Monday 10.02 2025

Not long back from a few days @ Celtic Connections which  always has a trick or two up its sleeve to surprise and delight. Two quite nostalgic gigs, one celebrating the music of David Crosby and the other The Band. A brilliant evening with the Bog Bodies which I`d only booked because of the name but they were excellent - fiery `heavy` folk sung with passion and humour. Highly recommend. Peatbog Faeries, again, but how ever many times you see them their gigs offer something new and Transatlantic Sessions as good as ever with the bonus appearance, unexpected to me,  of Loudon Wainwright. And I managed to fit in a viewing of A Complete Unknown*,  more nostalgia but a new take on a famous moment in musical history.

 Another raw, grey, still day - a particular kind of winter`s day. Yesterday was the same, the kind of light that brings out the lustre of the lichens and mosses, enhances all the different greens and browns. 

And the cold air seems to carry the smells more sharply too - of silage and muck being spread as well as grassy, earthy aromas that carry the suggestion, just the suggestion, of things beginning to come back to life

Poor old dogs struggle to go too far too often without suffering for it at the end of the day, although they`re always enthusiastic enough to set off, so we`ll keep it shorter today.

*https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11563598/

Friday 17/01/2024

 Bearing in mind we`re surely not finished with snow and ice, took the opportunity to head for Bennachie on a cool but fairly benevolent day.

Felt a long time since the last walk up here but as always it was worth it: deep breaths (quite a lot of deep breaths on the steeper bits) and I missed the dogs - both getting a bit old for some of these jaunts now. They`d do it OK, still jump up when their leads are rattled, but they`d be very very stiff by the end of the day. In dog years (do we believe in them?!) one has just turned 98 and the other will in August, the upside being that when they`re not walking or eating they`re sleeping so don`t need a lot of attention. Taking on younger dogs would - will, eventually 😉 - be a whole new ball game.

Anyway, cobwebs were blown away, the climb up and down was done in a respectable time and it`s sometimes just good to be reminded how lovely the world is.

 

Thursday 16.01.2025

 It is so rare that there is no movement of air at all on our hill that it can feel positively mystical when it happens, whether it be one of summer`s endless days or, as tonight, a mild January evening. When the sky puts on a proper show it only adds to the magic.

January has done its usual trick of stealthily arriving at its midpoint while the world has been shaking off the lethargy of the descent into the shortest, darkest days. At least it always seems to come as a pleasant surprise at this stage to realise that while the fireside has often been the best place to be, the days have been drawing out and the snowdrops are emerging.

The last three days have been remarkably mild but during the last few weeks we`ve endured the coldest temperatures of the winter so far, very very cold some days; blizzards; torrential rain and, for some, ensuing floods.

Last week the amount of snow we had left us virtually locked in - not just the depth of the snow but the extreme cold which made moving about - on foot or in vehicles - problematic. So, to avoid the deep snow in the woods, there more road walks, affording fabulous Winter Wonderland views or forays through the deep snow in the top field, a proper work out.

 

Yesterday almost all the snow had gone and the woods were once more accessible. Walking on solid ground again comes a relief as do the greens and browns and greys. Pure white is all very well but you can have too much of it.