Cairngorms Life

I think as we are that much further North than most of the rest of the U.K. and the fact that we have had two frost’s already, that we are more advanced in our Autumn colours. I am not a fan that we are now beyond Autumn Equinox and that the daylight is shorter than the night, even though we have longer daylight hours than most during the summer. But it does mean Winter is just around the corner. But I do so love this time of the year, even though a lot of plants have given up, the colours are fantastic. Give it a few weeks & I will be able to show you true Autumn colours from our wonderful Perthshire trees, after all this is the “Big Tree Country” with so many British records for their sizes.

Below are a few colourful areas from within the garden, SWMBO is particularly proud of that front door display which shows itself off so well at this time. The Cotoneasters are delightful as well, though I do not expect it will be long before the birds start to eat those berries. The large red leaved plant ( I am not the gardener so do not know it’s name) is beside the garden pond and looks wonderful. Also you can see we still have a wee bit of bedding plant colour left in the garden , but not much.

 

 

 

 

 

As I told you in a previous post I am very much involved in the Enchanted Forest, in fact I have spent 4 days down there so far with 2 days being really full ones working from 8am until 7pm , all on the main fountain show, which when I left Friday still was not complete, so no photos of that. The shots I have included are of finished sections. There are two Lighthouses made by the same lady who made the archway in my previous blog on the E.F. The umbrella’s are fairly topical as it has been a very wet week to be working, they all have their own lights & look great in the dark. As Loch Dunmore is in the middle of the woods the production team take advantage of this & light up a fair few trees, which you either like or do not, I love them. Behind the blue bush you may just be able to make out some mist sprays, though I have not seen the lights on these apparently each mist spray will have it’s very own rainbow.

Under 10,000 tickets are now left, so we are hoping for good weather for all those visitors. Press night is on Wednesday (to which I have been invited) & it all opens to the public on Friday, let’s hope it is all up & running by then as there has still some final touches to be done, but they are all on schedule.

Getting excited now.

 

 

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.