summer running

August 30, 2023August 30, 2023Leave a comment

Summer is already drawing to a close on the UC Davis campus. Oh sure, we have several weeks yet until Fall classes begin, but I’m ramping up my anxiety levels before the quiet times of summer end, trying to get those summer projects out of the way before the busy work begins. This panorama sketch was drawn a month ago in July; in a month’s time this same scene will be fill of people and bikes. That’s not to say summer is completely empty, we do have a lot of summer sessions classes on campus, so there is activity. Many staff are working remotely, though I am in every day except for the occasional day. This summer I have been working on my fitness, and have been up running in the mornings on most days. In fact August I have run a total of 56 miles already, preparing for the 5k Labor Day Run next Monday, I’m feeling well up for it now. And then I woke up early this morning to see that the AQI was up in the 150-180 Unhealthy level, due to red flag weather and smoke being blown in from fires way to the north. It’s really the first bad smoky sky of the summer for us, it’s that time of year again, and I’m really hoping it does not last. I’m really looking forward to this race, but I also don’t want to derail my running progress. Three years ago when we had that terrible smoke that lasted weeks, months, I had been up to then on my best ever running streak, even though all races were cancelled due to the Pandemic, the global situation made me focus on getting out and running harder than ever, and I was clocking in excellent times I can barely believe now – and then the sky filled with smoke and the air quality monitors said it was far too unhealthy to run, or do soccer practice (I was coaching at the time), so that stopped and I never quite got back to that level (though in late 2021 I did clock my best 5k time in the Davis Turkey Trot). This past month I’ve felt myself building back towards it well, and I’m hoping that by November’s Turkey Trot I can have a go at beating that 2021 score, or even the mythical pace of 2020. I do love running, and was really looking forward to getting out there today, but my lungs man, they’re quite important.

This view here is of the Silo, seen from outside Haring Hall, stood in the shade of a tree. The TLC is back there too, lovely building that is. A few red buses at the Silo terminus. Only a couple of people, very small but they are in there (for all you “but why don’t you draw people?” folks). I’ve not done quite as much outdoor sketching this summer in Davis, it’s been hot, and I’ve not been feeling up to it as much, but I’ve done a bit which I still need to scan.

the search for the last anchor steam

August 29, 2023August 29, 20231 Comment

I was disappointed and sad when I heard that Anchor Steam was stopping production. I didn’t even try to come up with amusing things to say like, well they ran out of steam, or calling their owners a bunch of anchors. It’s not like I drink that much of it. I don’t drink much beer at all these days, except if I’m out on a day like this in the city, and I like to stop off at one of the old historic North Beach bars for a refreshing pint or two, maybe three, and sketch the old place. In San Francisco, that beer would almost always be Anchor Steam, so I have some to associate the taste of that beer with those happy moments after a good day’s sketching and exploring this most fascinating of cities. I was in search of that last Anchor Steam, so I headed over to what is possibly the city’s oldest bar, The Saloon. I’ve never actually had a beer in there before, though I have drawn the exterior. It always looked busy with an older more seasoned crowd, much more of the wild west about it than other local bars; I quite liked the mystery of it, but I wasn’t sure if I would fit in. I’ve seen too many cowboy films. Today would be the day though, so I went in, it looked how I expected it to, a place I knew I would have to sketch. It’s cash only, and I went to the bar and asked for an Anchor Steam, in my meekest British voice. I half expected the bar to suddenly hush, for a few folks to get their hats on and scurry outside, while the barman said “we ain’t got no Anchor Steam in here! Here we drink hard liquor! What’s it gawn’ be boy?” Again I have seen way too many westerns, or rather TV shows pretending to be like Westerns. However that didn’t happen, obviously. Instead, the barman said they were out of Anchor Steam, except the Anchor Steam Porter (I didn’t fancy that). So I settled for an 805, and sat over at the back to get a sketchable view of the bar. Nearby they were setting up for some live music, which they have regularly in here. I wasn’t in there long enough to find out what the music was like, I saw the female singer getting ready and talking with the locals it looked like she knew everyone in there, and of course I imagined it would have a very country and western sound; if they had sold Anchor Steam, I might have stuck around to find out. As it is, I did a quick but pretty detailed drawing of the bar, and headed back out to continue my search. I was starting to worry that there would be no final Anchor Steam for me. I did a very quick sketch of the outside which I filled in later, and headed down Columbus.

The place I wanted to go, Specs, was closed, opening at 4pm. So I went down to do a quick drawing of the Sentinel Building (also known as Columbus Tower, though I’ve never actually heard it called that). I really like this building, and of course when I was up in Coit Tower I had seen it looking so tiny. This is where Francis Ford Coppola’s company American Zoetrope is based, and the cafe on the first floor under those red awnings is called Cafe Zoetrope. Incidentally, my son finally watched The Godfather this past weekend, first time he’s ever seen that film, one of my favourites ever. As I sketched, a man (who I think had found the Anchor Steam, and drunk many of them) came up and noticed I was sketching, and started to show me his sketchbook and sketching gear, all Micron pens and stuff. He was with soem other friends and they were going to all these Grateful Dead events, as were a lot of people in the city, as I’d seen way more Grateful Dead t-shirts than ever before. Anyway he told me that he sketched but his friends did not, and they were very good being patient with him while he sketched at the parties and concerts, and I was like, I hear ya mate, those are good friends. Always nice to meet one of your own out there, a fellow sketcher who just can’t really stop sketching. We shook hands, and he went off to some other Grateful dead party. I finished up this sketch fast, as it was now 4pm and Specs was going to open.

