Author: David Miller

As the eggs have hatched and at present we have three very healthy and growing chicks, so the parents are working extra hard to feed them. Both parents have accepted the fact that we stand in the porch and more times than not that fella has got a camera in his hand, so I am able to get some really candid shots of the event. So be prepared to be bored with shots of their progress. I am sorry to say all this end of month blog will contain are my Swallow shots, they really have taken over my life. I will remind you this is the first time in living here we have had them nest on our house and so close and at eye level that it has been a real privilege, especially because they are declining in Britain.

16th.

Just to prove we have three. What did concern me when I enlarged this shot was that the parent is feeding a Bee, will that not sting the baby as it goes down?

If you stick yourself out front, you are sure to get the best of the food. “Go steady Mum on my tonsils pushing the food that far in”.

A good parent clearing out the poo, keeping the nest tidy.

21st.

Just five days since the last shots and how they have grown and as you can see from this shot we thought we had three babes, but as you can see we have four.

Having four in that tiny nest means as they are growing it is getting rather crowded in there, that is someone’s wing stretched out on the right of the nest.

Overcrowding can make you miserable as illustrated here.

My biggest concern is as they are growing so fast I might miss them fledge, so am watching them very closely this week.

26th

The parents are working their socks off to keep feeding these babes bringing a real mixture of insects this one has a Crane Fly in its mouth.

This chick in particular is just getting to large for the nest and must fledge soon.

27th

At last eight o’clock this morning big un jumped more than flew onto the window top about a yard from the nest and was calling for support or food from the parents.

One of the parents sat on the guttering opposite the nest trying to persuade the other three to come out and join in the sight of the big wide world.

But much to our annoyance and its parents the biggest bird flew back to the nest.

Thirty minutes later (led by the big un ) all four were out and being fed on the roof. We did not see them as they flew off, we thought for the last time. But eight o’clock at night , as if by magic, they were all back in the nest for their sleep.

29th.

Up and gone by eight o’clock this morning, I wonder if they will be back tonight?

They came home for the night again, maybe this will be the pattern until they migrate.

30th

The end of the month is near and so is my special Swallow blog, sorry to anyone who was not interested in this, but it has been a fascination to be so close and watch every stage of their growth. If I am lucky to witness the mass migration of these birds back to Africa next month, I will try and get a shot of them, I have seen them one day in the past sitting on the power lines and next day all gone, so lets hope I can do it again. This is the last shot I can be certain of getting and it was tonight (having been away all day) of them safely tucked up in their now very small bed ready for a further adventure tomorrow and getting stronger and stronger ready for that epic flight.

Well I got it all wrong re last blog, it did not get warmer after the initial couple of days in fact I think June after that got cold again even on this the last day of the month it was only ten degrees in the morning, warmed up to a crazy sixteen in the afternoon.

30th (June)

Had to start the July blog when the owners of these four beauties stayed in the village hotel last night . Three German registered Austin’s and one French one and the French was a pick up truck, which must be unusual. in immaculate condition. I bet they held up some traffic on the A9.

8th.

The village Angling club has some excellent weed cutting equipment that you attach to a boat and battery and it works like an underwater hedge trimmer does. Often they hire it out to other angling clubs, or we take it to individuals who have a small fishing loch and members (for a fee from the owner to the club) cut their weed for them. This is one such person who on their estate has this small loch that he stocks with rainbow Trout. I always offer to do this one as it is set way up in the hills and a beautiful spot, plus me and my helper and I are allowed to fish it and take one fish each, which after three hours hard work we did and had our quota.

9th.

Have discovered that my pond which has been established for the last twenty years has got a major leak and in need of a new liner, the old liner is hidden from view at the surface by the large rocks that I have had to move away to enable put the new one in. Of course outside the pond the wife has established a lovely garden and with my clumsiness and the fact that the rocks are to heavy to be carried, the surrounding plants had to be removed and planted up in pots. But of course we were helped with the ever present Robin.

