The spring flowers are finally in bloom. Narcissi everywhere in the garden. One solitary snowdrop which has suddenly appeared by the fence – I’ve never seen one in our garden before and actually there aren’t that many in this area. Some pretty flowers which grow in the drive every year and which someone told me were […]
This idea was a combination of my own, and something I saw on the Bake Off. Normally it takes at least two hours to make yeasted bread from scratch – so if you are a bit disorganised like me – sometimes you may forget and end up having to make soda bread at the last […]
I’ve always wanted to find an easy way to the top of Beinn Donich without having to either drive or walk all the way to the top of the Rest and then take the tourist path. A couple of years ago R and I found a sort of way by walking up to the Tam […]
The yearly spring inspection of the pond by a pair of ducks has begun. Every year they turn up, and every year (so far) they have rejected it as a possible nest site. This is perhaps because of the presence of our heron which was eying the new arrivals doubtfully – but more likely because they […]
Sunday here was absolutely dire of course as my brother and sister in law were visiting. We toiled up to the waterfalls but it was pretty dismal in driving rain and with pretty high winds. V took a few jars of frog spawn away to “seed” their new wildlife pond. Then of course Monday was […]
I can’t make up my mind whether spring is here or not. Thick snow all over the mountains from about 200m today and going up the path to Beinn Donich the snow was so thick on the path that I wished I had put my new crampons on because it was seriously slippy. But down […]
R noticed a bit of a kerfuffle going on outside his office last night. When we checked the webcam we saw two badgers having a bit of a tussle (click the picture to see the video). Not sure if they were mating, or whether they didn’t like each other (I think the former as I […]
Going up to the waterfall the other day we noticed that there was frog spawn in one of the pools by the side of the path. Strangely this particular pool always seems to get the frog spawn earliest – and the first year we were here I got my feet soaking wet filling a jar […]
I was visiting my parents this week. Actually I had hoped to surprise them by just turning up – but the one bus a week that goes straight from Dumfries to the tiny hamlet where they live entirely failed to materialize. Very luckily, my Mum happened to be in Dumfries that afternoon, and even more […]
R got me some lovely romantic Valentine’s Day presents. First I got a box filled with red heart balloons (and “I love you” at the bottom of the box) and then later in the day, a lovely bunch of red roses and some very moreish chocolates. Here they all are on the mantelpiece – hopefully […]