Specs was still closed, so I jay-walked across Columbus to the other old favourite, Vesuvio’s. I don’t like Vesuvio’s as much as Specs (it usually feels that bit more crowded), but I still really like Vesuvio’s. And there it was, that distinctive beer-handle with the traditional logo (not the uglier yellow and blue one they brought in a few years ago): Anchor Steam. It was a bit like finding the Holy Grail, but admittedly not that hard to find. My legs were tired, my hands all done with street sketching, my eyes too weary to be looking at all those details, now it was time to settle down for a nice cold beer.

I sat in this odd wicker basket chair, like I was inside half a birdcage, and drew my pint (above) while texting with my sister in London, and also my friend James who remembered Anchor Steam from when he and his wife were married here eight years ago. After hearing the news about the beer’s sudden demise, he did manage to find a few bottles in a shop in Soho. So what happened to Anchor Steam? The Anchor brewery dates back to 1896 when Anchor Steam was first produced (they call themselves ‘America’s first craft brewery’), but the ‘steam beer’ they brewed may go back to the Gold Rush days. This is the taste of this city, like brewing the fog, as San Francisco as clam chowder and cable cars. In 2017 they were bought out by Japanese corporate giants Sapporo, and in July 2023 they announced that they would stop producing Anchor Steam beer. My hopes that there would be some sort of turnaround on that decision have been dashed, as the brewery has now closed, although apparently the workers were hoping that they could turn it into a more independent co-op. A sad day for the city, a decision made thousands of miles away by people looking at the bottom line, rather than the bottom of the glass (that analogy does not work). So I toasted the death of one of my favourite beers.

I had a long while before my Amtrak back to Davis, so I toasted it a couple more times in Vesuvio, relocating up to the bar. There was a young couple sat there who had not only not heard the earthquake newsflash that Anchor Steam’s business was going up in smoke, they had never in fact had Anchor Steam at all. They were young, this was probably just an old man’s drink. So they ordered one, which they shared, drinking it from a straw for some fuckin’ reason. A straw? This is no way to treat the last few drops of Anchor Steam. This is literally San Francisco history in this glass, and then it was gone. I sketched a little more as I savoured the last Anchor Steam I will ever drink*, and then started out on the long trip back to Davis.

*It wasn’t actually the last; I was back in the city a couple of weeks later with my family, and had a quick Anchor Steam at the hotel bar before our dinner at the Fog City Diner, but I’m sure that’s probably the last one now. Unless I see it in a shop, or go back to San Francisco again soon, which I might. A couple of days ago the SF Standard did post a list of eight bars where you can still get Anchor Steam; Vesuvio’s was not on that list, nor was Specs. The Anchor ship may finally have sailed. Cheers, and bon voyage.

that’s “coit” a view

August 25, 2023Leave a comment

I climbed up Filbert Steps, which lead up from near the Embarcadero right up the steepest side of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. I think the last time I came up these steps was in about 2007, and they are quite a climb. Partly a steep concrete stair, and partly old wooden steps, it feels like they lead through some time in the distant past, through overgrown foliage and past little private gardens perched accidentally on the edge of one of the world’s great views. It feels like this shouldn’t exist in this relentlessly modernizing cityscape, but here is a hidden community of people who, well they can’t get their cars up here, and they definitely don’t mind steps. I passed by a bright pink house covered in foliage, and remembered drawing that before a very long time ago, in my old WH Smith sketchbook. That was on a San Francisco sketching day when I brought two sketchbooks, the Smiths one I had gotten from England, and the new watercolour Moleskine I was trying out, to see if I liked it (it definitely caught on with me). Here is that pink house, drawn sixteen years ago. filbert flowers

But I was headed for the top. I wanted to draw from high up, and Telegraph Hill is the place to do that. When I reached the top, I stood at the base of the magnificent firehose-shaped Coit Tower and realized that I had never actually been up it. I bet the views were amazing. So I paid the ten bucks, and took the stairs (the elevators were not working), my feet excited by climbing more steps. It’s wider than the Monument in London, which I’d climbed weak-kneed a couple of months before, and you pass those lovely murals on the way up, The views from the top were more than incredible. I was finally doing something new in the city, climbing Coit Tower, and I can’t believe I never bothered before. Lots of tourists were taking photos of the amazing fog-free views, so I got my sketchbook out and started drawing the scene above (at the top of this post; click on it for a closer-up view). I was up there for almost an hour drawing that, doing a much better job than when I was up at the Monument, but still overwhelmed by all the details that I had to puzzle out. The TransAmerica Pyramid loomed large, with the bigger newer Salesforce Tower in the distance behind it. The green Sentinel Building on Columbus, a favourite subject of mine over the years (see if you can spot it in my sketch), looked like a small childrens’ toy next to the TransAmerica Pyramid. I left a whole part of the view unfinished, thinking I might just add it in later, but I decided not to in the end, and now when people ask I pretend it was fog. I was pretty happy with my work up there. I talked for a bit with the guide there, who it turned out was from Norfolk, and then headed back down the stairs. Achievement Unlocked: I drew from the top of Coit Tower.