10th

On a farm a couple of miles from our home it is shearing time for the flock of five hundred, sheep, lambs and rams. Every year one of my nephews comes up to Scotland and spends a month or so going around shearing, so this year I got the invite to go up to the farm and watch him and his team work. The farmer has it all organised and has the sheep lined up ready to get rid of all that wool (shot one) and Graham (nearest the camera in shot two) only has to open the gate on the walkway , pull the sheep down and sheer, while (shot three) the young lady takes away the fleece and puts it in the sack having to push it down to get the maximum into the sack. Good to see him as I have missed him other years, such hard work, they started at seven thirty and will go on until eight-ish tonight.

12th.

Our Swallow sitting a lot higher in the nest and that is because she /he has babes underneath him/her. Though I have not managed to get a shot of them feeding them I have observed at least two wee black heads poking above the parapit when being fed. So excited and happy to see.

13th.

A stem of Rattle about to burst open and spread it’s seeds.

What a miserable face on this Toad, maybe it just does not like me taking it’s photo.

In anticipation of a new liner arriving today (which it did) I emptied the pond in ready ness to put the new liner in tomorrow. Caught my six goldfish and after the Tench (a pair) buried themselves in the very bottom slurry I eventually got them out as well, plus six Common Newts Total depth down in that deepest part above the middle is four feet six inches. Hope to have the fish back in tomorrow afternoon and will complete the decor during the week.

Tonight’s sunset, here’s hoping it will be a good day tomorrow so I can finish the pond.

After a hard slog, the pond is all but completed just some digging over of the garden that I obliterated tomorrow and all back and working.

Well the start of the month was pretty bad, cold , wet and pretty miserable, all down to the jet stream being to far North of us apparently. But now the jet stream has stationed itself in the right place and the weather is improving, so thank you jet stream, about time you gave us some decent weather.

The weather was so good I actually went up Glen Fender in search of wild Orchards without a fleece on.

18th

Coming up on the twenty second is the longest day and living this far north we see the advantage of that, this shot was taken at ten twenty at night and it is still this bright, I have not brightened the shot, this is how it came out of the camera. The real reason for taking this shot is to show how moisture rises off the river making it look like smoke in the middle of the shot. Also the low puffy cloud over the distant hills.

19th.

A busy day today as the weather was good.

First thing today at about seven thirty we had a daylight visit from the Pine Martin eating a fair few peanuts from the squirrel box.

Then we went down to The Mill for a coffee and on returning the level crossing closed and the express came through, had the camera so why not get a shot of our station with the train.

Went up the glen in search of wild Orchids, here are a few of what I found, won’t name them in case I get them wrong (again).

Even if I didn’t find any Orchids, who would object to walking with these views?

Also took some other wild flowers I saw.

Cotton Grass.

I was corrected by a couple of people on the last blog that what I called Ragged Robin was in fact Red Campion, now this is a Ragged Robin (I hope)?

Wild pansy.

20th.

On the night of the longest day what a beautiful sky we had.

21st.

As I showed you last blog we have Swallows nesting, while our neighbour has House Martins building a nest above their living room window and I hope you can see from this shot the wet mud they are constructing it from and to think they have built that much (the dark band) just today, incredible.

22nd

What great progress those wee birds have made in 24 hours, plus another pair have started building an nest next door ( or should I say window).

23rd.

Meanwhile my swallows have completed the work on their artificial nest and one (presume the female) is now sitting, great joy in this house I can tell you.

While I had the camera out I had to take a few snaps of what was about. Top- baby Great Tit, middle- female Siskin, bottom -two young Goldfinch.

25th

A good sunny morning, rained all afternoon.

One of our delights is to see the wild Foxgloves come up all through the garden and some seem to be trying to reach Heaven especially the last one.

A beautiful colour on this Lupin.

The top lawn in the garden we are hoping to turn into a miniature wild meadow and to start it off we have seeded with Rattle (which is a parasite) and hope to seed with a meadow mix next year.

The Elder on our neighbours property has plenty of flower on it this year and he intends to make wine with the berries.

