The loch shows an infinite variety of faces as the light hits it on different days.

Lucky used to be a stray girl but has now found her new identity as a Donich Lodge boy (the vet discovered he was male when we took “her” to be spayed). He would ask you to respect his new pronouns.

The high mountain pass over the Rest and be Thankful is the main route out of the village. Here it is in winter.

Spring sky over the mountain tops.

Sunset from our front door step.

A misty moon over the mountains as darkness falls.

View over towards the loch from near the summit of Cnoc Coinnich.

A rainbow appears in a clear interval between showers.

Lochgoilhead in the distance on a clear spring morning.

As the year turns, the mountains are white on most days.

Looking across the loch from the village, clouds form a band across the hills.

Tora and Schrodi our snow Bengal brothers used to live here. RIP both of you

A dragonfly pauses for a rest by the side of our pond.

The weather here can be appalling. Here gales and torrential rain have blocked one of the village’s few roads.

The colours on the mountains fade to muted browns as autumn approaches.

The Donich Water in one of its kinder moods as it runs through our garden.

One of a myriad insects pollinating our heather.

A group of wild haggis have made a den down by the river.

Our new Highland Tiger Saphy prowling her territory. She is a demon for the wildlife with her specialized prey item being shrews. She is not adverse to mice, voles or birds however.

This is Amber aka as Bramble. She is big, black, rather podgy and a bit of a scaredy cat. We had her cloned shortly after she arrived.

Although we don’t get much snow at loch level, the higher mountains are covered for five months or so of the year

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Jun 5th, 2014

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From garden to lunch

In half an hour…. The featured image is of some of the first of the garden produce (spring onions, potatoes, herbs, peas), and the second picture is it turned into a variation on a very tasty River Cottage ‘Veg’ recipe – stuffed baked squash. I do have a squash plant (well three actually!) in the […]

Jun 3rd, 2014

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A Midge too far….

Well, I haven’t mentioned it up to now – but as well as its surpassing natural beauty, the Highlands of Scotland are famous for another piece of wildlife which no one is fond of – the infamous midge. I guess we knew that when we came to Lochgoilhead we were going to encounter it – […]

Jun 2nd, 2014

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How does your garden grow?

Well not badly actually…. On the positive side… Every morning for the last week I have had enough strawberries for a bowl with yoghurt for breakfast. The peas are doing quite well and I tried the first pod today – a bit small but very sweet and lovely. The first tomatoes are set (only on […]

Jun 1st, 2014

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Cat meets Badger part 2

We caught an amusing moment on Shedcam the other night. One of our two snow Bengals, Tora made a spirited attempt at driving off a badger. Luckily for him, the badger seems completely indifferent to his efforts and just ignores him and trundles on to get stuck into his peanuts. Tora has been a bit […]

May 26th, 2014

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In which Marten nearly catches a squirrel

I don’t believe the fantastic week we have had for wildlife sightings here. First the otter – and then on Wednesday (when unfortunately we were out), our Marten visited for a lengthy period during the afternoon. He obviously came for a snack on the nuts, and then decided that he would have a try for […]

May 25th, 2014

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Finally Ardentinny

Yesterday R and I finally walked all the way to Ardentinny from Castle Carrick. This was our third attempt. The first time it started to pour with rain just as we got started. The second time we went with a friend – I will call him J… J lives in the city and doesn’t do […]

May 24th, 2014

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Amazing Otter shots

I was just idling flicking through the ‘shedcam’ videos yesterday when I saw something really interesting. While we must quite literally have been sitting in the kitchen having our breakfast, a large otter suddenly shot across the camera’s field of vision and disappeared through the fence. I was super glad to see it again because […]

May 22nd, 2014

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Bluebell Video

Back in March you may remember I did a video of our ‘back garden’ on one of the few days that it didn’t rain. Well to show the difference a few months can make – here is the same scene transformed in early summer. The colours of the bluebells and broom is fantastic – in […]

May 22nd, 2014

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Donich in Summer

For a blog that is supposed to be about our Donich Water – I don’t seem to have shown it much of late – so here it is in all the glory of early summer. It is actually remarkable how quickly it can rise and fall – last week it was a raging torrent, but […]

May 20th, 2014

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Super Surface

Just seen the announcement about the new Surface Pro 3…. Absolutely awesome machine and I would love one – but not sure I can justify it to myself so soon after getting the Pro 2. I’ll wait and see the reviews before I make a decision but one thing I am not doing this time […]