It was such a nice day and the views from Telegraph Hill were so stunning that I had to sketch another, looking out towards Golden Gate Bridge, which was in fact shrouded with fog. I’ve drawn this view before, this time I sketched in pencil. I had to stay in the shade was much as I could, not easy. The colours were so attractive to me. Still, I was getting hungry for some lunch now so I walked down the other side of the very steep hill towards North Beach. I stopped off at North Beach Pizza on Grant St, they do lovely pizzas. They also had bottles of Anchor Steam beer, and I remembered my mission. However it was a bit early for me. People in there were talking about the sudden demise of the city’s favourite local brew, and the woman behind the counter said they had gone and bought several hundred bottles the day they heard. Some of the other customers there decided they would go down to the Anchor Steam brewery that day, for one last time. I ate my big slice of pizza (a whole pizza looked a bit too big for me) down in Washington Square, where I also did a little sketching in my Fabriano book. That’s Coit Tower there on the left. It was built in 1933, and dedicated to the city’s firemen who had died in the big fires there, most notably the firestorm after the 1906 earthquake. I also sketched a couple of people who were Tango dancing (or maybe Salsa dancing, I don’t really know my flavours of dancing, could have been Fanta dancing for all I know). It may have been a dance lesson, I don’t know, but they ended up in my sketchbook. I remembered that I also gave a lesson on this very spot several years ago, when I taught a workshop on Perspective, standing outside the big church of St. Peter and St. Paul, making big shapes with my arms to define perspective lines, probably looking like a preacher.

I love North Beach a lot. I went and got a big cream horn from Mara’s Italian Pastries (wasn’t cheap, was delicious) and sat on my little sketching stool to draw the view below. It was the first time I’d sat on my sketching stool that day, I had brought it with me and carried it around, but typically I stand to sketch these days. I’m glad I did though, I was able to rest my legs for a while. There were a lot of people about, sketchable people too, but I like this view down Columbus, towards that big TransAmerica Pyramid again. The SalesForce Tower is there too, poking about in the background like a new rich kid trying to be cool. I mean, look at this view, that sixty-odd bucks trip on the train down here is worth it for that, not to mention the view from Coit Tower. I do count myself lucky that I ended up in California. London’s great, it’s the best, but I get to come down here from time to time, to this neighbourhood, to see things that haven’t changed amid all the changes, and still find new things to love.

But I wanted that Anchor Steam beer. It was mid-afternoon by now, and I’d done a lot of work already, so time to literally drop anchor somewhere…

escaping the heat

August 23, 2023Leave a comment

Once I was over that post-vacation bout of Covid (it finally got me!) which kept me indoors again for a while (it was like 2020 nostalgia all over again), I was bursting to get out and explore places again. Nothing like a busy vacation to make you want to come home and not do much; nothing like being at home not doing much to make you want to get right back out there again. San Francisco is the most interesting place that’s nearby, and it’s always good for some sketching and exploring. Besides, it was going to be about 107 degrees in Davis, so I thought bugger that, it’s like 70 in the city. The Capitol Corridor Amtrak train is certainly a lot more expensive than when I first started coming down here, but the views are still totally worth it. I like to get the very early morning train, and look out the north side of the train (out of the direct morning sun). I love that journey across the Valley, through the Delta, past the Bay. So I painted some of the scenes in my little Fabriano book.

I arrived in the city, early, did my usual thing of go straight to the Ferry Building to eat a couple of bombolini and figure out my next moves. I didn’t have a plan; I often don’t have a plan, even though I love to tell everyone “I always have a plan”, but on my sketching-exploration days, I follow my nose. Draw from something high up. Go somewhere I haven’t been, while also going places familiar and drawing different stuff. Maybe somewhere I haven’t been in so many years. I’ve been down coming to San Francisco to sketch since 2006, a few times a year. It was very sunny, none of the cooling fog, but still nearly forty degrees better off than in the Davis pizza oven. I had a quick look in the Hyatt, thinking I might sneak up to the top floor as I’d done before (I recall sketching from the top-floor restaurant on one SF sketchcrawl a long time ago with some other bold urban sketchers, we asked nicely and they said sure). No such luck, so I jumped on a streetcar and went down the Embarcadero, getting off at Greenwich. There I sketched the Pier 23 restaurant, as it was opening up for the day. I remember coming here about eight years ago when my friends James and Lauren got married, and afterwards we wandered the city having beers, and this was one of those places we stopped at, looking out over the waters with some tasty Anchor Steam, the taste of San Francisco. Actually, one of the other reasons I was in San Francisco was that a few days before, it was announced that Anchor Steam would be halting production, after well over a century of producing lovely local beer. It’s the only beer I like to drink when I’m in the city, it reminds me of stopping off after a long day of sketching and relaxing with a pint or two before the long journey home. I would be looking for that later on though. I finished this sketch, and drew these metal pipes sticking out of the ground next to me, before going on a bit of a climb…

