Hello and goodbye to the sunshine

Today’s guest picture comes from our friend Mike Tinker. It shows the view from their cottage of Loch Feochan near Oban which he and Alison enjoyed during their recent holiday.

The morning started off rather gloomily as far as the weather went but it was brightened up by the arrival of Dropscone, armed both with scones and tales of his recent holiday in Orkney with his daughter Susan. By the time that he left, it had got brighter still because the sun had come out and dahlias were positively glowing in the garden.

They were joined by some cheerful roses.

I went back inside and did some useful work on Archive Group business and then looked out of the window. A blackbird and a robin were picking up seed under the feeder . . .

. . . while a greenfinch and goldfinch shared the feeder above, mostly peacefully, but with some interruptions.

The sun stayed out after lunch and as it was too breezy for gentle cycling, a walk round the hill seemed like a good idea. Although there was some light cloud as I set out . . .

. . . it was still a very nice day and everything looked pretty good when I glanced back as I walked up the road towards the White Yett.

It was my intention to take a lot of sunny views to send to our recent visitors to show them what they had missed and tempt them to come again, but sadly the sunshine drifted off up the Ewes valley . . .

. . . and by the time that I got to the moor . . .

. . . the last of any blue sky was disappearing over the hills.

Luckily I had photographic distraction in the form of a goat trotting up the road towards me. He turned out to be one of a gang of three and I got reasonable pictures of two of them.

I left them grazing near the road and walked on. Just as I got to the point where the track to Middlemoss turns off the Newcastleton road, I saw another group of goats. They weren’t quite so keen to pose for me.

As they walked off, I strolled down the Midd;emoss track, enjoying the last of the leaves on the birch saplings . . .

. . . and a chattering stream passing under the track . . .

. . . and then I came across my third and last bunch of goats for the day. They crossed the road in front of me and posed for a family group shot.

Their leader got a personal shot.

I came down to the bridge across the Tarras Water at Perterburn . . .

. . . leaned on the parapet and looked at the river . . .

. . . and then headed into the brisk wind as I went past the tree nursery at Cronksbank, down to the river again . . .

. . . and then plodded up the hill to the bird hide where I had a short rest in a room with a view.

I munched on some dates and apricots but as there were no birds to be seen from the hide, I closed the window and walked on down the hill past Broomholm . . .

. . . and along the River Esk . . .

. . . avoiding this big puddle on the way.

My last picture was of some wild daisies seen as I followed the riverside path from Skippers Bridge back to the town.

I enjoyed my walk but the lack of sunshine as I came through the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve was very disappointing and accounts for the many shots of goats and the very few landscape pictures.

I got back in time to have a cup of tea before hosting the regular Zoom with Mrs Tootlepedal and my sisters and brother. Andrew had had plenty of sunshine on his recent trip to Lincolnshire and his cheerful pictures were just what the doctor ordered.

Mrs Tootlepedal had slow cooked a venison stew in our new air fryer (which has 11 different functions) and it made for a very tasty evening meal. As that was followed by a visit from Mike and Alison, back from their holiday now, the day ended very well. Alison and I played duets while Mike and Mrs Tootlepedal swapped news.

The just in time flying bird of the day is a sparrow.