In the Heartland

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Went out on the hill yesterday - the lazy way - in the Land Rover. I was planning to look for birds but spent most of the time looking at a fabulous selection of butterflies - Pearl Bordered Fritillaries, Brown Argus, Common Blue, Ringlet. The hillside was alive with them. I got a couple of decent photos even though I've loaned my favourite macro lens to a neighbour. He's photographing the Quadrathlon this weekend.

I had fabulous view along Loch Tay and enjoyed the quiet peacefulness. It was a bit grey and I knew a weather front would arrive overnight. It did, with heavy rain bringing today's overcast weather. I've promised a neighbour we will drop in at the local charity dog show so I hope it dries up before then.

posted by Colin 7:08 AM

Friday, June 29, 2007

Looks like another busy day. We've got friends coming tonight to stay for a couple of days. They're visiting the Game Fair at Scone for a couple of days. I hope the weather holds dry.

I really must get some photographs this weekend. I'm tempted to head to the game fair too, perhaps tomorrow.

posted by Colin 9:18 AM

Sunday, June 24, 2007

It's been a very strange weekend. How do I sum it up? Good and bad. The good stuff: family visiting and lots of laughs, three days off, Guinness. The bad stuff: Rain and storms, Lightning, busted laptop, broadband broken, router modem blown, more rain - and no photographs - it's just been too wet.

Took my sister out to drive our new Land Rover. Good fun. She coped well. I took the camera along but didn't get any photographs. (It took this one at the old sheep fold last weekend.)

It's rained a lot recently. I got a good photograph of Alan at the neolithic rock shelter. It rained so heavily we had to seek refuge under the shelter. I guess that's why people used it a couple of thousand years ago.

Tomorrow looks to be dry and we have friends coming for lunch. I hope I can get some time with the camera.

posted by Colin 8:56 PM

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Looks like its going to be a nice day. I need to head out with my camera and get some cold fresh air. I'm not sure whether to walk from the house or to drive somewhere else. Decisions, decisions....

posted by Colin 8:01 AM

Saturday, January 13, 2007

This is my first post with "New" Blogger. Goodness knows if this will work. Here we go...

posted by Colin 8:48 AM

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Dog in the View
Originally uploaded by Lyonheart.

We walked the dogs by the river in the cold spring air. The sun shone and the dogs played. I raised my camera to capture the scene. That was a cue to the dog to run into the puddle and scatter the reflection.

posted by Colin 8:36 AM

Saturday, January 28, 2006

I love the smell of porridge in the morning...

Yep, I'm back. What's my excuse? I've been diverted. Since Christmas I've spent most of my spare time working on a web site for a local history society that we're forming. It will be The Glenlyon History Society.

And, yes, Christmas was good. Food worked out really well. Weather was cold, frosty, and then snowy. So, no complaints there.

It's cold and damp this morning. We've got nothing planned for the day so I'll probably spend some time outside and a little on the history project. We're off to a friends for a Burns supper this evening. Sounds like a good day to me.

posted by Colin 7:12 AM

Saturday, December 24, 2005

On the Road at Invervar
Originally uploaded by Lyonheart.

Going sledging, Christmas 2004.

posted by Colin 7:58 AM

It's clear and mild for this Christmas Eve. No snow this year.

We're pretty organised. Mum and sister are coming - and the boys too.

The food is organised and the fridge is full. No turkey this year. Our Christmas dinner menu is:

Confit of Duck
Basil and Lime Sorbet
Chateubriand (Roast fillet of beef)
Toasted Oatmeal Ice Cream with preseved Raspberries

Everyone should be here by late afternoon - there's not much more to do. Except relax.

posted by Colin 7:50 AM

Friday, December 23, 2005

It seemed a long journey to London last week. My flight broke down before take-off and a replacement plane had to be organised. So I abandoned the journey down in the morning and flew down in the evening.