couple of cadillacs

August 21, 2023Leave a comment

Here are a couple of turquoise/teal Cadillacs seen in Davis last month. One of them (the one above) is usually parked in a carport across the street from me, and not super easy for me to get a look at to draw, but one day all the residents on our street had to move their vehicles so the surface could be relaid, and this was then parked out on a street near the greenbelt. So I went out with my sketchbook and drew it. It’s quite a magnificent car actually. To a kid in north London the Cadillac was like some alien ship, you would just not see them in England, only on big movie screens and on old American TV shows. I do remember seeing one though, and it was a pink one from the 70s, parked in Burnt Oak. I think it made the local news. But American cars, especially the older ones, can be massive. You’d never fit one of these down my old street. They were things of aesthetic beauty though, weren’t they? These days, cars seem to all look the same. I daresay they probably said the same thing in the 50s. There is something really satisfying about seeing magnificent old cars though. The one below, also a Cadillac and in a similar colour, was parked downtown in Davis, and so I had to do a quick outline sketch of it, drawing the details and colours in later. I drew in pencil too which was fun, trying to do that a bit more. I don’t know enough about the year of model of these (I don’t remember seeing that on the car), so if you know, let me know in the comments. I love to draw classic cars; there was a classic cars meet-up in Davis last weekend, but I never went because I was feeling a bit tired on that day, and it was hot. I should go to the California Automobile Museum again sometime.

Friday night by the Thames

August 16, 2023August 15, 2023Leave a comment

We definitely had to sleep in after getting back in the wee hours from Scotland. Exhausted, not feeling too well, and probably having withdrawals from all the Irn Bru and Tunnocks Teacakes, I didn’t have a lot of energy. However I had planned to go down into central London to attend the London Urban Sketchers Friday evening sketching meetup at Bankside, and despite my headache, I’m glad I did. It was cooler by the Thames, with a nice river breeze. I got there a bit too late for the start, so I just got my sketchbook out and started. As you can probably tell, this is Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, with the tall tower of Tate Modern in the background. There were a lot of tourists about, enjoying the last day of June next to my favourite river. It was extremely relaxing for me to get down here and into my sketchbook. People lined up to see the latest show at the Globe; I really wish I’d had the forethought to book tickets to see something there, as I’ve never actually seen a play there, even though it opened while I was a drama student twenty-odd years ago. I remember our Places of Performance class did visit the Globe in about 1998 or 1999, when it was still a new addition to London, for a tour. During the early part of the pandemic, our family would watch full plays provided by the Globe online for small donations, filmed in the preceding years, since they were closed back in 2020 and we had no idea what would happen. So I love the Globe, but still have yet to go there properly. Some day.

I have also never been mudlarking by the Thames. The tides were low that evening, so there were quite a few people down there looking around in the silty mud and stones, looking for whatever the old Thames has dredged up. People find things that are centuries old. I sketched them in my little Fabriano, looking down from the Embankment, and then sat on the steps leading down to the River. A couple of hours later, the water was already way back up there (I presume everyone got back up before that?). The Thames is a tidal river, at London anyway, due to its proximity to the Thames Estuary which is where it meets the North Sea. So the river goes right up and down a couple of times each day.

The London Urban Sketchers met up again outside the Tate to look at each others sketchbooks. It wasn’t a huge crowd this evening, but I gather that the monthly “Let’s Draw London” sketchcrawl attendances have been so big that they have started holding them twice per month in the same location. These smaller evening events are bonus meet-ups for the summertime. I spoke to a few familiar faces, and looked through sketchbooks of some newer sketchers, and remembered how much I always enjoyed this part of urban sketching. I’d not organized or even attended a sketchcrawl in Davis or anywhere for quite a long time, so it was great to get to meet the sketchers again. I resolved to start organizing more in Davis again (and I just held one this past weekend, in fact, on a very hot mid-August morning). When we were done, I was not quite done yet. I stood beneath the Millennium Bridge (to all those tour guides who still insist that Londoners call it the ‘Wobbly Bridge’, no they don’t, do they. They did back in 2000 when it opened, and when it wobbled so much that all the high-end architects involved in its design were stumped and they closed it, but then they fixed the wobble and reopened it in early 2002. Nobody is still calling it the wobbly bridge except tour guides telling a story. And I used to be one of them, but that was in 2000 when it was actually still wobbling) . Anyway, I drew that ever-changing City of London skyline again. Every time I return, it looks different. The top of Tower 42 was decked in Pride colours. I forget the names of all these towers now, the walky-talky, the big spinach, the witch’s watering can, the flake, I honestly cant keep up with all the silly names. Call them what you want. Call the Millennium Bridge ‘the Wobbly Bridge’ if you like, it doesn’t really matter. That’s the great thing about London, names just spring up out of nothing, sometimes they stick, sometimes they don’t. Even the Thames gets a name change when flowing through Oxford, where they call it the Isis, though maybe in more hushed tones than before.

