Sunday 31.03.2019

When we first arrived on this hill, thirty years ago to the month, I thought the wind must never stop blowing, so long did it persist for those first few weeks. But it does of course. And you get Spring mornings like these: frost on the ground, sparkling in the sunshine, fresh, crisp, magically still air filled with birdsong and the trees poised to burst into leaf, almost as if they`re biding their time for the right moment.

Thursday 28.3.2019

Quarter to nine and a perfect Spring morning: fresh but not cold, warm sun, blue sky, high white wispy clouds,the works. And it was all about the bird song: hardly dawn chorus at that time of the day but it echoed round the woods as if they`d started when the sun came up and weren`t about to stop any time soon. Over freshly ploughed fields, lapwings tumbled and larks soared skywards and it seems a real shame that the forecast is for it to get cold again next week! :(

Saturday 25.03.2019

Biting, heart-attack wind sweeping in squalls of rain, sleet and hail. We scuttled up the hill to get into the shelter of the woods but even here the trees thrashed about,the trunks groaning and moaning as they swayed backwards and forwards,the branches shushing and whooshing furiously. Shut your eyes you could imagine the surf was up.


And in between out crept the sun, whispering promises of warmth and longer days and casting beautiful light and shadow

before scuttling away again in the face of the next onslaught of icy furies.





In other news, some good gigs at Aberdeen Jazz Festival: www.aberdeenjazzfestival.com
Nubiyan Twist
Red Hot Rhythm Makers
Queens of the Blues
Kris Dollimore
Gerry Jablonski Electric Band

and we finally made it to our first ever gig at The Tin Hut at Gartly,a small community hall out in the sticks that has built up a reputation for attracting good music and last night it was the very entertaining Thunder and Rain (https://thunderandrainmusic.com

An antidote to the current farrago out in the big wide world but at least there are a few honourable people left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8oWrF2CXF8

AND he plants trees!

Tuesday 19.03.2019

Spring Equinox tomorrow and setting off at around 10 past 4 this afternoon felt like the first "longer day" walk, returning an hour or so later, not exactly in the gloaming but in a beautiful evening light as the setting sun briefly appeared between the clouds and the horizon.

In four days we`ve gone from this

to this, less than 48 hours later,

and then tonight a pearly grey sky, tranquillity and bird song, a delicious freshness in the air, tumbling peewits and soaring skylarks: could have simply kept on walking into the far distance...........

Monday 11.3.2019

"Changeable" the man on the box just said and it certainly has been - isn`t that what March is supposed to be?
Yesterday, a raw, bitter wind straight out of the east and flecked with snow had us scuttling up the hill for the shelter of the woods.
Later it snowed in earnest, the sky darkening in the early afternoon, and we`d clearly had the best of the day.

By this morning the snow had stopped falling and the sun blazed out of a clear blue sky across a white landscape, the wind still snapping at our ears but not enough to deter the recently returned lapwings tumbling across the fields.

Smaller birds in the woods were noisily marking out territory, while back in the garden a foursome of bullfinches acrobatically explored the trees for food and a pair of sparrows were living up to their reputation, as cited by Chaucer, of being "hot... and lecherous" as they chased each other around enthusiastically.

Despite the cold and snow Spring has obviously well and truly Sprung - in some quarters anyway.


In other news - KT Tunstall gig on Friday night at the Aberdeen Music Hall absolutely brilliant.