Cairngorms Life

Well it has happened, the 12 of September, second Tuesday into the month & we wake up to the thermometer showing ZERO degrees C. White grass & as you can see the windscreen of my car covered in ice. By the time I needed to go out  in the car it had all melted & it has turned into the most beautiful sunny day. Just had to get a shot of the car, plus our view & the sun shining through the red gladies in the kitchen window.

The best part of this is that the really cold & strong Northerly wind we suffered last week has gone, which makes it so much better foe fishing 🙂 Went up to a stocked Rainbow Trout Loch yesterday way up in the hills & though cloudy it was a wonderful place to be out in a boat, surrounded by hills, trees & fish. My mate & I managed two fish each. But as we sat in the boat gently drifting along, just the sound of a Raven calling out, not a care in the world (apart from what fly would catch the next fish) we both agreed no money could ever by you such an wonderful day & location. One of the main reason I love living here.

 

 

I am uncertain about what the birds are up to in the garden, we have a increase in Siskins, Goldfinch & Greenfinch coming to the feeders. Is this because they are building up reserves for the winter? Or building themselves up for migrating away from us? Or is it just that food is getting scarce around this time of the year & word has got around that Dave has got free food for all to indulge in? Anyway as you can see below the Niger Seed feeder is active & the resident male Pheasant is just sitting below the feeder eating all that the others drop down to him. After my controversial notes a few days ago, may I say good, at least that is fattening him up for the pot, come the start of the shooting season in October. 🙂

 

 

Firstly, I have received a few moans from readers about my negative attitude towards Camilla in my last blog, I should have been neutral in reporting this, but allowed my personal feelings to get in the way of the story. Also I said House of Bruar was a mile out of the village, it is in fact 4 miles.

 

Todays topic is ( & shall be for a few weeks) cheating a bit, because this event happens just a mile (or so) out of the National Park, at the small Loch ( Dunmore) where I go coarse fishing. It is called The Enchanted Forest & attracts 70,000 visitors during the month of October.

The attraction is a light & water show covering the whole of the Loch & just gets better & better each year. The reason I am so enthusiastic is that I get heavily involved with it each year. As chair of the fishing club I do not wish for any of the displays to interfere with the safety of the fish. So when the installations on the water are being erected I normally row our boat with the workers on to install the pumps & lights. I have a great rapport with all the staff & as we have thousands of pounds worth of fish in the Loch, they respect my opinion. The fact that I bribe them with my Victoria sponges has nothing to do with it.

The construction of the build started Monday & it has been horrid weather since, so the build is a day or so behind, which in turn means the water features (that should have started today) will be done over the weekend. A bit annoying as I shall have to miss the G.P. on Sunday. This years theme is “On The Edge of the Water” & on paper looks great.

Below are some shots of the 2014 show, just to give you a taster of future photos that I shall take.

 

 

 

I have kept this a secret for 10 whole days & today it happened, we had a royal visitor to our village.

There are many more royalty that we would have liked to visit our community before this person, but beggars cannot be choosers.

By now you will have guessed it was Camilla, Charlie’s bit of stuff. Most probably get hung for treason for saying that. 🙂

She came direct by helicopter from naming  (with Charles) our Navy’s new aircraft carrier H.M.S. Prince of Wales. If it looks as good as Queen Elizabeth (the other carrier already built) it will be splendid, only trouble is we will not have any aircraft to put on it until 2022. Anyway that is getting away from the subject, she landed in Blair Castle grounds & went off to the House of Bruar, which is a very large, posh, retail store a mile out of the village. It is advertised as “The Harrods of the North”. But the interesting thing was from there she came into the village & had a look around Rami’s place The Mill. What an honour for Rami & his hard working staff, not forgetting his wife Kirsty.

Picture below was her leaving as she flew right over our house on her way back to Balmoral  or Holyrood.

In Scotland there is a saying, “there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing”. Today was one of those days, rain all morning & dreich in the afternoon. True midgy weather & my wife has the bites to prove it, though she is very susceptible to the wee creatures all down to them going for rotten meat I say.

Then in the evening the sun came out & we were blessed with the  most wonderful sunset. My photos do not really do it justice, but it almost looks like molten lava going over rocks white & red hot. As our house faces west we often get such wonderful sights as this, but after such a miserable day, this was a delight. So lets hope “Red sky at night” means tomorrow will be a better day.

 

 

 

 

Well Autumn is here officially & also physically. My min/max external thermometer read just 2C this morning & now at 10am it is still only 6C, so yes it is colder. Looking at the amount of fungi about we  may have a bumper crop of Chanterelles in our secret location to pick, shall have to get there this week & have a feast. Of course I shall try & photograph as many species of fungi & put them on here for you to see, Chanterelles are the only one I feel safe in eating as they are very tasty & I know what they look like.