Not sure what others call this but to us it is Tiger and Her Cubs.

I think this tall stemmed scented flower is a member of the Primula family , it is all over the garden and is wonderful.

Just to prove it rained all afternoon look at the state of this poor Siskin, wet through.

According to the metrological office May was the warmest for ten years or so, wish they had told us, as apart from maybe seven really hot days it rained and was cold, we even had the log burner on a couple of nights. Even last night at some point the temperature dropped down to four degrees, but we are hoping the weather will settle down and we can have a decent month.

2nd.

One of the advantages of living this far north is the length of the days this time of the year. The above shots were taken at eleven twenty at night and as you can see it is still fairly light, light enough to see the fields in front of the house and the tips of the trees on the distant hill, only trouble is about four thirty in the morning up comes the sun and peeps through the curtains and the noisy Crows come in to the garden to empty the feeders.

5th.

There was me saying “I hope we have a decent month” in my introduction and our temperature goes down to just three degrees last night and the Cairngorm mountain got covered in snow, not that good a start is it?

Working cutting wood on a cold North Westerly wind is not ideal, but the satisfaction of seeing one(of three) wood sheds full is a great thing to warm the heart up.

As the Sparrows, Robins and Blackbirds are now all feeding young I got a new supply of mini mealworms in and this Blackbird dad is taking advantage of them, here he is with at least 14 worms in it’s mouth and still attempts to add more.

The pond is surrounded by tons of vegetation, including the very large Foxglove in the centre, so many Bunmble Bees in the garden and they will soon be after the pollen from this Foxglove.

8th.

Over in Ayrshire again for a short weekend away, with all the family together, so good as a rare event to get us together.

Went for a half hour walk in the countryside eight o,clock in the morning nobody else around except me and the birds and a surprise in the middle of the walk. The main intention of the walk was to photograph as many plants as possible on the walk. here are a few of the better ones.

A flowering Nettle.

New hawthorn shoots.

The red and white Dog Rose.

Wild Foxglove growing so tall.

A Thistle.

A Fern.

Love Grasses blowing in the cold NW wind.

My favourite Ragged Robin.

Yellow Flag Iris.

As I was walking the path I noticed something to my right and standing alone was this fine beast.

A female Roe Deer

She even let me walk a bit further along the path to get this better shot before she bolted off.

12th.

Went Trout fishing today, caught one beauty, but even more attractive than my fish was this wonderful Orchid.

Then I get home to find the Swallows are investigating our artificial nest by the front door, it would be wonderful if they actually nested there, had the nest in various places over the years and they have never even looked at it before. Below this is our postal delivery box, so I have had to move it nearer our front gate so the Postie doesn’t disturb them.

I am excited about this as most of the other artificial boxes I have put up have either been left vacant, or taken over by House Sparrows, who just fill it with grass in such a messy way.

Thought we would get back to a routine of sorting the garden out after our holiday, usual shopping, coffees in The Mill, but then I forgot I had a birthday and somewhere around that time we get together with my British son. So the routine was gladly interrupted with a weekend away in Ayrshire and a celebration time. So not much time for Cairngorms news just Ayrshire.

24th.

My son timed it right, for on this weekend was his village Gala, enabling me to take loads of photos. To start the day off right we went for a pleasant circular walk to an adorable loch and in sunshine .

My wife on the right and my sons partner on the left, so peaceful.

As you may have seen in previous posts I cannot resist taking shots of unusual fence posts, above were a couple from that walk.

After a quick lunch off to the Gala.

The barn Owl was meant to do a performance for the crowd but simple refused to budge off it’s perch even when offered food, so out came the Harris Hawk who did all that was asked of it. some lovely owls though that were a pleasure to see.

Next came the stunt riders, and you could see every child (and adult) saying “I want to do that” me included.

Next came the Classic cars, all parked to close together for us photographers to get any individual shots, but good to see. Included in the collection (which was to close to the others to take a shot of, was a 1965 Austin A40, now both my wife and myself passed our driving test in one of those in 1964. Me on the second attempt her on her first (of course), so a very nostalgic moment for us both.

