It has been since the second of January since I wrote my last blog and I have certainly had withdrawal symptoms. But at last I am up and running again.Though my camera was loaded with 162 photos, don’t worry I am only putting a few on this blog. A lot has happened what with the weather and trips out but I shall not bother with dates just a brief note to inform you of what has been going on.
As you can see our hills have had a fair bit of snow over this period, fortunately not a great deal down to our level, just enough to get out and scrape the drive occasionally (part of my fitness regime).
Then along came “Storm Eowyn (named by the Irish Met Office) , which unfortunately left us with no electricity for two nights when this pole fell down two hundred yards away from our house further down the road. As you can see on the road beside the electricity van the weather was cold and icy and with all the damage the storm caused throughout Scotland it was wonderful that this got repaired as quickly as it did. The power actually came back around three in the morning and the workers had been restoring with a new pole and cables throughout the night in way below freezing conditions, blooming marvelous achievement by the whole crew.
As our house is heated by a combination of night storage heaters and our log burner we spent as much time as we could in the living room huddled around the log burner.
When I eventually came out of hibernation I went up the hill and was amazed to see that a complete conifer wood had been felled beside the road, it was a muddy mess but most of the timber has since been taken away and the tidy up has begun.
No blog of mine would be complete without some garden visitors included . The female Blackbird was really fluffed up and looking miserable waiting for me to feed her . The second shot is a Red Legged Partridge (wonder how it got that name?), not a great shot as it was taken through glass, but it is a rare visitor to the garden so had to include it.
Heard the roar of this plane coming over the house, rushed for the camera, opened the bedroom window and managed to just get a shot of it disappearing into the sunset.
Staying on the theme of transport I saw online that this special excursion train was coming through the village travelling from Carlisle to Inverness. Went down to the station on a very cold day (see snow on yonder hill) and waited in anticipation, due to a derailment of another train it was an hour late, so I was frozen. I had taken a position on the opposite platform so I could get a side shot of it. Typical, as this (between the stations) is a single line track a passenger train going South had to wait in the station for the special to pass, leaving me without a shot. So a mad dash up onto the footbridge enabled me to get some sort of shot, especially having waited so long. so here is a sequence of it’s passing with the third shot showing both engines. Both locos are over fifty years old.
Had a couple of days visiting Edinburgh and stayed at our usual Premier Inn at Leith over looking Newhaven Harbour, cold but sunny and with plenty of food and visiting our great friends, who have just moved here, it was a wonderful trip. The last shot was in our friends house where the sun shone through the window onto this fern casting a great shadow, that I couldn’t not photograph.
To finish our first signs of Spring with loads of Snowdrops out and the Daffodils peeping through the ground.
I have really enjoyed this catch up and from now on I should get back to some sort of normality.