Christmas? – Cairngorms Life

How was your Christmas? All over the U.K. folks have had to make the best of what we have, so much disappointment family gatherings from across the country having to cancel at the last moment spending time with their loved ones. Our time was no different from a lot of you, our son was coming up from England with his partner, so tons of food in their presents already under the Christmas tree & then boom, they were not allowed to travel unless it was for the one day. Doing a 13 hour round trip was not at all reasonable, so they were unable to come.

Now we love our turkey, so a good large bird was chosen serving 12 to 15 people, just for the two of us. We cooked it all the same & will dine off of it for a few days yet before sliced & curried & soup from the bits & all placed in our freezer to have weekly meals from until all gone & no we will not grow tired of it as we do really love it.

Hopefully with the vaccine this will all be soon over & by mid summer we can get back to some form of normality.

Tradition for us is always to get the bird in the oven & go off for a walk, which being Scotland means we can go out in all weathers, but we still uphold the tradition. On one occasion when we first moved up & were having a Christmas by ourselves we were out for the walk & found a large horse had rolled over, it’s canvas coat had not rolled with it & it was stuck on its back with a leg stuck in the coat. Not knowing who owned it we searched all the local houses to find someone in to tell us who owned it. I stayed with the horse & the wife went down our hill half a mile before finding anyone who knew the owner. Between four of us we managed to upright the horse, but we both had to come home & change as we were filthy.

This years walk was without incident, a cold frosty morning though a tad warmer than a couple of days before as you will see from the shots below. you meet some strange people when out on walks, but this time it was me that made the shepherd look twice as I gave him a wave.

The drive from the house, although not much it was very slippery & required some road sand on it before the postie came.

Made the usual sponge cake, for just the two of us, instead of four.

Made the shepherd look twice as he drove past.

The first cattle grid above our house and you can just make out at about 1 o’clock in the field two Red Deer stags that we frightened by our appearance. At first we thought they were Reindeer having a rest after a busy day, but they were deer.

Frosty weather for these hardy cattle & they were waiting to be fed, though these two ventured away from the main herd thinking we may give them food before the others, sorry we disappointed them.

The main herd waiting in anticipation of Christmas lunch.

The next two shots are from today Boxing Day, a wet but warmer day (6C) but we needed to walk after the food we ate yesterday. Walked from the Tilt Car Park up to the ruined kirk & back to the car, just a bit of fresh air & exercise as we are back to full lock down from today.