On returning back to their house I couldn’t resist taking a shot of the House Martin building it’s nest, they have four nests on their house which I am very envious of, as we only had them for one year before the House Sparrows took over their artificial nest. Here it has a mouthful of mud for the construction.

Another thing that has taken me out of my usual routine is the camera club that I belong to has set it’s members four, weekly assignments all related to “Reflections”. The first was of reflections through shop windows and the second was through vehicles, with two to go in the next two weeks. So included here are a few that I have taken early one morning in Pitlochry, before the tourist woke up.

Shop windows.

On Cars.

So you can see this last part of the month has been far from routine, even getting this out to you two days late.

Well just a few days left of our fantastic holiday in the sun, three weeks has gone so fast and now we have the fun of a loooong journey home and what I can see of the weather conditions a week of light rain to welcome us. Plus of course the shear delight of jetlag which is always worse going East. In the mean time we intend to enjoy the great company and sun and food that we have become very used to.

3rd.

We have enjoyed our walks on the beach with the birds, the wading birds are so obliging in not bothered by humans, even this White Egret posed for me and the Pelicans flew right over our heads today.

These two characters seem to get in a fair few of my shots , just that little bit in front of me while I take loads of photographs.

The classic Bay Watch , Californian scenery of the lifeguard station, on what was a fairly busy beach for a Friday. I was going to have a swim but never saw a soul without a wet suit on and that told me enough of how cold the water was.

5th.

For those that have seen the Barbie movie the last scene of the film shows Barbie in a limo coming into this road in the top shot and pulling up to the doors in the second shot as she is going into there to get a certain part of her female anatomy that she is lacking. Well that is Santa Monica two blocks away from my son’s apartment, might add that this was the only part of the film I watched as the wife was watching it, honest.

This now is the end of our three weeks holiday and we had another twenty two hour trip from getting up to getting home, with a three hour stopover in Newark New York Airport. I have got to say it was well worth the extra money we paid to go in the United Airways Lounge at both LAX and Newark, peace and quiet, good food and drink, comfy chairs and just so relaxing for such a long trip.

9th.

Back home total zombies with jet lag but the garden has certainly changed some plants have gone over since we left others have obviously been at their best, all we could think of was it will need some work to get it back to normal.

The grass is the first thing to tackle and the weather is far better than forecast so will have to get on with it. Even though we both have a cold from the aircraft.

Some of the daffs are past it and need dead heading.

Others are still looking great.

The pom poms are doing well and have apparently been putting on a great display in our absence.

12th

Yes cultivated flowers are beautiful and weeds in the garden are not normally welcome, today I noticed the beauty of the wild flowers (weeds) that are coming into their best. Firstly the humble Dandelion.

Whatever the stage of it’s growth it is an attractive plant.

The Daisy.

The Bluebell.

A bit of a short blog for the start of may but we have been struggling with jet lag, rotten colds from off the aircraft and getting our Covid booster all in these opening two weeks has left little time for photography , so will try to make up for it in the latter part of the month.

At last after several months of planning our holiday over the pond has come to fruition. After a twenty two hour journey from Edinburgh Airport to my son and his wife’s apartment in Santa Monica California we can at last relax and get over jet lag. So I am sorry but all of this blog and the start of the next will be holiday snap time. Of course there will be none of me with my muscle bound body surfing the waves or doing pull ups on the beach, I will try to make it cultural as possible.

17th

We had a four and a half hour stopover at Newark Airport and this was the nearest we got to our much loved New York, the view from the United Airline lounge.

18th.

Our first walk from the apartment and outside was this beautiful Bottle Brush tree followed by two more, which made the street look so good.

The Eastern coast of Scotland has followed us here as our first view of the Pacific was in a Haar, though you do not see many palm trees on the beech at Aberdeen.

We did not go onto the beach just walked along the cliff tops, were there were many knurled trees obviously due to storms etc. but very interesting to see.

