Not one single cherry left on the tree today. I have three fir trees at the bottom of the drive which have largely died off and come autumn I will pull them out and plant some walnuts which I think will be largely immune to birds.

Non amo te, imperia nostri, nec possum dicere quare. Hoc tantum possum dicere: non amo te. Actually I could say exactly why I don’t love any of the stupid, cowardly bunch. But I won’t.

The Jays which were largely absent last year have had a huge new brood. Not only are they devouring the fat balls and seeds, but they are methodically stripping my cherry tree. Every morning I look out and think that some of the cherries are nearly ripe enough to be picked, and every lunchtime any […]

There doesn’t seem to have been much cheer in the world of late (self-inflicted). So here is a poem written by our cats just before Schrodi died in honour of their Gran on Mothers’ Day. If anyone is interested in Victorian Poetry they might note that I think there is a degree of plagiarism involved. […]

I have been saving up Tora’s catches over the last two weeks and considering this “national crisis” I decided to make use of them. So with credit to Beatrix Potter, here is my recipe for Mouse and Bacon Pie. Take approx 20 assorted rodents – mice and voles are both good, but stay clear of […]

A few weeks ago we got an order of seeds in from a different company than Amazon. All the Amazon seeds seem to take for ever and a day to be delivered, and also don’t seem to have very precise delivery dates. So we got some seeds a few weeks ago during their so called […]

Tora just brought in a very lively mousie. With considerable difficulty I caught it from under the bookcase, but it then escaped up the sleeve of my dressing gown (had just had a shower) and migrated from there to the small of my back. I had to crawl outside and then remove all my clothing. […]

I never intended this to be a political blog, in fact I wanted it to be about walking, cookery and animals and I tried to keep it off politics. I pretty much liked Scotland as a place to live until six months ago. But now the UK has been destroyed and the health fascists and […]

I can’t believe the idiocy this country has descended to. History is history, it is what it is and can’t be changed. Many of the greatest and most revered figures in history, including Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were associated with slavery. This includes almost every historical figure in Western Civilisation […]

Following my visit to Helensburgh the other day, my parents had a visit from the police. To put this in context, my Mum is 81 and is quite severely disabled with a bad ankle and a break that she had on her femur falling down a flight of stairs. She has a blue disabled parking […]