Author: David Miller

Being “old”, each day blends into each other, every day is a weekend & it can turn out good or bad. The day started with a wake up to a light dusting of snow, which had not settled on the roads, which was good as I needed to be in Pitlochry by 9am. Just getting ready to go & a huge snowstorm developed & in the 5 minutes it took to get my coat on, everywhere was covered in 1/2″ of snow. Now the advantages of living remote & up a hill are way in advance of the disadvantages, but this was one morning where such a storm was a disadvantage & it took me a while to get down our steep hill in virgin snow, but I made it. Coming home the snow had all melted off the road, just an hour later, so that put me to thinking “well it might be a good day after all”.

And of course it has been, in between the occasional flurry of snow the sun made an appearance, making for a perfect photography light. The higher hills to our South were nicely covered in snow (as you can see below) & the garden had a light dusting. Plenty of hungry birds in the garden today & no sign of the Sparrow Hawk yet. So good to see the Snowdrops fighting all the elements to give us a show, what hardy plants they are sometimes completely covered in snow & wilted because of it, but then back they come again like wounded soldiers suddenly fit again & up here it is a battle that they always seem to win.

On top of all this, the day is made better by the fact that the Monday soup lunch in the village is improved by making it a Burns meal. Haggis Swede & mashed tatties, what more could you ask for? Just one thing that you could ask for & I got, was a second helping instead of a dessert, just yummy. Plus the Haggis had only been shot over the weekend, so lovely & fresh, though purist say it should hang a few days before eating. So after a difficult start, the day has turned out to be a good un.

I knew the minute I wrote yesterdays post that I was tempting fate & sure enough the weather came in and bite my bum.

It started at 7 am this morning , carried on until about 9.30 am & has dumped 2 inches of the dreaded stuff on us. Yes it has snowed, with some of the biggest flakes I have ever seen. Went out at half eight to clear the drive & no sooner had I shovelled one strip down the drive & looked back to see it had nearly covered that clearance. I think the shot below will show you what I mean, first plough down showed tarmac but see how that had filled in.

The main problem is at weekends we are low on the rota for the road to be cleared by the council snow plough, week days it is cleared as the school bus has toi pick the pupils from up the glen up. So of course we always get a good dump of snow at weekends, so it is left to us “old un’s” to clear the road. It has now stopped & the sun is trying to come out , so better get at it.

Firstly Happy New Year to you all, may we all have 20/20 vision on life in 2020.

But what a weird start to the year weather wise it has been, just totally unpredictable from one day to the next. When I look back at photos I have taken on previous years around this time I can see that it was more or less what you would expect. Long periods of cold weather, plenty of snow, okay not always down to our level, but always on the Munro tops. I would say that since winter has begun we have seen far less snow at any level than there has ever been in the 14 years we have lived here. having said that I expect we shall have a load of snow dumped on us in the next couple of months & I will be on here saying “what an unbelievable amount of snow we have had this winter”. It is that unpredictable that on the Cairngorm slopes they are using snow making machines to cover even the higher ski runs.

I for one should not complain as I have a 50yard driveway to clear in order to get out with the car & at my age it takes me a longer time than it did 10 years ago, but then it is added exercise to going to the gym, so it does burn a few calories.

Enough of my perfect body talk , what I wanted to illustrate today was just how weird these weather patterns are. Yesterday morning we woke up to minus 5C temperature & everywhere looked beautiful, the sun came out & it made for what I would say is a perfect winters day. The temperature rose to a barmy zero for most of the day, but by the time we went to bed the temperature had risen to plus 5 and it was raining. Now past years the warmth would not have happened & we would have woken up to a couple of inches of snow, that would have drifted with the strong wind we now have. But oh no, at the same time (where 24 hours earlier it was -5) we woke up to plus 10 & still raining. Barmy, totally barmy.

Just to show you what things look like when we have a cold snap I have attached some shots I took yesterday morning, I have not put any on from this morning because it is just depressing to look out at it.

I am not aware of what is the general routine in your household on Christmas Day, but with us it is up & have a small breakfast, get the Turkey in the oven & then go for a walk, before coming home to a welcome glass of bubbly. Christmas lunch (if just the two of us) between 1 n& 2 pm , finished in time for her maj.

With no snow underfoot it was an easy walk up into Glen Fender,though I took the car up the steep section & SWMBO walked up to meet me.

Such enjoyment by just seeing the deer, but we walked on up towards Loch Moraig , though we didn’t go quiet that far, (my excuse was got to get back to baste the turkey) we did have a very enjoyable ramble up the road. Normally we meet our normal herd of cows, but they had moved on, so, on the way back, the wife carried on home, while I took a small diversion. This was mainly to see what was on the small pond on the way to Lude House, but as I approached the resident Heron gave out an alarm call, flew off & frightened the dozen or so Mallard into the weeds, hence no shots of them.