All along the path were palm trees.

We went on our return trip back a couple of blocks from the sea and found a wonderful street market. This was just one of the wonderful fruit displays.

Blood oranges my favourites.

Today The Getty in the hills above L.A.

The view over L.A. and still the Haar is hanging on.

A major exhibition was on by the famous female sculpture Camille Claudel and her work was full of such wonderful detail as you will see below.

19th

Today was Venice Beach and canals, such a selection of houses and gardens all along the canal most enjoyable.

20th.

In Scotland the Curlew is considered a fairly shy bird that you hear it’s magnificent call rather than see, here they are two a penny on the sea shore, got fairly close to these two before they flew off and then captured one in flight.

UCLA Botanic garden in the afternoon battling the freeway traffic, taken from a bridge as we were about to join this manic scene.

Saw this baby bird (no idea what it is) and waited patiently for a parent to come and feed it , only to get a leaf in front of the baby’s eye to ruin the shot, so annoying.

Although fifty percent of the gardens were closed due to reconstruction we did enjoy what we could see. So here are some of the plants we did see.

24th.

Went up to Pasadena today to the Huntingdon Library and Botanic Gardens, the gardens are so vast it took us many hours to explore all the different gardens , most enjoyed the Japanese and Chinese gardens the best but overall a wonderful worth while trip.

The first section of the entry showed what to expect for the rest of the collection.

The first shot is part and I repeat only part of the Japanese garden, the first shot you can see the waterfall in the middle , the second is from behind the waterfall.

The range of trees in the Chinese garden was wonderful and so well laid out and maintained.

The desert area had so many different type of Cactus and all huge.

Of course neither of the oriental gardens would be complete without Koi and no blog of mine would be complete without including fish, these were all huge and such variety of colour. The thin white pieces were Bamboo leaves that hd fallen into the water not small fish.

The variety of plants around the watercourses really made the scene.

The Bonsai collection was incredible and the guy in the first shot does nothing but trim them , the sample he was working on here is forty years old, please excuse the lady in blue she gets in a lot of my shots.

26th.

Just walking the beach today and by a river inlet sat this bunch of birds, a new species for me and not even in my guide to Californian birds. Corsican Terns one of the largest of the Tern family.

28th.

Today we travelled two hours south to where my son used to live fifteen years ago just to reminisce for the day to the town of San Clemente and visited old favourite haunts.

The beach which we used to walk along daily.

The restaurant on the pier where we used to go and have the evening special and watch the sunset, with a wee glass of wine. Today we had lunch and a drink. still as tasty as ever and a great spot.

Watched the surfers.

And saw the sights around the shops (poor dog)

29th.

Went to the L.A. County Museum of Art today and below are a selection of shots from there.

Red Ants

A Display of lights as an art feature, must look great at night.

This was totally incredible hundreds of small cars going around all this track taken to a height on the top middle and the falling back down by gravity.

Also next to the museum was the Tar Pits, where oil in the form of tar bubbles to the surface either on land or as illustrated through water.

30th.

Last day of the month, we went to The Griffith Observatory, up in the Hollywood Hills.

The Observatory.

The obligatory sign.

The view from the roof of the Observatory, I reckon that road goes as straight as that for at least ten miles, incredible.

All those that follow my blog from south of the Scottish border will be enjoying the end of your spring flowers, the daffodils will be maybe getting past their best and warmer weather upon you. Our old neighbour up here would tell us frequently do not put any bedding plants in until well into May, all because you can never tell when we will get a cold snap. Sure enough when the forecast on April the first said snow was on it’s way after a couple of dry, above zero temperatures we all thought ” no we won’t get that”. but drew the curtains back today and sure enough to a fairly low level the hills had a dusting of snow and we had sleet. At least at the moment are daffs are starting to show some colour and the primula’s are budding up so we are showing some improvement, but this snow and cold may well knock them back a bit

5th.

Of course the Chaffinch happened to be a pair of posers and stared straight at the lens.