And finally, Morph. This year in London there are loads of statues of Morph, painted in a million different ways, and this one outside the Globe was as you’d expect painted to look like William Shakespeare. For those who for some reason have no idea who Morph is, Morph was a little plasticine stop-motion animated character created by Peter Lord, and appeared on the TV shows of the late Tony Hart, every kids favourite fatherly TV art figure (quickly checks online, we still think he’s ok right, no scandals there yeah? Phew, he’s fine. You never know when it comes to our 70s and 80s kids TV heroes in Britain). Tony Hart was also the only person we knew of who was named after three body parts. Morph was a national treasure though, even though he could only speak in little sounds, and he had a friend called Chas and this little brush that would follow them round like a dog. Oh, and he had a super power where he would turn himself into a kind of cylindrical tube of plasticine and ‘morph’ his way through the solid wood of a table. Having sketched Morph, the sun was finally down over the Thames, so I got a very crowded tube back home.

in search of elusive scottish creatures

August 15, 2023August 15, 20234 Comments

And so, the final leg of our Scottish adventure. We were all pretty tired by that point, I may have had all the Irn Bru I could drink, and all the Tunnocks Teacakes I could eat, but we were off to see a place we’d heard of all our lives but never imagined we would get to see – Loch Ness. And we were in search of a mysterious creature we had heard so much about, seen so many cuddly toys and fridge magnets of, yet had thus far proved elusive – the hairy Highland Coo. We left Fort William and drove up through the Great Glen, which is what we call the huge valley that cuts through Scotland and forms Loch Ness. As opposed to Great Glenn, who was one of the best passers of the ball in football history, though I wish he’d passed at recording ‘Diamond Lights’ with Chris Waddle. The roads were fairly narrow, and the speed limits great, with cars belting around those bends at 60 miles an hour. It was pretty nice though, not raining like on our trip through Loch Lomond, and we all breathed a deep breath when we first saw the great, incredibly deep Loch Ness. It’s the largest body of fresh water in the UK, and is 788 feet deep at its deepest point. The water is very dark, making it nigh impossible to see very much in front of you when beneath the surface. But no, it does not contain an ancient plesiosaur that has mysteriously survived the geological eras to confound scientists and excite tourists, that would be ridiculous. Kelpies, Selkies, Redcaps, Blue Men of The Minch, Giants, Finfolk, Bogles, Trows, Wild Haggis, all of those definitely exist, but Nessie? Please. Or does it…

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We took a boat tour out onto the Loch, in the ‘Nessie Hunter’, and our guide gave us a fun account of all the Nessie sightings, and details about the Loch. The boat was equipped with a sonar to detect things moving way beneath the surface, and he pointed out a house that has a webcam trained on the Loch 24/7, so you can go online and look at water, in the vain hope that you will see a head pop out. You’re more likely to see Messi. One of my favourite shows when I was a kid was The Family Ness, a very silly cartoon about a group of Nessies all with different personalities that befriended a couple of Scottish kids who helped them hide from the scientists. I loved the theme tune (“…but you’ll never find a Nessie in the zoo!”). Kids TV theme tunes from the 80s is be my specialist subject. Our guide told us that due to its constant movement, Loch Ness does not freeze over, but I clearly remember one episode of The Family Ness where they were ice skating on the Loch, so I don’t know. The ride was quite bumpy though, lots of waves (I presume they were waves…). We had a great view of the partly ruined Urquhart Castle, on an outcrop in the Loch. That was our next destination. After lunch of fish and chips (Scotland does the best fish and chips) in Drumnadrochit, we visited the old Urquhart Castle, which is where I did the sketch at the top of this post. (I have also drawn it once before, on my Google Street View Tour of Great Britain, during the pandemic). That was a super interesting place with amazing views over the water, and hundreds of years of history. While I sketched, my wife and son had a delicious afternoon tea overlooking the scenery.

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We were flying out of Inverness that night, but we still had one more mission – to find the Highland Coo. That’s a very hairy type of cow with long horns that they have up here, but we still had not seen them. So we found a little guest house and tea room that purportedly had some on their grounds, and after buying some cakes, they let us go and take a look at them. Lovely big beasts they are. We found some more hairy cows a bit further up the Loch, they reminded me a bit of that big creature Ludo from the film Labyrinth. Unfortunately, we had to get going. We drove to Inverness, sat in very slow traffic a couple of times, popped into a gigantic Tesco to buy a sandwich and one last Irn Bru, tried to figure out how to drop the car off, and then flew a very late night Easyjet flight from Inverness to Luton (less said about Luton, and our journey back from there, the better), utterly exhausted. There was no time to visit Culloden on this trip, but this won’t be our last trip to Scotland. There’s so much more to see, more castles to visit, more Lochs and Islands to explore, more trains to catch, and so many more Tunnocks Teacakes to eat. Slàinte Mhath!