On the way to the airport at 5am, on very icy roads, we found a car upside down in a ditch. There was no sign of any police activity or notices so I felt obliged to stop and check. Using a torch in the darkness I was relieved to find that the car was empty. Further down the road one very suicidal deer came inches close to being roast venison. And after the failed flight we met a neighbour who had crashed his car through a fence courtesy of the black ice. Nobody hurt so that's not so bad.

The real question I had at the end of the day is - why is there no grafitti on planes?

posted by Colin 8:59 AM

Sunday, December 18, 2005

It's been moonlit weekend. The thin snow on the ground has exagerated the affect of the brightest full moon for twenty years. I woke at two am and had an almost overwhelming urge to go out and wander around in the magical blue light. As say almost overwhelming - because I went back to bed.

posted by Colin 4:56 PM

Friday, December 16, 2005

"Dundee Man had Drugs Worth £3,384" - that was the headline in a local paper. How on earth can the police be so accurate. Surely it should have been about £3,000 or something similar. Is there a price of drugs to the penny? I don't think so.

posted by Colin 8:55 AM

Thursday, December 15, 2005

The new alarm clock had to go. It was very annoying. Everything was find until th morning came. The alarm went off and then....

The snooze button on top quickly silenced the alarm. But to switch the alarm off involved pressing a button on the back to change the mode. And the to press a diferent button twice. This was a problem because - the buttons are on the back and yu can't see which is which; the labels can't be read in the dark; there are four buttons and the two used are not adjacent; and worst of all they beeped every time they were pressed. So there were a minimum of three beeps just to switch the alarm off.

Who designs this stuff?

We returned it to the shop. The quest continues...

posted by Colin 7:02 AM

Monday, December 12, 2005

The day should be clear and sunny but it looks like it will be dull and grey. It's not clouds it's a fire to the north east of London. We could see the dark grey smoke drifting over the city yesterday. They say the fire could burn for days.

posted by Colin 7:01 AM

Friday, December 09, 2005

It's a foggy London morning. The Thames is invisible in the grey soup. We're spending the weekend in London, let's hope the weather is fine.

We hope to finish the bulk of our Christmas shopping. But we need to be careful to fit in the right amount of relaxing too.

posted by Colin 6:10 AM

Thursday, December 08, 2005

I finally got a new alarm clock. No annoying beeps. And it sets itself from the radio time signal broadcast from Rugby. Not bad for £10.

posted by Colin 8:03 PM

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Rhododendron Flowers
Originally uploaded by Lyonheart.

Here's a picture of Rhododendrons in our garden, in spring, to brighten our day a little.

posted by Colin 7:36 AM

My alarm clock is broken. I need to buy a new one. So I went to the shop last night to look at some that I had seen on their web site.

I picked out one that I liked. Digital with a dot matrix like display. One key feature that it must have is a light. Being LCD based this one had a backlight. A large button on top doubled as the snooze button and put the backlight on for two seconds. Ideal. There was one problem. It beeped.

So I looked for a button on the back that would stop the sound. None to be found. I opened the box behind and took the instructions out and read them. I noticed somebody staring at me - because nobody reads the instructions, even when they've bought one. But I there was no way of silencing the button.

What on earth was the designer thinking of. He or she is obviously single. Anytime you wanted to look at the time in the middle of the night there would be a loud beep. Followed by the sleepy question - "Huh...what was that?" - "Just me looking at the time..."

I gave up in frustration and wonder.

posted by Colin 7:26 AM

Sunday, December 04, 2005

All you Scots out there should get voting for your favourite Scots poem. Not sure what my vote will be yet.

It's grey again today. Wet and dull and damp.

I'm planning to make Confit of Duck for Christmas. The duck legs have been in salt overnight and I'll cook them today. Covered in goose fat they will easily keep till Christmas. They need a few weeks to develop their flavour properly.

