Yesterday we had the privilege of going to see my son Will, graduate as 'BEng hon' in Automotive Engineering. He got a 1st which made it even better.
Starting out
5 hours ago
Random thoughts and nature notes with a bit of crafty stuff too
Yesterday we had the privilege of going to see my son Will, graduate as 'BEng hon' in Automotive Engineering. He got a 1st which made it even better.
I know...you need good eyesight to work this one out but I don't have a fancy camera! Not sure if this was a Buzzard or a Golden Eagle, it was pretty big and up in the mountains on the west coast of Scotland.
This too takes a bit of seeing, if you look right in the middle on top of the stones you will see a Ringed Plover, it helps if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it! Well I gave up the nature photography then and stuck to binoculars instead! Here's the list of birds and creatures seen during my holiday in Scotland and the Islands.
This little hand-made notice summed up the steepness of this hill and the seat is well placed! Worth it though because the view is amazing, over the Summer Isles.
If you are wondering where I have been over the past weeks, this is the answer...the Outer Hebrides...to those of you outside the UK they are a small chain of islands off the west coast of Scotland. We stayed on the Isle of Harris in this beautiful cottage in the first picture overlooking the loch. It was like stepping into another century, the people are charming and everyone waves as they pass you in their car or in their gardens and love to chat and pass the time of day with you. Sundays are still special and everyone goes to Church, there are no shops open, no Sunday papers (until Monday lunchtime!) no washing on lines and it is a real family day and a day of rest. It reminded me of when I was a child and I have decided I will keep to that in my own way now, I have slipped into the habit of popping to the shops anytime but it was so nice to have such a peaceful day.
This is an evening view over the loch from the cottage, we could see seals from here and plenty of birds too. We also saw dolphin.
One of the many lochs in North Harris, I think this was Loch Seaforth. As you can see we had amazing weather and sunsets that kept you outdoors every evening. Because the islands are so far north the sun does not set for long at this time of year and it never gets completely dark. In fact my husband found he could read a newspaper outdoors at 10 minutes past midnight, just about!
This sunset was taken looking over the Sound of Taransay, which if you watched the BBC's Castaway a few years back is where the folk were 'castaway'. This was the first week of a wonderful holiday which I hope we will repeat one day.
Today we had our Nurses Gala at the Palliative Care unit where I work. We set up some great stalls, jam made by one of the Mac Nurses, cakes to drool over.............
Tombola, I've never seen such a big tombola stall, manned by our amazing volunteers who put in so many hours both on the ward and for the Gala.
Tattyanne doing the BBQ, they tasted wonderful and I think she ran out of Burgers in the end! It was good to see her again, quite like old times. (She has moved on to pastures new during the last year)....but we keep in touch.
I spent nearly all day today doing the garden with my son. We got out there by 9.30.am and kept going until 5.00pm! We repainted the seat and table, cleared out some scruffy bits of the patio, dead-headed the roses, weeded and hoed.
When we sat down to have a break we had a go at racing two snails which we called George and Sid. George won but Sid was rubbish!
This is the pond which has a host of wildlife in it. The whole garden is a bit of a wild garden but I like it that way. It's typically English in that we put everything in closely and let it all spill over the path and grow into each other....and it is only a small patch but I have 23 rose bushes in it, nearly all old fashioned smelly ones and lots of Cranesbill too.
A couple of weeks ago whilst walking Wrecks the dog I came around the corner here in the graveyard and saw an adult fox with 4 cubs. The cubs were playing and rolling about and jumping on the smaller gravestones. Wrecks and I stood and watched and they seemed not to have seen us...of course I didn't have my camera with me!
Today 3 people in our Church were baptised in the sea, and it was a cold and rainy day. I'm not sure who was wettest, the baptism people or us stood on the beach! Mark was the first to declare his faith in Jesus and Ben (our Pastor) and Marks wife Rosie did the baptising. Now Rosie is a tiny little lady and the waves were buffeting her about, and prior to the service Rosie told me she "doesn't do cold!"
As you see it was a bit of a struggle with the waves and everything but Mark did go under!
After Mark two young girls were baptised, Chloe and Verity watched by everyone from the Church on the beach to great cheers when they came up out of the water. Before this we had all had a shared lunch back at the Church.
On the way back from the beach we stopped off to cheer my sons girlfriend on, in the 10k race, she's the girl in the grey T shirt getting soaked through. I think the rain was actually OK for them, it kept them cooler.
And now, at the end of the day the clouds have cleared and it's blue sky! So it was back to our house for a birthday tea for one of our son's. A busy day but really lovely too. Now...where's a darkened room I can lie down in !