A glorious dawn.

Sometimes excitement can grab you unexpectedly and so it was in the early hours of this morning, before the sun rose. Having worked late I'd been unwinding with a book when I glanced out of the window and leapt to my feet. An almost vertical shaft of rainbow light was rising out of the fields. Feeling this light wouldn't last long I grabbed my camera and dashed outside. The long grass was wet and my feet in sandals that double as slippers and some old socks were soon soaked. The air was chilly too but there was no time to don a warmer jacket. Anyway, inspired by the glorious sky I didn't notice the damp or the cold until later.

Away to the north-east the sky was glowing, Ben Rinnes and nearby hills were etched hard against the shimmering clouds. South the rainbow shaft was slowly sinking as clouds thickened. Golden light played over the forest.

I wandered the fields. watching the magical light. All too soon the glory faded. There was no sunrise, just strenthening grey light. I went home and to bed.

Loch an Eilein and the Argyll Stone: a Cairngorms walk

The heatwave in the Highlands has decayed. Rain and wind have cooled the hills. Warmth comes in bursts now rather than blasting heat all day long. Loch an Eilein at the end of July was surging with windswept waves. Low clouds streaked across the sky, bringing distant squalls. The air felt heavy and sticky. Brooding.

There hasn't been that much rain though and the effects of the heatwave can still be seen. Above is a dried up pool in the forest. This is what it looked like a year ago.

The old steep overgrown path up Coire Follais is strenuous and rough but the rewards are the glorious forest, the rugged crags, and the tumbling burn, still rushing down despite the heatwave. This is a wonderful wild and secretive place.

In open areas there are views back over Loch an Eilein. The forest feels vast. It's easy to imagine it stretching out across the Highlands, mile after mile after mile. If only. At least we have this remnant. And it is slowly expanding.

As the trees began to fade as I climbed higher the heather took over, turning purple now. There were bilberries, deliciously sweet, but also a cold wind that kept me moving, my sweat-soaked clothes feeling chilly now.

Once I reached the long ridge separating Glen Feshie and Gleann Einich the wind battered me. Here I was just below the clouds. The higher hills were hidden. Patches of blue sky came and went, as did grey squalls of rain. Streaks of rainbows appeared and faded. I felt a touch of rain, no more. Soon I was heading down steep rough pathless slopes into the shelter of the trees.

Rainbow at Dusk after a Stormy Day

Yesterday was dark and gloomy, with low clouds and heavy showers. The world was dark grey. Then just before it set the sun shone out below the clouds, lighting the trees and fields. The sudden sensation of colour was astonishing. The world lit up. At first there was no rainbow but I suspected one would come and hurried outside to watch. And come it did, a perfect bow curving over the trees. In fact it was a double rainbow - I could just see a second one.

Rain was still falling - streaks of it can be seen on some of my photographs. Knowing the rainbow probably wouldn't last long as I'd just grabbed my camera - Sony NEX 7 with 16-50 zoom lens - and headed out the door. I wanted to be far enough away from the woods to see the whole rainbow. Out in a meadow I found a near perfect scene with long dark shadows from trees behind me and a solitary birch almost under the centre of the rainbow that caught the sunlight beautifully. I could have done without the power line pole but there was no way to block it and still have a good composition (some photographers would remove it in post-processing but I want my photos to show what I actually saw).

To the right of the top photo a herd of cows can just be seen. I zoomed in on these and took the following picture.

For those interested in the technical details all the photos were taken at 1/125 at F8, ISO 200. Only the focal length of the lens was changed. I took raw files and processed them in Lightroom.