Home again

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Alistair in Edinburgh. His family went to enjoy the lights at the Botanic Gardens again this year.

We went to East Wemyss by way of the Queensferry Crossing, a bridge which looks implausibly slender as you approach it, but which turns out to have very solid fastenings.

Tony and Marianne, having fetched us from Langholm to spend Christmas with them in East Wemyss, kindly brought us home again today. Very kindly indeed, as the driving conditions were very poor, with copious driving snow and rainstorms to contend with all the way home.

However, we made it, and Tony and Marianne went off to visit a couple of old friends in the town before returning for an evening meal and staying the night with us. They go back tomorrow morning when we hope that there may be a brief gap in the awful weather.

I have nothing to say about today photographically so I have picked out a few of the pictures that I took with my little Lumix over the past few days. All the pictures in the recent posts from East Wemyss were taken with my phone so these are the camera pictures I took from four of the walks when the opportunity arose.

Walking early with Tony and Marianne and the dogs on Christmas day, we passed the home made water wheel which powers the Christmas lights in the den , got a distant view over the peaceful Forth and saw deer and a buzzard too far away to catch clearly early in the morning (Tony took the buzzard picture . . .

. . . and I liked this view of the rolling Fife countryside.

After some refreshment, I went off for a walk with Mrs Tootlepedal to West Wemyss while the preparations for the meal were being made. We could see Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh very clearly when we set off but the weather was changeable so we looked at things closer to hand as we went along.

We spotted swans and ducks.

We got home in the nick of time.

After a sunny walk to Buckhavento the east on Boxing Day morning with Tony, Marianne and the dogs, I was able to slip out after a heavy shower of sleet for a late afternoon walk by myself to the west.

It didn’t look very promising . . .

. . . but I made it to West Wemyss and back just before darkness fell. I could see snow on the other side of the water, more chimneys than you can shake a stick at inWest Wemyss, and Buckhaven where I had walked in the morning

Across the Forth, I could see lighthouses winking at me as I got home.

We had a great time in East Wemyss with Tony and Marianne, and now we are looking forward to a visit from our other son Alistair with his wife and daughter, so we will have had a very full festive season by the time that the new year rolls in.

I have filled the feeder so I hope that I may have a flying bird for avian inclined readers to enjoy tomorrow.