Going for a ride on the Jacobite Steam Train

August 14, 2023August 14, 20234 Comments

Our main reason for visiting the Highlands was to take a ride on the Jacobite Steam Train, which chugs along from Fort William, over the world famous Glenfinnan viaduct, to the coastal village of Mallaig, in sight of the Isle of Skye. We would not go to Skye on this trip, but at least I saw it out there in the distance. This is one of several steam trains that operates in the Scottish Highlands and there is honestly no better way to see the Highlands than by train. Other than hiking maybe, but you can sit down on the train and watch it all go by from your window. The Jacobite Steam Train – so called because it goes through the heart of the countryside most associated with the Jacobite uprisings – is probably most famous as the inspiration for the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies, where you see it going over the big viaduct, probably followed by a Dementor or a flying car. So, the route is as you can imagine very popular with Harry Potter fans, and we saw a lot of people in their Gryffindor or Slytherin scarves, and you could purchase Harry Potter themed snacks. It wasn’t all Wizarding World cheesiness though, this train was all about experiencing the golden age of steam. Before we took the train however, we wanted to actually see it go over the viaduct from below. We drove out to Glenfinnan, about 20 minutes or so from Fort William. It was raining, but there were a lot of people out ready to photograph this iconic view. We had to park a little way up the hill, but Glenfinnan is so beautiful even in the dreary wet that we enjoyed the walk and the fresh air. We found a spot with a great view of the huge viaduct, built between 1897 and 1901, took some photos, and waited for the train. I had to sketch it of course, as best I could in the by now very light rain. What a fantastic moment as it passed by. There were scores of people on the hillside with their cameras, and we were one of many down below at ground level. We didn’t have time to go and look at the Glenfinnan monument but could see it clearly. Glenfinnan was where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745 to gather the Highland clans in uprising against the British crown, to regain the throne for the Stuarts. Despite many victories and a deep advance into England (getting as far as Derby) the uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, and ended at the tragic Battle of Culloden in 1746 with Hanoverian victory and a lot of bloodshed. Anyway, on to the steam train!

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We had been looking forward to this ride for quite a while, and it did not disappoint, in fact it was the highlight of our trip. We took our seats which were reserved to face out towards the curve of the viaduct as we passed it – on the return journey, you switch sides with the passengers on the opposite side of the aisle, which is a nice way to do it. The scenery was beautiful, but it was still raining a fair bit, and had been coming down as we boarded the train. I did a quick sketch of my son looking out at the rolling Scottish scenery, a bottle of Highland Spring water and a can of Irn Bru Xtra giving us no doubt as to which country we were in. Our neighbours across the aisle were visiting from Canada, along with their friend who was an older man from Glasgow, an interesting chap I enjoyed talking geology with. He enjoyed telling my wife his joke that “the best thing to come out of Edinburgh is the train to Glasgow,” which she had heard once or twice before, I think Glaswegians like to remind people!

This is the Hogwarts Express, whatever anyone says, and so you expect a bit of magic. We got some – the rainy morning suddenly gave way a few minutes before we arrived at Glenfinnan, blue skies and sunshine started breaking through the Highland clouds, and our journey over the viaduct was probably one of the most beautiful views we’ve ever seen. And we have been to the Grand Canyon, Delicate Arch, the Golden Gate Bridge; well this was right up there, because we were part of it. I was safe to poke my phone out of the window to take pictures; they do of course warn you not to stick your head out of the window as the train is moving, for fear that it will get lopped off by a tree (like that scene in The Young Ones).

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We made a short stop at Glenfinnan station, where we could stretch our legs, look at the little museum in the station, or buy souvenirs (I spent 20 quid on a set of small prints of classic LNER Scottish railway posters). Then it was back on the train for the scenic stretch to Mallaig. That train journey was one of the best we’ve ever done, but as you leave the hills and go along the silvery coastline, you get the feeling that you’re approaching the edge of the world. It really sparks the imagination.

Mallaig is a small fishing village and port and the terminus of this branch of the West Highland Line. We had a couple of hours to look around, get some ice cream, enjoy the little harbour. It was warm and sunny by this point, and while my wife and son had a wander, I sat and drew the scene above, which took well over an hour. Many of the people around town were from the steam train as well, but there were hiker families too, from all over – the group sat next to me were Finnish. When I was finished (nice segue there), I did another very quick outline sketch of some moored boats, with the intention of drawing it all in more details and colour later. In the end I only added the ink (I did that on the flight back to America) but didn’t colour it in. So you can imagine all the bright colours of those boats for yourself. We all got a soft-serve ice cream, some mroe drinks for the two-hour journey back to Fort William, and went back to the train. As it rolled out of Mallaig, there were people in their yards waving at all the passengers, the train tracks just a few feet away from the back doors.

We took so many photos on the way back. It became a joke in our part of the carriage that every time I would get up to take a picture from the window, we would suddenly pass by some trees or enter a short tunnel. Sometimes the view would be just the side of a steep hill, but sometimes it would be a cinematic sweep over a deep blue loch, like below. You cannot get enough of this type of thing. I live in California and we have some of the best views in the world, but Scotland is just mind-blowing. We want to go back and explore all the rest. I think there’s some Irn Bru and Tunnocks Teacakes we haven’t yet consumed too.