But opposite the pond is a field & that was full of all Ludes bulls (5 in total). Now I am a semi country boy & I was always under the impression you could not keep bulls in a field together, yes young ones, but not fully grown ones. But wherever they house these bulls, they always seem to get on well together. here are just three of the herd, the two big boys & my “Little White Bull” (a reference to a Tommy Steele song for the youngsters of you) (Who is Tommy Steele they are asking now). I have a fair few shots of these magnificent creatures & have never looked at them as steaks, though I do look at the deer as venison. 🙂

On the way down I spotted the sun shining on these distant hills & the contrast between the dull meadow in front of me & those hills was wonderful.

Back home after a wonderful Christmas dinner captured a flock of Goldfinches eating the seeds of our Potentilla (not sure about the spelling) , took this & the next shot through the double glazing so the quality is not as good as I would have hoped, but a wonderful sight.

To finish, one of my absolute favourite birds the Long Tailed Tit always pay us a visit especially in the winter. Over this Christmas we have had 4 or5 visit daily & you cannot do anything but smile & admire such a delicate fabulously coloured bird as this.

All that is left is to wish you all a wonderful 2020 & as I have seen elsewhere may you have that perfect vision for the year ahead.

I presume the current weather pattern we are having is due to Global Warming, but it certainly is topsy turvy all over the place. Looking back at some photos on Facebook 7 & 9 years ago we had heavy snow here, in fact 7 years ago there is a shot of me up to my knees in a snow drift. This winter we have had a flurry on the hills & high places around us, but I have been spared the task of clearing the drive. Last Saturday & Sunday we experienced extremely cold nights, on both nights going down to minus 9 C. Yesterday was just on freezing with treacherous road conditions with loads of black ice until the gritter came up, which coincided (luckily) with me going out. Now today it is plus 5 C so in two days a change of 14 degrees, just barmy.

Though it has been cold, one thing I love doing is taking shots of this environment, even if it is a quick run out of the house & get back in the warm as soon as possible. Frost patterns on glass have always fascinated me, so I have put a few shots of them up for you to look at. But a thing I have not seen anywhere else but up here is the Ice Hair, this is a phenomenon caused by a fungi in rotten wood that expands outward when the temperature gets really low. I suppose it is a bit like snowflakes in as much as no two pieces of wood look the same, I just love it & have taken a fair few shots over the years, you really want to touch it & see if it is like fur, but the minute you do it just melts. I hope you can get a good impression of what it is like from the attached photos, it is true Christmas magic.

Ever since a small boy I have attended Remembrance Sunday parades, initially in a county town in the home counties, where my dad was a councillor & laid a wreath on behalf of the council. Then on parade as a Sea Scout (short trousers can make you very cold in November). Followed by attending just as an adult in various towns where I have lived, culminating in what I thought would be the best, representing the Fire Services of the South West of England at the Cenotaph in London

But in actual fact of all of these the service here in Blair Atholl really is the best. I do not believe that many village services could have as good a turnout of residents than this one has. Led by our own local pipe band, followed by the Atholl Highlanders, the castles own private army. In fact the only private army in the U.K. that is permitted to bear arms, an honour that was given to them by Queen Victoria.

We have no minister in our local church but the service is lead by either retired ministers or lay readers, this year led by Grace Steel who did a fine job, with those present giving a very good rendition of The Lord is My Shepherd without any musical accompaniment. The memorial is itself very unusual being just a large piece of local stone. Wreaths are laid by various institutions, but to me it is lovely to see youngsters from the local play group .laying one.

Have included a few shots to give you some idea of the parade.

It was during the 1970s & 80s that all the top stars in sport had this mad idea to infest their money into coniferous forest & the U.K. , but mainly Scotland, started to be covered in these evergreen trees. They of course were so dense that no other vegetation survived under their canopy, not many birds lived in them, maybe Crossbills, Goshawks, that was about it. You would see the occasional Roe or Red Deer on the edges, but basically they were an environmental nightmare & I am not to sure that the likes of Steve Davies ever made a fortune out of them.

Move forward to the present day & those trees are now fully mature & are being felled & some areas are replacing them with native trees. What is worrying to me is that some estates are just leaving the ground full of roots & ruts where the felling vehicles have been working. Okay this wilderness encourages all the plants that have been dormant to sprout into the light they have missed for years & native trees will replace the conifers, but it really is more of a blot on the landscape than the conifers were.

All around the view from our house the felling has been going on , mostly using those magnificent machines that cut the tree down, strip the branches off & cut the trunk to the required length, all in a matter of three or four minutes. It is not until you hear & see the trees come down that you realise just how dense that wood was & just how much timber they get out of that collection. The machinery that cuts, collects the timber into a stack, plus those mad drivers that collect it & haul it off to the timber yards, seem to have been working for weeks (from very early morning on until after dark) again showing just how much there was.

Of course you hope that Atholl Estates will replenish the woods with native trees sometime in the future, but in the meantime it certainly has changed our view. Below I will illustrate this to you, I have searched high & low for before photos to add to this article, but as usual I know they are somewhere on my cloud but will not find them until this has been published.

