We’ve been wanting to climb the ‘mountain in our back garden’ since we moved in – but between the bad weather and general business, we have always seemed to be putting it off. This Friday we finally remedied this and got up there – we had a fantastic day and I’m actually glad we waited. […]
Right in the middle of the road outside – what should there be but a newt. They are supposed to be nocturnal and shy, but this fellow was up and about in the middle of the day and didn’t seem very scared of us. I was concerned that he might get run over so I […]
Well that is the vegetable plots dug and the deer fencing up around them. I don’t think much to the instructions that came with the cage – it just said ‘make a 14″ deep hole for each pole and hammer it in to the ground’. Well that may be all very well in some gardens, […]
Another big night for wildlife here. Firstly – we finally saw our friend the pine marten in the flesh for the first time. He seems to have been visiting the feeder much earlier – around 9pm rather than 2am, and last night I just glanced out of the window and there he was – this […]
I tried an experiment for my Dad’s (84th) birthday and made a traditional Scottish ‘High Tea’. For non-natives – this is a sort of combination between afternoon tea and dinner. You have a simple but filling cooked dish, followed by a variety of baked things (largely of the sweet variety). It is eaten about 6pm […]
The sheep have returned. Two of them this time – and although we have gently shoed them a few times (cats are scared of them and they keep eying up the plants) they keep coming back. We have a fragment of wall that belonged to the former house which burned down (we think immediately post-war), […]
Things are definitely getting going now and the polytunnel is pretty crowded with seedlings. Yesterday I took my life in my hands and moved my first early potatoes which were growing in containers outside in order to free up a bit of space. I now need to get the deer fencing up as a […]
Our Doctor’s Surgery seemed to have converted itself to a Vet this morning. I presume this is for an April Fool – but it would be even funnier to turn up with one of the cats in a box and say that he needed a worming tablet. I don’t think the cats would find […]
Today R and I walked part of the Cowal way. We took the Helensburgh minibus from Lochgoilhead this morning and got off at Artgarten. The idea was to be able to do a longish walk in one direction without having to loop back to get the car. So this was part of the Lochgoilhead to […]
I was out walking at around 7am today and just coming round the road near the loch I heard a loud drumming noise. It was a woodpecker – unfortunately I only got a brief glimpse of him (not enough to identify his exact species), but he was making enough noise to make up for his […]