In the first shot below is how yonder hills looked this morning a bit hazy but with that cloud like mist in the glens below the hills, it is stunning.

Second photo of the Starlings, in the previous blog I stated they would soon be gone, but no, this year they have hung on & increased their numbers. I counted 90 in this lot (thought I would put that to save you lot counting them), so a definite increase from last week. How do they know where to meet up? All done without the use of mobile phones.

Last shot, as I opened the bedroom curtains this morning the sun was shining on this male Chaffinch, a perfect light for a quick photo, so on went the long lens & got a couple of crackers of him, I suspect trying to get warm after such a cold night. It might be one of our all year round resident Chaffinches, or it may be on its way south after that chilly night. One thing is for sure, it will not get a better dining table than he gets here.

 

 

When a mate says” Fancy a couple of hours fishing”, it would be rude to say no. So when Rami asked that question on Monday, I was back home booking a boat for Loch Kinardochy before he could change his mind. So once the bread was baked & on the shelves in The Mill, we were off. We arrived full of expectation, the whole Loch to ourselves, nice ripple, excellent cloud cover, fish rising everywhere, what more could we want.

Well catching some fish would be nice. First one that took my fly (which even though we never saw it) felt a really good fish & was in control of my little lightweight rod from the word go & promptly went to the bottom & into the weed, one lost. The second was smaller but still edible size, I got to the side of the boat when it came off the barbless hook & number three (and last fish) just went down in the weed & was lost. Rami using wet flies (I was on dries) never had a touch in the whole 4 hours of fishing.

But do you know what, both of us left the Loch a lot more relaxed, happy & had enjoyed each others company, so much that a fish would of only been a supplementary bonus. That’s fishing. There will always be other days when we can just enjoy the nature & friendship that two fellas can have in common maybe even catch a fish.

As you can see by Rami’s concentration, he was determined to catch, the other 3 shots show you what a beautiful place this is, especially with the heather all out in bloom.

 

 

Nothing much happening today went fishing for an hour, two rises to my fly, but missed both, must be getting old.

Just thought that if you wanted to look at some more of my photos, you can look at my Flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/145875723@N02/. Where I put my better shots before transferring them elsewhere.

Jan & I were out working in the garden this morning & all we could here was the roar of Harleys going back down the A9. When the drizzle started I said “That’s it I am going to park beside the A9 & get some shots of the bikes”. Found a small lane that runs parallel to the road, got in the passenger seat, wound down the window & 110 shots later thought that better be enough, though I could have stayed there all day a real pleasure to hear & see some magnificent bikes. As most of the bikes were doing 60mph I had a few failures & a few not as sharp shots as I would have wanted, but overall it was just great being there. Below are a few of what I shot, a complete mixture of Harleys, or at least I think they are all Harleys. To give you some idea of what it must have been like in the ride I have attached a You Tube video. Took 8 minutes for the bikes to pass.

Shall be more organised next year & wonder around Pitlochry, as a fair few stop off there for refreshments.

 

What a busy weekend within our National Park. Up at Avimore they have the “Thunder in the Glen” event, this is the biggest  Harley Davidson gathering in the whole of Europe with well over 3000 of these magnificent machines gathering together. At lunch time today ALL of them take over a set route & it is literally a thunder of bikes going up through the glens around Avimore. Since last weekend all we have heard going up the A9 are Harleys, a constant rumble of that wonderful sounding engine. Dread to think what the A9 will be like when they return, though a Bank Holiday in the rest of the U.K. it isn’t one here on Monday, so at least the Scottish bikers will be returning.

Here in the village is the most attended event for the village, The Blair Castle International  Horse Trials, it started Thursday & finishes tomorrow. Over 40,000 visitors expected. All sorts of events from International Trials , to Pony Clubs, falconry, dog racing (see below), lots of trade stalls & plenty of food & drink. Us locals normally wait until 3.30pm each day as that is when it is free to get in, though we are mostly wise enough not to use the free parking as once people start leaving it is our equivalent of the M25, a giant car park instead of a road. So we all use the back roads or just walk from the village.

Below are some of the shots from today, it is the first time I have tried to photograph horse jumping, so excuse the standard of shots. Self explanatory shots, the Pony Club one is of todays winners of the relay event, boy do those ponies go. As for the dogs, they run over the obstacles, pick up a tennis ball & run back to their handlers, though some do cheat a bit & go round the jumps.