So just a few days ago I wrote my blog, boasting about the mild weather we were having & how the plants were still looking great. Honestly I should not have written that piece, because what happened last night, we went down to MINUS FIVE CENTIGRADE , that’s right minus five. Of course that has been devastating for the plants as I will show you in the next lot of shots. On the weather this morning the coldest place in the U.K. was also in Perthshire at minus 5.6 so we were not far behind that. But what a beautiful crisp sunny morning we have had since, though this time of the year with the sun so low it doesn’t raise the temperature that much, in fact it is only plus 4 now (3pm). A mate in Somerset has just informed me that the lowest they have got to is 7C , so we are still pretty cold for those soft southerners.

Just wonder how long before I tell you about our first snow?

That lovely Clematis wilted with frost.

Not sure if these normally upright plants will recover?

This has been a strange season, because we have had so much rain it has been really fairly mild. Okay we have the heating on ticking over & on the last two full moons we have had frost’s, the full moon before this present one we went down to minus 3C one night & 8C the following night. This one we have so far been down to minus 1C but we are expecting a frost tonight.

So I think this has been giving mixed messages to the plants. Autumnal colours are appearing on the trees & I can assure you (having cleared the gutters once already) that the leaves are falling from the trees, but some of our garden plants just have not stopped blooming.

Rained ALL morning here, but a lovely sunny afternoon, so out I went with my camera to capture some examples to show you.

The hydrangea to me is the wimp of all garden plants, one sniff of a frost & it curls over & gives up. I would have it out but we left it for one more year & it actually gave us over a dozen blooms for the first time since we moved in.

Where as our beautiful Acer is in it’s prime at the moment, 15 years ago this was a small shrub but now it is splendid & creeps along the path edge, making you smile every time you pass it.

Okay it gets covered when we have a frost warning, but to see this Fuchsia still producing blooms this time of the year is a rarity for us.

As for Foxgloves this white one is still producing buds & looking fine. All the wild ones in the garden are long dead, but this one is something special.

Going back to Autumn colours this shrub is looking so attractive in the late sun & has hardly lost any leaves.

The tubs at our front door give you a real lift with the berries & variegated leaves, add as bit of colour to a dormant space.

Had a few Redwings & Fieldfare on the Rowan berries but nothing, not even the Blackbirds, have started eating these juicy berries yet.

Now for a couple more plants that should be finished weeks ago, this Harebell is a prime example.

This Clematis is still producing flowers as it has done for several months.

This plant certainly adds some colour to the garden, not sure I have seen it smiling this late in the year before ?

Rock Rose (I think?) is still attracting a few late Bees, though they have certainly reduced to what they were a month ago.

Of course the Winter Heathers are looking good & will add some colour once all those other plants eventually die off.

Captured a late Blue Fly soaking up the late afternoon sun, I, plus the sheep in the field in front of the house will be pleased to see the back of them.

All we can wish for is a decent mild Winter with not to much snow to clear from the drive.

Apologies for no posting for a while, but I had a week in Cornwall before returning & doing my couple of weeks at Loch Dunmore preparing for this years Enchanted Forest.

Now I know every year I have to apologies for the fact that (by about 1/2 mile) this event is outside the Cairngorms National Park, but it is such an important event for not only Pitlochry , but also all the surrounding area, which includes our little village. You can imagine the influx of just under 3,000 visitors every night to the area for 30 days makes a lot of difference to traders, whom normally are either preparing to close down for the winter or a very much reduced footfall to a radius of 20 or so miles around.

Traders, be it cafes, B&B, gift shops or even the traffic wardens, all report a wonderful number of day time visitors. Every hotel is full as families make a couple of days break out of it, not forgetting the transport companies. Due to the fact Pitlochry has limited parking spaces (hence the wardens wandering around every night until 10 o’clock) , many people from Edinburgh & Glasgow arrive in coaches or on the train, all extra revenue they would never have dreamed of 15 years ago.

This year was a particularly busy year for me as an awful lot of the show was on the water, with some very tricky builds, which the only part I had to do was row the boat, one to get the various equipment to its correct spot & secondly keep the boat still while the very talented engineers constructed it.

So for these reasons, let alone seeing so many people enjoying the show, I feel it is only right to share some of the images with you.

The theme this year to coincide with the anniversary of the moon landing, is The Cosmos. Here is my partial eclipse as seen by spacemen. The Moon is an 8metre diameter balloon & the Earth is about 4metres. with 3,000 twinkling stars below it stretching 100 metres back into the woods.

On the press night the water was so calm & showed such wonderful reflections onto the water, as you can see here.

My shot really does not do justice to this little area, 3 of the satellite dishes were scattered around the site giving off a signal into space, the strands were strips of LED lights that sparkled.

Again it is the reflection that I loved over the projected images of this & the next three. The projection has occurred the last 3 years with a different 7 minute film each time. The wonderful thing that most people do not realise is that the show is projected through a very fine, high pressure, water spray.

I just love this eye, so much detail.

The gasps of amazement & joy as this spaceman emerges out of the water is incredible, the following shot is the spaceman floating in space & waving, the number of children that were waving back just added to the magic.

Every now & then you have to accept that you knocked the camera while it was taking a long exposure, which is what I did here. But funnily I rather enjoyed this piece of abstract “art”. It just echoed the movement of the whole show. Sorry for any that are unable to visit the show, but after many years of attending, this was the best ever.