alice lyall
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alyall.bsky.social
alice lyall
@alyall.bsky.social
170 followers 270 following 140 posts
Slow cyclist, serial enthusiast, aspiring harpy. Mostly in Edinburgh.
Work: World Heritage things (for now...) Volunteering: river things
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alyall.bsky.social
Helped out at another brilliant @wolct.bsky.social plant sale this morning. Contrast another trustee's restrained & sensible selection with my "just a few, don't go mental... well maybe just one more..." plant pile. Oops?
A smiling woman in a t-shirt featuring a potted plant holding a box wth two plants A photo of a tray and a bag full of small plants of different kinds. There are at least 30 individual plants!!
May 10, 2025 at 12:36 PM
alyall.bsky.social
"Movies you’ve watched more than six times, using gifs. (No big franchises!)"

Tragic lack of gifs available on Bluesky for this one.
A still of Hugh Dillon as Joe Dick (still my problematic fave), frontman of fictional punk / rock band Hard Core Logo in the 1996 mockumentary film of the same name.
April 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Way out West. (Portuairk in April between the hail showers.)
A view of a low bench on green turf framed by leafless birch branches. Beyond is the sea, low rocky islets and a blue spring sky.
April 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
alyall.bsky.social
What a morning to slightly overload your borrowed Brompton (hi @judy.co.uk ) and head over to the @wolct.bsky.social for a coffee and an Ikea item handover! #SpringInEdinburgh #quaxing #WaterofLeith
Photo of an outside table and coffees In the sun with a bike and viaduct in the background Photo of a Brompton folding bike with a very very full bag on the front.
April 6, 2025 at 11:17 AM
alyall.bsky.social
Got appointment time wrong and arrived at the hairdresser to find the door locked and Archie the assistant in sole charge.

He wouldn't let me in - just gave me this judgemental stare through the glass.

(Rescheduled with the human & Archie napped hard while I got trimmed.)
An English Bulldog standing next to a hairdresser's chair in a salon. He's looking right at the camera.
March 15, 2025 at 6:22 PM
alyall.bsky.social
I liked the original goose too!
Photo of the original Wawa Goose statue. The goose is seen from below and in front, neck stretched upward and wings raised. It's a bit battered and lumpy! Someone has hung blue and white bunting around the plinth.
March 2, 2025 at 2:43 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Stopped at both of these on a bike ride across Canada back in 2015. Terry Fox made me think. The Wawa Goose was just a wee delight to a tired cyclist on a grey, damp day. (So was swapping my camping plans for a night in a Wawa motel after a peaceful afternoon sitting by the lake.)
Photo of a planter full of bright yellow flowers in front of a sandy beach and Wawa Lake. The water is calm and grey-blue. Wooded hills fringe the lake in the distance and the sky is cloudy.
March 2, 2025 at 2:38 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Inverleith Pond on a still wintery late February evening.
Photo of Inverleith Pond near sunset. Two ducks sit in the foreground and a row of bare trees are silhouetted against the evening sky.
February 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Mystery beastie met today in a modern wall.
An oddly-shaped pebble painted to look like the side profile of a toothy beast with a white staring eye and pointed teeth. Pebble has been tucked into drystane wall.
February 24, 2025 at 6:44 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Closeup of a bike's drive train / front ring revealing the filth of winter city riding. Also revealing that the owner doesn't like washing the bike when it's cold outside!
February 21, 2025 at 2:56 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Last chance to join the Water of Leith Conservation Trust
@wolct.bsky.social as Chair of our board: applications close at 09:00 tomorrow (Tuesday 18th Feb)! www.waterofleith.org.uk/work-for-us/
A photograph looking downstream along a stretch of urban river in the sunshine. Trees shade the left bank and the river flows away under two stone viaducts. On the right is a walkway along the riverside and a sign over the path saying "Water of Leith Visitor Centre"
February 17, 2025 at 9:20 AM
alyall.bsky.social
Sometimes I remember to read or reread a poem, and it always shifts something in my head - somehow, sooner or later.
Avoiding the gods They have come to scald our blood, to call us out from our bright houses to the twisted shadows under trees. Let us not listen to them. Do not let them in. There beyond the darkened garden, in the obscure forest, the night expends itself in numberless small deaths. That is the way of them, the way of predators. A kind of innocent destruction but destruction nonetheless. Let us abandon them to moulder on their crosses, beat their iron wings; to redeploy their armies and invent new forms of sinning and guilt. Let us remain here, calmly taking bread, and wine, and speech. And in the morning take our limbs to work, and walk behind the swaying, fuming breath of cattle. And let us look for our salvation in the language we have come to teach ourselves. - by Ian Abbot
February 8, 2025 at 1:24 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Obligatory otter pic for scrolling this far(via www.waterofleith.org.uk/wildlife/)
Three otter cubs standing in shallow river water and facing towards the camera. They are wet and whiskery!
February 6, 2025 at 1:01 PM
alyall.bsky.social
A Lego Dunlop Drinking Fountain for example? (Inverleith Park's finest erection.)
A lumpy and definitely unphallic Victorian stone erection on a plinth. An oval hole a third of the way up used to hold a water tap.
January 19, 2025 at 12:44 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Gull taking liberties at Inverleith Boating Pond this morning. Swan unbothered or oblivious! #edinburgh
November 23, 2024 at 3:12 PM
alyall.bsky.social
Breaking a badger over the hull to launch my bluesky posting career.

(Mainly here to lurk.)
A photo of a stuffed European badger wearing a green cycling helmet.
November 17, 2024 at 8:39 PM