I showed J the very back of our garden (he had only been there once and that was 11 years ago when we first moved in). There is more to Donich Lodge than just the house and the cultivated garden – there is actually another 2 acres of uncultivated woodland behind the house, running all […]

R saw this sign on his travels in Switzerland (chance would be a fine thing). It sounds like a rather painful place to live.

R is leading a training course this week (while J and I are slaving away in the garden, R is dealing with the unimportant triviality of making money). I made him a nice healthy sandwich for his lunch. Homemade “8 grain flour” rolls with homemade humous, green pesto (shop bought I am afraid) and spring […]

One of my favourite books is “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” and one of the best bits in it is when the downtrodden workmen start singing “Work for the night is coming…” in front of the boss and his client. The hypocrite boss who is a real whitened sepulchre sort of “Christian” doesn’t dare stop them […]

A few years ago R gave me “Heather the Heilan’ Coo. She was handmade by chainsaw by a local craftsman down beside Loch Eck. Today Saphy sat on top of her for quite some time, but try as we might we couldn’t get her to look at the camera. Since she had her bladder operation […]

J and I were working at painting the summerhouse when we saw this little fellow. Of course we have seen many, many frogs around the pond, and even the odd newt, but never a toad. The way you can definitely tell them apart is that whilst frogs hop along, toads walk. As you can see […]

Lucky has a flea allergy for which he has to have prescription tablets. Due to some nonsensical legislation, even though he was never seen by the vet when they were prescribed in the first place, he now needs to physically be “seen” by a vet every six months to continue to receive them. Before Christmas […]

Today R got a new bed. The old one had been a Saphy project in more ways than one. Firstly she had ripped the shit out of the headboard, and secondly she had had more than one bird under there over the last year or so. Although we had managed in general to either rescue […]

R and I walked out to Drimsynie Beg today. The spring sunshine was brilliant and we could hear a distant woodpecker. Some great views over towards Ben Donich We didn’t meet a single soul the whole way there – on the way back we were passed by a solitary power walker.

R and I went for a walk this afternoon and saw the first primroses out. The frogs were out in force in our pond when we got back. This was the closest I could get without scaring them off, but there were lots of them busily making little frogs with much churning of the water. […]