Despite the wet weather there's still plenty of snow on the hills. It look like we might have good snow cover for some mountain walking at Christmas if this keeps up.

posted by Colin 8:59 AM

Friday, December 02, 2005

Zabriskie Point
Originally uploaded by Lyonheart.

It's such a dull dark day today. I thought a bit of sunshine would cheer us up. This photograph was taken at Zabriskie Point, at the edge of the Funeral mountains in Death Valley...

posted by Colin 3:52 PM

If you like poetry and find it hard to read then try the new Poetry Archive. It has recordings of poets reading their own work. For Scots poems you could try MacDiarmid reading The Watergaw. Or George Mackay Brown's Hamnavoe. But there are many more - Heaney, and Yeats. Explore, listen and enjoy.

posted by Colin 9:06 AM

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Every so often you come across a news story and you think - no, that can't be true - but it is. It seems that if you are a woman in Brazil and you are locked up in prison then you can enter the Miss Penitentiary competition. It's a Miss World competition but for jailbirds. Beats sewing mailbags I guess.

Yesterday we managed to avoid doing anything, well of a chore nature. I hope we can achieve the same today.

posted by Colin 8:32 AM

Saturday, November 26, 2005

We've had a well earned relaxing day. This morning I made scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. Fabulous. Locally caught wild salmon and local farm eggs on toast made with home made bread. (Toast from home made bread is definitely streets ahead of the bought stuff.)

We watched the Scotland and New Zealand game this afternoon. Scotland were beaten but played much better than I've seen for a while. Good to see.

I watched a couple of Woodcock in the garden this afternoon. There have been Woodcock in the garden quite often recently. Nice to see them feeding in the soft ground. They are handsome bird and very well camouflaged.

posted by Colin 10:27 PM

Just in case this passed you by the Japanese have made an amazing unmanned landing on an asteroid. They are collecting samples from the surface for analysis. Even more fantastic is they intend to bring them back to earth for analysis. The probe should get back in June 2007.

posted by Colin 9:10 AM

The sad news this week is that Alfred Anderson has died. The last surviving Scottish war veteran from the first world war and the last to have taken part in the famous unofficial Christmas truce. He was 109.

posted by Colin 8:58 AM

Yesterday was a strange day.

Winter has arrived. As we drove home on Thursday night the roads were white and ungritted. We got home to about three inches of snow.

On Friday morning we had to take Ross to the doctors. He broke his hand about a week ago and had a doctor's appointment. The snow was falling heavily and there was a good 6-8 inches as we drove out of the glen. It took me ages to excevate the car and the dogs loved playing in the snow and chasing snowballs. I was thouroughly soaked as the dry powdery snow seemed to get everywhere.

After the docs we then we had to head south to Perth for various things and planned to be back for late lunchtime.

Unfotunately we had an accident on the way back through Strathbraan. There were no other cars involved. We skidded on some slush and ice. Nobody was hurt but the Land Rover is a badly damaged on the side. So we had to wait to get recovered back to the garage - which meant returning to Perth. As we waited we saw a number of other cars wobble at the same point.

Once we got back to Perth we got a hire car to drive home again. This whole exercise adding about four hours onto our day.

During this time we missed a power cut of several hours at home, caused by snow and falling trees I think. Thankfully one of our neighbours was in and was able to do us a big favour by letting the dogs out.

Now the snow is melting and there's been rain. Outside is still fairly white with a few inches of sodden wet snow.

I have to commend Land Rover for their service. One phonecall to the Land Rover Assist service that comes with the car and they had arranged for us to be recovered and for a hire car to brought to the dealers for us and this is all paid for by them. We have the hire car for 48 hours. I need to phone my insurers this morning and give them the good news...

posted by Colin 7:40 AM

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Damn. Looks like heavy fog tomorrow. I predict travel delay. Never a good thing if you're on an early flight. There's nothing worse than hanging around in airports. C'set la vie.

posted by Colin 8:47 AM

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