10th

The first of April was the start of the village Angling Club Brown Trout season but as I stated the start of the month has not been great weather, first that snow then very strong winds. So today was the first day I have managed to get out with the rod and have an hours dabble way up in the hills at Sarah’s pond.

I have shown you before up here but this was Sarah’s today and as you can also see the minute I started fishing, down came the rain (hence only the hour of fishing).

The feeder stream into the pond and as you can see it is flowing fairly fast due to all the rain and snow on the hills above.

From this shot you can see that the Trout were rising to the fly and I had tied a special fly of my own design to fish today. A dry fly (which means it would float on top of the water) which was made from some Jute that I had asked for when we went around the Verdant Works in Dundee , which is a museum of the Jute industry which was very large throughout Dundee in the past. The jute was really soft and I thought it would make an excellent floating fly which proved correct as I caught three on my first day of the season. No record breaking size but great enjoyment and all three were returned fit and healthy. Two of eight inches and a good fish of eleven. The first one is pictured below and was one of the two eight inch.

This shot in the rain shows our house the green rectangle in the middle, parked at about the same altitude as our house , then a half mile walk up the steep track in front of the shot. Good feeling at my age that I can still walk up it with not to much difficulty.

13th

Just a follow up on the introduction words the flowers have come along in leaps with just two real days of sun so far.

Daffs and Tulips just about out.

Heather buzzing with Bumble Bees and making a good show again this year.

Primrose and Primula doing well.

Fritillary

Tricular doing okay

That’s it for the first part of the month, I promise you something different for the second half.

Of course this headline finishes with “we will have snow” and sure enough that direction of wind at the moment is blowing a hoolie and we have had a few snow showers, nothing to cause disruption but enough to be annoying. But the next minute it is sunshine but still with that wind forecast to reach forty mph.

22nd.

Went down to Loch Dunmore today to clean our service boat ready for a couple of weekends coming up when we cut some weed back to enable us to fish. Thought I would share this unusual phenomenal thing that is happening on the water.

All three of the above shots show what appears to be islands in the water, the last one showing three in the foreground and to white areas further out, which are the same. These are in fact floating islands and are caused by the roots of the lilies rotting and building up gases under the mud which then totally lift the roots and mud up to the surface. They are a bit like icebergs in as much as there is a lot under the water as there is above, which makes them very heavy and difficult to break up. Though good to fish in the proximity of the islands (as fish feel safe under them) are a nuisance as the large one in front has drifted in front of the swim I normally fish.

In the middle of shot one & two you can see a streak in the water, unfortunately this is an adult Cormorant which is more a problem than the islands as it will eat it’s own weight in fish every day.

23rd.

Just to prove my point we have got the snow on the hills and still that very cold North wind, these taken this morning, after twenty years of living here still a great sight to open the curtains to each morning.

Borrowed a few shots from my neighbours garden I am sure Rod won’t mind? Despite the cold things are starting to bud up, this is Lilac.

Honeysuckle.

A few from my garden, Cherry just seeing the blossom bud up.

Flowering Currant.

A small bush flowering Rhododendron also budding up.

A Clematis already hit by an earlier cold spell but trying again.

26th.

Had to go to the estate office of Blair Castle today and this is the view from the rear of the castle that not many see.

While at the castle I travelled up towards where I fish and grabbed this shot to show in the two days since the last post we have had a bit more of the white stuff.

28th

Had to go into Perth today and it just so happened I arrived an hour early, surprise, surprise.

By some strange reason I had my camera with me so decided to pop into Rodney Gardens and look for the Kingfishers that I have photographed before, saw one twice but way to quick for me. But I did notice this Beaver activity above. If you imagine a city centre on one side of the River Tay and one hundred yards away from a busy road coming in over the river into the city, with a lot of activity in the area well that was where this tree was, so a very urban Beaver. Admittedly Beavers are all along the Tay river system now, but would you imagine one in the city centre?