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I did get a nice local beer on the train though. I went to the dining car, and asked for a beer please. The guy on the counter said, “Oh aye, I can recommend this one!” He gave me a super delicious beer called “Sheepshaggers Gold”, by Cairngorm Brewery. Chuckling at the name, it was a tasty way to round off our train journey. Here I am enjoying it, wearing my lovely FC Red Star Paris shirt.

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With our epic steam train journey over, we spent another night in Fort William, before our final day in Scotland, when we would visit Loch Ness, and we would finally find that elusive creature that every single gift shop sold cuddly toys and magnets and postcards and t-shirts of. No, not Nessie, but the Hairy Highland Coo…

just fort william

August 13, 2023August 18, 20232 Comments

We arrived in Fort William, parked our rental car on a very steep slope, and checked into our hotel. I think I’d imagined it to be a bit nicer, like some cosy guest house, but it wasn’t, it seemed furnished like an old office building, and was spartan to say the least. There was a sizeable colony of mould on the ceiling. The shower in our tiny bathroom was also unbearably hot to the touch, and would not go any colder than the insides of a new McDonalds apple pie (which if you’ve ever had one of those, you’ll know why it says “caution: HOT” on the sleeve). We had the front desk staff come up to see if it could be fixed, and they fiddled about and turned it on, to the same temperature, and touching it momentarily with their finger they said they thought it was fine. It definitely wasn’t. So no showers on this two night stay, unless you want to be scalded. So I dubbed the hotel “Faulty Showers”, and now I can’t remember the actual name, so it’s just Faulty Showers. The view from the bedroom was nice, overlooking the hills and the church of St. Andrews. We were in Fort William because (a) we were going on a very special trip on the Jacobite Steam Train the next day, and (b) this is really the best place to stay to explore the Highlands, being the biggest town for quite a way. I didn’t really warm to Fort William as a town. Great connections, some good shops (it had a good Tesco Metro close to our hotel, for sandwiches and supplies – ie, Irn Bru and Tunnocks Teacakes, which we brought onto the Jacobite with us). Dinner options were a little limited, because this being the main hiking and Highlands hub it’s where everyone stays, so they all go out for dinner at the same time, and food is expensive. One place we saw it was eighteen quid for a burger. We had a decent Indian meal on our first evening there; I was surprised to see “Haggis Naan” on the menu; I don’t even know how that works. The pubs didn’t look as inviting as I’d have expected, the best one looked like the Ben Nevis, but on this evening it didn’t exactly exude the Highland pub atmosphere I’d imagined, mostly tired hikers and tables of empty glasses, while some of the other pubs on the main pedestrianized drag seemed a little bit, well, ‘English lager lad’, doorways spilling with middle-aged English men and women aggressively smoking and vaping and swearing, so I gave them a miss. Around the rest of the town centre, teenage youths ambled up and down with an air of boredom, and hikers tiredly made their way in small crowds to whatever expensively priced and cheaply run hotel they were pitstopping at. This is the end of the Great Highland Way, but also the start of the Great Glen Way which goes up by Loch Ness, and of course it’s right at the foot of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain, which was completely shrouded from view by Scottish mist. the sketch I did above, early in the morning, was the Memorial to Donald Cameron of Lochiel, with the Duncansburgh Church behind it. As I sketched, a man passed by walking back to his hotel and said to me (in a southern English accent), “It would be quicker to take a photograph you know,” and just walked on. Something in his tone was so dismissive, it irked me. I just glared nonplussed as he hiked off towards his hotel, but in my mind I thought, “ooh, you’re my enemy now.”

Still, what a view over Loch Linnhe at sunset. After our day on the Jacobite, and after dinner (which due to the lack of available options at the time we ate at the Wetherspoons, not exactly my first choice, but it tasted fine), I decided not to go back to Faulty Showers and stayed out sketching. Sunset here is even later than in Glasgow, and it wasn’t raining, so I sat by the Loch which was pretty peaceful and drew the lovely colours. We really were on the other side of the world now, it felt like. Even though I’m from Britain, for a Londoner this feels like a million miles from home, let alone for a Californian. The Highlands really are lovely, and there’s so much of it to explore, we were only seeing a little bit. Satisfied with my sketch, I turned around and drew the scene behind me, the Highland Hotel. Perhaps a tad nicer (and a wee bit more expensive) than Faulty Showers, this looks like the place to be. It was the sunset-kissed clouds that drew me in though. And I am sure Ben Nevis is around there somewhere, but he wasn’t showing his face. I went back to our hotel and went to be (after watching with my son a few sketches from the old mostly-Scottish sketch show from the early 90s, ‘Absolutely’, which I used to love, because the ‘Stonybridge’ sketches had popped into my head while we were driving north the day before).

