When I was a child, my Grandfather (we called him ‘Pop’ because he hated the name ‘Granddad’) had an allotment style garden on their house in Dumbarton. I remember he grew two things I particularly liked – one of them was peapods (well obviously), and the other one was ‘snowball’ turnips. To my recollection, neither […]
R and I were chatting in the kitchen this morning when he suddenly spotted our pine marten on the nut feeder. First time we have seen him in the daylight for any length of time, or that we managed to film him ourselves. Unfortunately after about two minutes – Tora decided to join the party […]
Busy day here – when R and I went for a walk this morning we ended up by the loch where some outward bound groups were rafting and learning to sail in little training boats. I suppose it must be hard to hit a happy medium on the wind strength you want for this – […]
Friday was a really beautiful day here and for the first time since we have lived here I sat out on our veranda with a G&T and just looked at the garden and the mountains. Incredibly lovely – I can’t honestly imagine that anywhere could be a better place to be on a nice summer’s […]
In half an hour…. The featured image is of some of the first of the garden produce (spring onions, potatoes, herbs, peas), and the second picture is it turned into a variation on a very tasty River Cottage ‘Veg’ recipe – stuffed baked squash. I do have a squash plant (well three actually!) in the […]
Well, I haven’t mentioned it up to now – but as well as its surpassing natural beauty, the Highlands of Scotland are famous for another piece of wildlife which no one is fond of – the infamous midge. I guess we knew that when we came to Lochgoilhead we were going to encounter it – […]
Well not badly actually…. On the positive side… Every morning for the last week I have had enough strawberries for a bowl with yoghurt for breakfast. The peas are doing quite well and I tried the first pod today – a bit small but very sweet and lovely. The first tomatoes are set (only on […]
We caught an amusing moment on Shedcam the other night. One of our two snow Bengals, Tora made a spirited attempt at driving off a badger. Luckily for him, the badger seems completely indifferent to his efforts and just ignores him and trundles on to get stuck into his peanuts. Tora has been a bit […]
I don’t believe the fantastic week we have had for wildlife sightings here. First the otter – and then on Wednesday (when unfortunately we were out), our Marten visited for a lengthy period during the afternoon. He obviously came for a snack on the nuts, and then decided that he would have a try for […]
Yesterday R and I finally walked all the way to Ardentinny from Castle Carrick. This was our third attempt. The first time it started to pour with rain just as we got started. The second time we went with a friend – I will call him J… J lives in the city and doesn’t do […]