When I got home, as I come in through the backdoor a Robin will spot me and come down to the nearest bush and hope for some mealworms, well today it had a companion, Robin’s normally fight other Robins to keep their territory, so I guess this pair have got together for the mating season as they tollerated each other whilst feeding.

30th.

Have not seen this female Chaffinch for a whole year, so unusual to see one with a white head, known as leucitic bird, normally occurs in black plumage birds, but can occur in any type. Not a great shot as I just caught it by a feeder, ran to my bedroom to get my camera, wrong lens, changed it, ran to the living room and got it through the double glazing before it flew off. The other Chaffinch’s do bully it a bit so it does not stay in the same spot for long.

31st.

Happy easter everyone, it has been my religious part of Easter Sunday to either go to a sunrise service with a church or go by myself UP the hill from us and see the and celebrate the sunrise. Today was no exception except for the fact that our clocks went forward before I got up, son though my clock said six o’clock my brain and body was still in time with five o’clock. To make things even harder it was minus two C and my car was covered in ice, so I had to walk Up the mile and a half to where I took the shots below.

At the gateway to our house, you can see the red in the sky as I start my journey.

A bit late but it was a long uphill walk.

The sun catching the tops of the Birch trees.

The way home the white dot right of centre is the castle way down the hill on about the same level as our house so you can see what I mean by Up the hill.

A wonderful peaceful morning surrounded by silence except for the pheasants and curlew calling, plus I saw eight Roe Deer, to quick for me to capture with the camera, but a smashing sight.

March begins as February left off , cold, Easterly wind and very dull. Not exactly the type of weather you want to go out and take photographs, much better to stay in, tie some flies for the start of the fly fishing season beside a glowing wood burner.

Went to the jute museum (Verdant Works) in Dundee to see a “Garden photographs of the year” only to find out we were a month early, but had a good time looking around the exhibits and seeing some of the one hundred year old machines in operation, took some shots but they were rubbish, so overall not a great morning, but made up for by a good lunch in our favourite cafe (The Empire State) thanks to a friend who gave us a gift voucher at Christmas. Always good to finish a visit on a good meal. But if you are in Dundee the museum is well worth a visit.

10th.

Just an encouragement to show that the good times are around the corner and cold weather may be disappearing at last, some of the flowers are starting to bud up or even be out. All taken in the rain of course.

The hit to brighten up another dull day was the two ponies in the field in front of the house decided to pay us a visit and timed it as I was feeding the birds, so they had to have some peanuts. One is very forward and obviously the boss and the other just hangs back so not to be bullied. I made sure the shy one got a good feed when the boss was not looking. I think they are Dartmoor’s ?

Yes it has flattened the fence to enable it to eat the conifer as well.

5th.

Went for a day out in Edinburgh and while the wife was having her hair done I walked around the backsides of the buildings on Rose Street, the fronts are mainly shops and though this is only on two lanes along Rose Street the actual street is as long as Princes Street which is parallel and below here.

The first and second floor on most of these properties seem to be residential.

Though this building is all office, I wonder if the lintel above the middle downstairs window was in fact a large door in it’s passed life?

Scotts pub, on the left one of Edinburgh’s oldest pubs and below is the rear of the building almost identical to the front.

The next shots are actually on the front of Rose Street and the theatre is empty and up for sale.

Old stonework, replica lamp and a modern additional flat on the top.

Dirty Dick’s pub with a painting and quote from Bill Murray. ” You can handle just about anything that comes at you on the road with a believable grin, common sense and a whisky.

A view along Rose Street from where I was all the way to Marks and Spencer’s shop at the far end.

Just to show that not everybody has a good lifestyle in Edinburgh, in a alcove to the power room of Premier Inn a rough sleepers abode.

16th.

Hopefully the last of the snow on the hills from our bedroom window this morning.

Though the wife did not appreciate me opening the window to take these shots as it was minus six C outside.

Don’t think the ponies appreciated the frost either.

But by midday the temperature in the sunshine had gone from minus to plus six, a welcome change.

With the sun out came the camera to photograph the hazel including my neighbours twisted Hazel.