Walking on a landfill

Okay, so it's not a landfill anymore, but it was.

This last week or two, I've had a lot of false starts with my writing. I keep having ideas for a blog post, and about 3 or 4 paragraphs in, I realise it's just venting about the things that are bothering me about the world.
They don't break any new ground, say anything you haven't already thought yourself, or conclude with any particularly interesting point.

"Tesla headlights suck" was just going to be a list of the ways individualism in the ultra-wealthy informs the selfish nature of the products we they make.
But like, duh.

"How cynical do we want our kids to have to be" was just gonna be about how jaded I feel, how I wish I wasn't, and how I probably still have to be.

And it kinda just goes on like that. We are increasingly, terminally, constantly aware of all the problems in the world, and we can go stress ourselves out on the social media sites if we want to engage with that, but to be honest with you? I need a holiday.

So this is just gonna be some pics I took on my walk today, why I thought they were neat, and maybe a... recipe?

Let's go touch some grass

When I go for a walk, I usually don't pull my camera out until I've gone for at least half an hour. If I pull it out right away, I get stuck right at the start of the route for ages, and the biggest payoffs usually aren't until you get further in.

This was one of the first captures, and I didn't quite know why I took it - something with the shapes of the letters together with the shape of the building felt almost like a reflection - angling in similar ways. When I got home though, I realised the image was split into two halves - the bottom with its vibrant, varied colours, and the top looking almost sterile.
On this side of the wall is a nature reserve (such as they are in Denmark), left mostly to grow wild and unperturbed besides walkers and bikers; the wall separates it from what's currently a building site, to host what will most likely be some kind of sterile, modern development.
I like that, it feels like it could mean something - and if it doesn't, it could represent something - and if it doesn't, it at least looks pretty interesting.

Today it was cold

Cold. But not snowing really - we haven't had a lot of precipitation, but it was dipping down below zero periodically enough that all the water around the space was frozen and refrozen a few times, ice all the way to the bottom, but leaving air bubbles in between.

The puddles are fascinating to look at, with layers visible below the surface, strange depths to examine.
I can see a river cutting through, mountains rising from its western shore, and a plain exending from its east. An unusual island surrounded by a moat sits in the south: what has happened in this world to create such geography?
I reckon it would be pretty cool to explore a place like that, and it almost felt as if you could dive in under the surface of the ice to find out the mysteries of the world trapped below.

It became impossible to stop staring at the strange patterns in the ice after this. This circle with bubbles below it in the frozen lake, a strange, abstract figure that you wouldn't expect on a nature walk.

I didn't dare walk out onto the frozen lake myself to investigate, but this mug caught my eye from the shore. It lay right in the centre of the lake, and I just took a quick snap to try and see what it was.
There's something painterly about the image that came out, perhaps the speckles of tiny hailstones scattered across the surface, or the almost deliberate way everything appears to be placed throughout the scene.
The little accidents often make for the most memorable photos: the lucky circumstances, the throwaway shots you weren't thinking hard about. The thing is, the way to get more of those little accidents is to just take more photos.
I suppose that can apply more broadly too. You can't guarantee coincidental successes, but the more you place yourself in new circumstances, the more of those you'll find.

A mountain of trash

This park is host to a "mountain", which is actually a former landfill, reclaimed as part of the nature reserve. Walking up it, you can here and there see odd-coloured bits and bobs poking through the dirt, grass, and foliage that now cover it, but if you don't look too hard, it's just a small hill really.

From the top, you get a view over the park itself, of course, but also of the skyline. It's mostly factories and tower blocks and stuff like that, but there's a lot of variation to the shapes. I kinda like it.
I made this image greyscale because I wanted to focus in on all the shapes and contrast - and because the colours didn't inspire me a whole lot.
I think it ends up with quite a grungy look, especially because there was some fluff on the lens which I didn't notice until I got home.
Little accidents.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for looking at my pictures and reading my musings on them. I hope it was a nice little holiday from the bad stuff.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Oh, you want a recipe?

Ummmm... yeah ok one sec

Hot chocolate V3.0

My preferred way of making hot chocolate has gone through some iterations. At one time, it was milk + hot chocolate powder. Then it became milk + hot chocolate powder + foam.
This is V3.0.

Get this

• Dark chocolate (go cheap or fair trade)
• Milk
• Cafetière or some apparatus designed for frothing milk

Do this

• Put exactly half the volume of milk you need to fill the mugs you want to fill into a saucepan, and get it on medium heat
• Break a bunch of your chocolate up into your milk and keep stirring it until the milk's hot and all the chocolate's melted. You'll know how much chocolate you want in there
• Add sugar if you want, or a pinch of cinnamon, or salt - it's your drink
• Put the mixture into your cafetière (only fill to about halfway - this is gonna expand) and pump it repeatedly, bringing the filter all the way out of the hot chocolate and pushing it all the way to the bottom. Remember, you're forcing air into the drink. On your last pump, pull the filter out, don't leave it in. It should roughly double in volume. If you're using a proper milk frothing apparatus, do that the way it's intended
• When pouring, alternate between the mugs so it gives an even amount of foam in each

The photographic works on this website © 2026 by William Watson are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0