Tuesday 31.08.2010

Last day of August and it`s Indian Summer: cold this morning but by the time friends and I were strolling round the woods by Scolty Hill at Banchory, really warm and remarkably still. Tonight cold again under a clear starlit sky. My favourite time of year ...if I had to choose.

Monday 30.08.2010

An hour round the woods this morning before work. Chill wind but no rain, just a sense of autumn speeding ever closer ever faster.

Saturday 28.08.2010

Large black clouds and sudden deluge as I drove up to Bennachie this afternoon after work. Thought I`d only have time to scuttle up and down Mither Tap before the next downpour but the weather held off and the legs were going well so dog and I stayed out on the hill for a couple of hours, up Mither Tap, across to Oxen Craig, back via Craigshannoch to Mither Tap.
Fresh wind kept the clouds skirling round and us moving briskly along: no idea of the distance but it`s a good afternoon`s stomp.

Thursday 26.08.2010

Morning walk before work: mushrooms, berries,lacy spiders`webs in the dewy grass and the smell of woodsmoke. Couldn`t have been many more signs of autumn.



Unexpected success with sunflowers this year: only two modest plants but never managed to keep them going before.

Tuesday 24.08.2010

Didn`t matter how late/wet/dark it was this evening, had to walk: nearly a week since I did and the reduced endorphin quotient makes me start to twitch.

(Completely sidetracked then by looking up endorphins: among other things I read:
"Chocolate is by far the most popular endorphin-producing food on earth. Known by the Greeks as the "food of the Gods," chocolate is derived from cacao beans that were revered by the Aztecs, who believed that eating chocolate would confer wisdom and vitality.")

So I could simply have sat at home and eaten chocolate? It can`t be that simple.

Anyway - walk we did, dog and I in the wet wild woods as the night drew in and the clouds spat rain at us. Endorphin levels stabilised but with the added benefit of pleasantly aching legs which I don`t usually get from chocolate.

Started reading Choice by Renata Salecl which I hope is going to be about how too much of it is bad for us because I`ve been banging on about this for a while and had it confirmed only the other day as I stood trying to choose an iron.

Saturday 21.08.2010

Three days off in a row but no walking, unless you count between the currant bushes and the stove. Purple hands and mouth, will have to make bread now.....stunningly clear, cool, still evening after a blustery warm day.......and a Harvest Moon to boot.

Wednesday 18.08.2010

A September day in mid August. Sparkly, dew-sodden grass and my feet and legs were drenched within five minutes of setting off this morning - wading through the shoulder high ferns was the equivalent of going through the car-wash. Dried out soon enough in the warm breeze.
As I shut a gate on my way up the hill a solitary yellow leaf fluttered to the ground and the birch and oaks are already beginning to turn.
But it was the clouds that drew the eye,layer upon layer, huge, white dollops on the horizon, thin and whispy overhead and, beneath them, white and grey puffballs moving across the sky, constantly changing shape.
Finished The Help. Excellent, thought-provoking read.