A bonus blue sky moment

So Gail was doing a good job managing expectations as she drove me across to the Torridon cottage on Friday morning.

"Now Bertie, I'm afraid we might not achieve any but the shortest of walks this weekend. I checked the weather forecast and it's promising non-stop heavy rain and strong winds for the next few days."

The ground and everything else was sodden when we arrived, and Gail's attempts to keep me out of the mud were, of course, unsuccessful.

But by Saturday lunchtime the rain had subsided and I even thought I could detect 'glimpses of brightness' (a phrase much favoured by optimistic outdoor enthusiasts in Scotland) between the clouds.

I waited patiently outside the Torridon Stores while Gail enjoyed a coffee and a chinwag about former colleagues with the owner Jo.

(Gail's always telling me how a quarter of a century ago she and Jo both used to work for the same company, located on Trafalgar Square, between Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross, but frankly I find that hard to believe.)

The weather gods smiled on my patience and, with Gail duly re-caffeinated, we enjoyed a bonus blue sky moment, all the sweeter for being unanticipated, as we traversed the gentle 1.5 mile circuit around the head of the loch.

Happy New Year from Ballochbuie Forest

Bertie and Gail wish all our friends a Happy New Year!

May your 2020 be full of beauty, peace and tranquillity, like an ancient Caledonian pinewood bathed in soft mid-winter sunshine. 

(Not for us, the mayhem of the Edinburgh Hogmanay celebration!) 

Romping in the Aberdeenshire hills

Are we too late for the LLB Gang's Nature Friday?

You won't believe this but today we actually had sunshine almost all day!

And it was even (sort of) warm...

In Scotland one learns to seize the moment, and so Gail took me for a long walk in the hills. We did the Pressendye circuit - nine miles, and wonderful views the whole way round.

It rather goes against my principles, but Gail is insisting that for once I let the pictures do the talking...

 

 

Happy Nature Friday friends!

Poodle cousins disappointed?

Oh dear, I do feel bad. I'm afraid I have failed to deliver on my promise to my poodle cousins Percy and Coco.

You see when I heard they were coming to visit Aberdeen for the first time, I told them we'd go to beach and there we would enjoy opportunities galore for daubing ourselves in the most exotic of seaside perfumes.

Well yesterday morning we searched high and low along the shoreline of the City Beach, but detected not a whiff of eviscerated seal, nor a feather of way past its sell-by date herring gull.





Even worse, after a while, Percy, who is not only HUGE but can also be ever so slightly patronising, said this to me: "Bertie lad, are you sure this really is the Aberdeen in North East Scotland, where it is supposed to always cold, wet, windy and dark at this time of year? How come the humans are enjoying morning coffee sitting outside at a café facing the North Sea? I do believe they are not even wearing their thermals. And their hands have not turned blue. Perhaps you are confused about your geography."

I did my best to reply in civil tones.

"Percy, old chap, you have been misled. It's always beach weather in Aberdeen in November..."

Even in Scotland...

 On a sunny May day...

When climbing a hill...

One can get quite thirsty... 

Glug, glug, glug...

Phew, that's better.

Did you go for a nice walk this weekend?

That short precious while

You who live in sunny climes
Might think you have the best of times;
I beg to disagree.

If every day the skies are blue,
No clouds obscure the dazzling view,
There’s scant variety.

You’ll never feel the deep delight,
When dour grey turns to dazzling bright
For a short precious while.

The sense that duties, cares and grief
Can be forgot. And to the beach,
To run and bounce and smile!

(Verse inspired by an outing to St Combs, near Fraserburgh in the very far NE of Scotland, last Sunday.)

P.S. Bouncing Bertie Boffin here: Please do look out for my post on Thursday, when I shall be announcing a brand new and exciting science-related competition. Oh. Gail is disputing my description here, saying any connection with science is "tenuous at best". It is rather, (she claims),  "yet another invitation to all your doggie friends to poke fun in public at their human carers". I bet you can't wait...

Searching for snow

Gail promised me we'd find some snow on our Sunday walk at Glen Tanar.

Things didn't look too promising at the Visitor Centre.

And those hills covered in white looked very far off.


So we trudged through an awful lot of this…


Before eventually coming across a small patch of this…


Then it was a long walk back through more of this...


And finally, after ten mostly muddy miles, I got dumped in this….