There was a really nice bookshop in Fort William though that we spent a bit of time in, and got some lovely prints. I nearly got a book to teach myself how to speak Gaelic, but I know I’m probably not going to do that, unless I take a class. It’s a lovely language though, and you will see it on so many road signs up here. Fort William is called An Gearasdan in Gaelic, and about 7% or so of the population speak it. While this is the main town for this part of the Highlands, it was built to, you know, put the Highlands people down. Originally established by Oliver Cromwell to keep the local Clan Cameron in line, it was later named Fort William after King William III who built the fort to control the local Highlands clans, who over the next century would rise up in Jacobite rebellion several times. We heard a lot about the Jacobites during this part of the trip. There was also a really nice visitor centre in Fort William where I got some postcards, magnets, tea coasters, because I am a tourist and you can never have too many of those.

I did get up early on our last morning there and draw the church of St. Andrews, which was close to Faulty Showers. The gateway was so pretty and covered in moss, which I didn’t end up colouring in, and the kirkyard had a lot of character (and probably a lot of characters). I was up to get some nice pastries (and Tunnocks Teacakes) from the little Tesco. I was also, if I’m honest, kind of hoping to see that English guy who had made the irksome comment the morning before. I’m not saying I had spent a lot of the day thinking of what my comeback should have been, like George Costanza (like “yeah, well the jerk store called, and they said it would be quicker for you to just bugger off mate”, yeah not that good really) but I was perfecting my dirty look. He was probably already halfway up Ben Nevis by now. At which point I thought, ooh I should walk past him trying to climb Ben Nevis, all out of breath and red-faced, and say, “it would be quicker for you to take a photo!” or something similarly witty. However that wouldn’t be true, because Ben Nevis just would not show itself to us, hiding behind all that mist. Rather than wait for the mist to clear, I determined it would be quicker to look at a picture of Ben Nevis on Wikipedia, and we left Fort William and its faulty showers behind us.

raining champions

August 12, 2023August 12, 2023Leave a comment

It’s going to rain in Scotland. It’s Scotland, not Arizona. Of course, it didn’t have to rain quite so much on the very day we hired the car and drove north from Glasgow, past the mighty Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, over wild Rannoch Moor and through the awe-inspiring Glencoe, on to Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis (which we never actually saw, it was so shrouded in cloud). We never saw most of these lovely scenes because the rain was very thick, but we did our best and still explored. We first stopped bu the shores of Loch Lomond at the pretty little village of Luss, and stood looking out at the greyness, unable to see the other side. I came to Loch Lomond once before, in 1999 with my friend Simon and his uncle who drove a Jaguar, and can vouch that it is beautiful here. So, we continued through the rain along the shores, going north up to the Falls of Falloch. I had warned my wife before our tip to Scotland that we had to be aware of Scotland’s biggest menace – the Midge. Being from the south of England, we don’t get them, but I remember camping in Cumbria when I was 17 and everyone was being constantly eaten alive by the things. Tiny little fly creatures that bite you to pieces. We watched videos of people walking around the Highlands dressed in nets, we bought loads of midge-repellant, we checked the Midge Forecast online. Yet in the whole trip, the only time we encountered the Midge was at the Falls of Falloch, and they didn’t really get us at all. We got lucky, maybe, or the Midges know not to mess with me. The Falls of Falloch are lovely, and it was raining, but I tried to grab a sketch of them. As you can see my Fabriano sketchbook is splotched with raindrops. If you look closely though, you can see the remains of one dead Midge. See you later, sucker.

After a brief stop for lunch at a pub in Crianlarich, just beating the rush of hikers making their way up the West Highland Way (some day! There’s a lot of hiking I want to do in Scotland, some day), we continued our drive north through the rain. We crossed the boggy Rannoch Moor, one of the largest wildernesses in Britain, which I’d been eager to see. We couldn’t see very far. It wasn’t too long before we arrived at the main attraction, Glencoe. Or Glen Coe, as it’s usually written, Gleann Comhann in Gaelic. Even in the gloomy rain it was breathtaking scenery. We stopped a few times for photos and to take in the sheer Scotland-ness of it all. I’ve heard so much about Glen Coe since I was a kid, and its tragic history with the Glencoe Massacre of 1692, and its geology, the work of ice age glaciers carving through ancient volcanic rock. Scotland looks very different from England, and this is because geologically they are not from the same place, but collided together millions of years ago, Scotland originally being part of the same landmass that is now North America. Of course I had to at least attempt a sketch. I had it in mind that I would come up here and do sketches like Richard Bell in that book of his that I love, but the weather had other ideas. I even tucked my umbrella into my jacket to attempt some shelter, to no avail, I couldn’t look upwards and the wind and rain just laughed in my face. I drew the panorama above, of the Three Sisters, and decided to just leave it like that, rain splotches making my watercolouring impossible. It was a brave effort. Sometimes what comes out in these moments says more about your time than trying to draw it later. I drew another quick pencil sketch a little way up the road, adding a quick grey wash afterwards, but otherwise enjoyed what scenery we could. We visited the Glen Coe visitor centre, saw their little film about Glen Coe, went into the reconstructed turf hut, and bought stuff in the gift shop. And then we drove on through more dramatic, wet countryside, to our next port of call, Fort William. We were going on the famous Jacobite Steam Train…