Monthly Archives
After the busy day of getting house and garden sorted yesterday, today was in some respects quiet, and in some, still packed. We went for a nice, relaxing walk down by the canal in the morning, but it turned out…
Continue readingWe’ve just had our second BBQ of the year in our garden. This has been following a nice day of pleasant busy-ness. We gave the house a good clean in the morning, had a nice lunch (sadly not in the…
Continue readingWe like Chirs Packham. He’s a wildlife geek but he’s great. He’s just the right kind of balance between knowledgeable scientis and personable personality. I’m not about to knock Bill Oddie ‘cos I do like him, but I do think…
Continue readingWe had – or rather more precisely Emma had – a rude awakening to her day, the first day back at work. I think how it happened was that Bella, pleased to be home again, spent a good part of…
Continue readingI had been thinking earlier this evening about how Bella usually loves to watch Springwatch. She weould get up as close as she could to the television and even look round the back of the television to see where the…
Continue readingBella’s back! She’s home, and she’s safe! We left it until after dinner to go out for a walk around the estate so that it would be that bit quieter about the place. The plan was to walk back round…
Continue readingOkay, so I almost didn’t grab my waterproof as I left this morning to go and sign on. I’m glad I did tghough because the rain started almost immediately. It felt weird to be going somewhere in the car without…
Continue readingThe last leg of our 1,439 mile road trop to Scotland and back was uneventful. We arrived home at lunchtime-ish to be greeted by four loving cats. Sadly, only four though, with still no sign of little Miss Bella. We…
Continue readingOur journey across the Yorkshire Dales was sublime. From as far back as Carlisle the electronic signage was warning us about horse drawn vehicles on the A66. What we discovered was a horse fair finishing up and on a couple…
Continue readingAt 15:14 hours we crossed the border into England for the first time in over two weeks. Still, and crucially, on the the road trip part of our honeymoon, we spent the morning back in Edinburgh on the Mary King’s…
Continue readingBreakfast in Edinburgh started with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon; very nice. We didn’t get going quite as soon as we thought we might’ve, having slept very well in the cosy hotel bed, but when we did get going we…
Continue readingPacking and cleaning goes swiftly this morning and we are ready ahead of schedule to leave our little red-roofed cottage in the woods with the gurgling pipes and the peat-brown water. We walk down to the jetty as Paul goes…
Continue readingAt around 5 o’clock I headed down to The Bothy to collect our venison stew. It’s actually turned out to be a pie as Rose discovered that she didn’t have any suet but it looked delicious none-the-less. Whilst there, I…
Continue readingAnother quiet day on the island. Emma has kept the fire going for into the third day, so some time was spent getting it going again for day, stoking up the hot coals and refilling the skuttle from the coal…
Continue readingThis evening we were visited by at least three different pine martins, all as greedy as each other. I say ‘at least’ because we didn’t see which one of them snuck in at the beginning of the evening and stole…
Continue readingAfter yesterday’s exploits, I am sitting writing these pages now in front of a warm coal fire that Emma has succeeded in keeping alight since yesterday evening just by stoking and loading and tending it in the right way. Today…
Continue readingNo boat off the island today; not even if we wanted to. Not that we actually wanted to – preferring instead to have a quieter day. Not that the day was any less nice. We had a bit of a…
Continue readingAfter the *early* start to the day yesterday we had a bit more of a lie in and a leisurely start. When it came to the business of the day I was glad of the egg for breakfast for today…
Continue readingAn early start today; we are down at the jetty in good time to get the 9.30 boat across a loch of flat calm and low-tide-shallowness. We get the impression that Allistair is a little unimpressed that we have chosen…
Continue reading
