half time.

Dusk sky in Perth, 6/11/13. A stitch of three photos to get it all in.

Tide in, dull grey day. Dreich even. Taken on Oct 3^rd.

Below is the view ca 180^o from my previous photo. Rocks have been placed against the sea-wall here too as well as further out.

It doesn’t seem to have stopped the waves crashing over the wall though. (But these were taken of the wall a wee bit further down.)

There’s also an interesting effect when the waves rebound from the wall and hit incoming ones.

It’s the first ever Kirkcaldy Film Festival this weekend and as a result I was at a film premiere yesterday. (The Scottish premiere.)

The red carpet was still outside the Adam Smith Theatre this morning when we went back there for a library book sale.

I assume the carpet will be out the whole weekend. (At least the forecast is not for rain.)

The film, Austenland, wasn’t really my thing, being a romcom based on the works of Jane Austen, but the good lady enjoyed it.

The film’s colour palette was curiously pale, as if filmed through a red absorbing filter, rendering the picture almost shiny at times.

The plot has an Austen obsessed US woman, unlucky in love naturally, deciding to blow her savings on a trip to an Austen themed experience in an English Country House, final ball and all. Cue the usual misconstruings. While it was played a lot for laughs there was a sense of straining for the joke at times. I suppose it was perfectly fine if you like that sort of thing but the best bit was during the end credits where the characters, in period dress, mimed to a rap track (something to do with it being “hot in here, so let’s take off our clothes.”)

Tuesday evening presented a glorious vista over Kirkcaldy as the sun’s last beams caught the underside of the clouds. This was the scene from the street on which Son of the Rock towers stands.

Here’s a stitch of two photos taken from nearby Beveridge Park.

There’s a fence in the Park that separates off the tennis courts. It had recently trapped wind-blown leaves. A strange sight.

This is the seventh time I have used this post title.

The question mark above appears because about two weeks ago – mid-January – we noticed a cherry tree flowering – a sign of the mild winter we’ve been having.

That Sunday, the 15^th, I photographed it.

The same day the park’s pond was partly frozen over.

Further round the park was evidence of the wild storms we endured recently.

Some conifers had fallen in the area around the fountain – a fountain whose winter spectacle I featured in this post two years ago.