Amazing weather here although unfortunately our usual plague of midgies has now arrived right on time. Apparently most places have lost a lot of wild flowers due to intensive agriculture but no sign of that here. The sides of the roads are a veritable riot of colour (could be the tangle of the Isles!) The […]

My friend J and I went for a day out in Helensburgh earlier this week. The weather was brilliant, and after we had had lunch at Cattle and Creel (very good food BTW) and I had had my hair cut, we reconvened in the Clyde Bar on the seafront. This didn’t look that salubrious from […]

My Mum has related to me the story of what happened during the Clydebank/Dumbarton blitz. This always seems to me to get missed out of the story of the Second World War suffering of civilians, with all the emphasis being on London, Coventry etc. Anyway, the story is that on 9th May 1941 my Mum’s […]

The weather here for the last week has been so warm and sunny I can hardly believe it. Certainly nothing like the Argyll we are used to. For me it is too hot though, and I did notice yesterday afternoon that our friends the midgies were starting to turn up. Having said this – the […]

We seem to have two Roe Deer more or less permanently living in the garden now. Last night one of them was disappearing into our Pieris and I saw Schrodi with fluffed up tail rushing out to encounter it. When he got about 2m away it must have suddenly occurred to him that the deer […]

I have to say I think that this “Britain’s Best Cooks” Show is a bit of a nonsense – much as I like Mary Berry and cookery programs in general. How can you conceivably select ten cooks that are supposed to be the best in the country, but where they don’t know how to make […]

R and I were laying some gravel today in an attempt to resolve a problem with drainage around our bird feeding area. I suddenly noticed a queen honey bee sitting on one of the packets of gravel. She was obviously exhausted and looked on her last legs. I read somewhere that at this time of […]

I have a rather nice (toy) hedgehog called Mr Prickles that my Mum bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Normally he lives in a box full of wood shavings on the spare room bed, but he had a bit of a problem the other day. I have mentioned that Tora enjoys an […]

Not many entries recently as have been totally rushed off my feet preparing for our security conference in Glasgow. Basically after a week of non-stop packing bags and icing a huge cake (remind me the next time I want to try it that making a cake for 300 people containing kilos of butter and 60 […]

Much against my will, I am in Edinburgh doing testing on site this week. It is a nice company and Edinburgh is a beautiful city, but I miss my home, my husband, my cats, the creatures and the wilderness (not necessarily in that order). I walked up to the top of Arthur’s seat last night. […]