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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Mar 3rd, 2014

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What a beautiful day….

 Today was truly lovely (well it had a Goil moment at lunchtime and rained for half an hour but we will forgive it that).  R and I walked up to the waterfalls and for the first time you could really smell spring in the air.  On the way back the Highland cows had colonized the […]

Mar 2nd, 2014

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The Author

While I was typing the previous post, I put my Surface down on the chair and went to the loo.  On my return two minutes later, I found that Schrodi had not only been in that chair for hours and hours, but also that he had contributed to the blog with a very insightful comment […]

Mar 2nd, 2014

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Keep right on to the End of the Road…..

Today (as it was not actively pouring with rain) we did what we have wanted to do since we arrived, and walked right down the east side of Loch Goil as far as the end of the peninsular where Loch Goil meets Loch Long. From the Ordinance Survey there are two paths up to the […]

Mar 2nd, 2014

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Planting and Weather

Had a major planting day in the Polytunnel.  I put in carrots, onions and broad beans.  I also started off some flowers for planting out next month – including a load of lavender which I have an idea of making into a hedge. The garlic, radishes and broccoli I planted earlier are doing ok. Some […]

Feb 27th, 2014

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Progress in the Garden

Today has been another real ‘Goil’ day – this is what R and I call days where the weather changes rapidly.  This morning the sun was shining and we went for a walk up to the waterfalls.  By the time we got there it was hailing and over lunch there was a real downpour.  But […]

Feb 27th, 2014

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Falcon on the feeder

This morning – instead of the queue of small birds and squirrels waiting for their nuts – everything was eerily silent, with not a single small creature to be seen or heard.  Then we saw the reason – there was a beautiful peregrine falcon sitting beside the feeder.  It immediately flew off when it saw […]

Feb 26th, 2014

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#RuralScotlandProblems

I am not a big social media user – but whenever I complain about things like (for example) having problems syncing photos between all three of my tablets – R always calls it a #firstworldproblem.  So I have a new category of this which I will call #ruralscotlandproblem.  Rural Scotland doesn’t really sum it up – […]

Feb 25th, 2014

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Gardening

After an inauspicious start to yesterday – it got out quite nice in the afternoon. Walking around the garden, various flowers are just on the point of bursting out of their buds – particularly narcissi, of which we have hundreds.  But there are also primroses unfurling on the bank by the polytunnel where I can see from the leaves that […]

Feb 24th, 2014

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Gone Fishing

The heron arrived at 7am this morning and was not deterred by either R setting off for town or the post van arriving.   He (or she) just sat incredibly still (nothing beats herons for immobility) until suddenly the beak struck out.  At first I thought there were fish in the pool after all – but […]

Feb 23rd, 2014

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Sunday, Sunday

Of course the weather this morning is quite vile – as always on Sundays when it would be great to go for a walk or get some serious gardening done.  The Donich is running at full spate and the Goil river just round the corner has burst its banks and is all over the fields. […]