We had to go to Bonar Bridge last week, so we left Fishnish on the 7.25am ferry. It was cold but it was beautiful and dry for most of the journey. Lovely to take that road from Drumnadrochit over the hills to Beauly. Saw a huge windfarm being erected on the hills above Bonar Bridge which was not there when we last went past, collecting Farmer from the Lochaline to Durness walk in 2010.
We encountered snow and sleet showers, with a dodgy windscreen wiper, stuck behind agricultural traffic on the A9. Daffodils, cherry blossom, tulips, lambs skipping - and wintery showers.
We enjoyed a better evening in Inverness (no wintery showers) with a walk along the river, a delicious meal, and a comfortable bed & breakfast. And we discovered the returned Three Graces and enjoyed a tweet or two with Matt Baker about them with a link to: http://sacrificialmaterials.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/marks-of-time-iv.html?m=1
Back home. Last days of the school holidays. And some fundraising in support of courageous haircutting in Dervaig Village Hall - delicious baking, raffles, bric a brac, good craic.
Good weather for a walk along the beach at Calgary, although we didn't ourselves.
Good weather for air drying the laundry.
Good weather for a bit of gardening. Gooseberry bushes showing no ill effects from the pruning they received in the winter.
Some winter frost damage on ancient pots.
A birch tree that hitched a ride with some raspberry plants from the garden where I grew up in Angus. Shieling in the background.
The rhubarb suffering from lack of rain/watering.
Seedlings planted out in the Keder.
The Aracona cockerel has finally called his hens together in the one flock. Hoping that the guests are not woken by him as early as we are.
One of the highlights of the trip was Farmer being asked in a shop in Inverness if he was from Treshnish?! Imagine his surprise. The enquirer was Murdo, who writes a shepherding blog from the Isle of Lewis and we have been in contact by email at times. He had recognised Farmer from photographs on our blog!
I love the small world we live in, and how connections like this arise. It was really nice to meet Murdo, to put a face to his name, even though it was only for a moment as we had to rush to get to Lochaline for the ferry. Murdo's lambing on Lewis is over already, ours is about to start. Because of Farmer's back operation last year, and his subsequent dependency on others for help, we delayed our lambing date so that Jamie could do the lambing on another farm before ours started. In usual years, we would have started by now.