Monday 22 January 2007


December 18th – 28th 2006

Well, we finally made it out of the house and into the ‘van. First stop Woodside, Aberdeen to park outside Julie’s parents’ house where Peter is going to build a fence round their garden. The weather has been extremely cold, down to minus 5 or so. But with the new heating and two quilts and an electric blanket we are warm and toasty in the ‘van!


Despite intensive building all around the Woodside, Persley, Danestone area, there are still some remnants of the woodland areas around and along the river Don where Julie grew up; and we have been walking the dogs there every day. There is still a lot of wildlife here and perhaps more so as their habitat keeps shrinking. The tree lined corridor along the Don provides habitat for deer, foxes, squirrels and many species of birds.


The weir beside Persley bridge.





























Mum, Willow and Hamish with next door neighbour’s dog Missy down at the football fields on a frosty, bright morning.


This is one of several squirrels that regularly visit my parents’ garden and steal the bird’s food! There were no squirrels here when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s so I can only assume that they are coming in to the houses as their habitat is disappearing. My parents feed the birds all year round and during the week we stayed there we saw blue, coal and great tits as well as, for the first time for me, long tailed tits, which was a great surprise and delight! Blackcaps and treecreepers were other not so usual visitors as well as the usual robins, blackbirds, chaffinches. On one day a sparrowhawk visited and took a small bird; a buzzard came down to try and scavenge but some crows came along and chased it off! The dogs chased a deer along the river and we saw but the dogs missed a couple of deer on the rough ground beside the lad’s club rugby and football pitches.


Peter was surprised to see cormorants on the Don with their wings spread to dry.


Can anyone guess what this is? It looks like sea life but it’s nowhere near the sea!

December 28th 2006

We set off for skye a day early to have a leisurely drive with a stop off somewhere along the route.

Kingston, Garmouth near Mosstodloch. The Lein Nature Reserve.


Miles of pebble beach. The weather got milder and milder as we drove north along the coast. We made a little fire on the beach and went for a moonlight walk up to and beside the firing range. In the morning we walked for a couple of hours and collected some driftwood treasures and Peter found a length of good rope from a washed up lobster pot.


Peter’s art installation on the beach!!!!

Next stop Skye

1 comment:

commanderoftheobvious said...

No picture workyness? Huh? No fair.