We had some new friends from the village here for dinner the other night. They are interested in the local wildlife as well, and I had warned our creatures to be on their best behaviour and turn up on time. True to form, at 6:15 there were five squirrels chasing around the feeder, and by […]
I was halfway through putting clean sheets on the bed when I stepped out to talk to R for a brief moment. On my return a few seconds later, the bed had been colonized by not one but two cats, both of whom had been sleeping peacefully there for hours and were not pleased at […]
When I was a child, my family and I would go bramble picking several times around the start of autumn. Between the four of us we would gather a serious amount (I’m talking 40lb or so), but at the cost of our hands being scratched to bits. Then my dad would make bramble jelly, and […]
The wildlife in this area just goes from strength to strength. Yet another mammal added itself to the long list of ones seen locally, not by us (unfortunately), but by our neighbours over the river. This time it was a young weasel, very sweet looking in the photos, but actually for its size one of […]
We had a wonderful day for the last outing of our ‘staycation’ by climbing Beinn Cruachan and Stob Diamh. This was our first attempt at a couple of ‘big Munros’ and we were totally exhausted at the end of the day as the climb took us just over nine hours (plus an hour in each […]
R wanted the day off today, so I left him to code and nurse his sore legs from yesterday and set off to do a walk on my own which I have fancied for a while. We’ve walked the Duke’s path as far as Corran Lochan at the end of the peninsula a few times […]
We went to Bute today and I loved it. Rothsay is pretty, quiet and very Victorian. We had a traditional ice cream ‘pokie hat’ from ‘Zaveronis’ (there were at least three Zaveronis selling fish and chips and/or ice cream), then went to see the castle and (of course) the sensational Victorian loos. R refused to […]
I did some baking the other night of various things to take with us on picnics. First I made some ‘Cornish’ pasties – these were definitely not authentic (I know there is a lot of controversy about carrot v. swede v. potato), so perhaps I should call them ‘Argyll’ pasties. I made a basic pastry […]
Today we took the lunchtime Dunoon bus to Strachur, and walked back along the Cowal way. We’ve been wanting to do this one since we moved in, but it is a bit awkward because it is really too far (9 miles each way) to easily walk out and back, and because the buses don’t run […]
Day three of the home holiday, and unfortunately R’s dodgy knee has started playing up after our epic (1167m) ascent on Sunday. So we decided to have a rest from climbing and go out to the Kintyre peninsula. We went out on the ferry from Portavadie to Tarbert. Looks as though the new marina, restaurant […]
