A feeling of space...

At the back of our house there are 3 horses. You've seen the one I am riding, this is him coming for his breakfast yesterday. I was feeding them as HO (horse owner) was off competing on the 3rd. The view to the stables is from our garden and while it is in the process of being converted from a neglected and overgrown leisure garden to one that is a combination of usefulness and attractiveness.

The other bonus of our equine neighbours is that they produce lots of muck. I have been digging it out and barrowing it to the garden where Ralph has been digging over the new veg patch. Hard work!

The result is I am taking frequent rests, hence sitting here for half an hour on a balmy Monday morning...but now it's back to work!

This is the golf course.

Saturday afternoon., we pass the golf course on the way to the woods and there are a few people playing. It is a beautiful setting for a course and looks well maintained.
I can't ever see me playing golf, it looks horrendously difficult to put such a tiny ball in such a tiny hole at such a great distance.
My cousin plays endlessly and there is a man of 101 who still plays, proving that it must be good for your health I suppose.
Pip hates golf because she is scared by
the noise of the club hitting the club.
She also hates the shooting which is taking place at the moment (except Sundays when there is only the clay pigeon shoot.
Next weekend is Bonfire Night, so it gets worse.

There is every sports club you can wish for, a modern sports centre with a swimming pool with a climbing wall plus the outdoors as already described. There are classes in singing, dancing, Gaelic, European languages. There is live music in the hotel bars, talks and shows, the art group, the reading group and many more I have not yet discovered. These will come in useful when the dark evenings are upon us, starting from tomorrow.

Picture of a the commi chef.

When the man retires he has to take more responsibility for the
cooking. He had a couple of practices in Yorkshire, making the most
expensive and cholestrol filled meals and a cheesecake
which was delicious and labour intensive.
So he has not actually completed the 2 meals he started but at least did the prep and washing up, the boring bits.
So what else does a retired man get up to? Watch this space.

Look at me...back on horseback!

The wonderful horse is a dressage horse that lives on the Mossie behind our house and this is ME!! Riding him!!

Too late to post the pic...

I know I promies to pst a pic as evidence that Ralph made the dinner last night...sadly he only made it until 7pm then went to watch the news and I continued from there...

I did go for a ride today...only the 2nd time in 20 months and I felt ON TOP OF THE MOON...mostly because the horse is a lot taller than my usual cobs and ponies!

Up to the snow line...

The snow came down to 1000' and settled but yesterday there was a squall or two of snow right in our back garden!!

Walking up the smaller hill, you can see Ralph making slow progress up the steep bits, me and the dogs feeling the cold in the wind at the top, the view of Cairn Gorm in the snow and across Loch Morlich which we walked round later.

You may think that we do nothing except walk around this stunning landscape but of course we are busy in the garden, the workshop, still unpacking and still sorting out paperwork and for me, a lot of time is spent looking after my Dad who lives 2 minutes away in sheltered accommodation. I go every morning to take him his paper then every evening (well, I've missed 2 evenings in the nearly 7 weeks) I go and cook his dinner. Lucky Dad.

Tonight Ralph is cooking our dinner. Chicken with lemon and chilli broccoli. (recipe courtesy of the Guardian). See next post for photographic evidence of this activity.

Mountains and hills and wildcats.

We woke to a dull raining day and from the woods where I walk the dogs in the morning I could see the snow on the Cromdale Hills which are a the highest point only 722m...getting closer.

However at midday I went out on the hill at the back of the house and from there took the photo of the Cairngorms and the sun was out and the Beachan Woods looked beautiful.

These are mostly birch wood and Scots Pine that are there look incongrous.

The view taken from one hillock is of Grantown looking over to the Cromdale Hills where by this time the snow had gone.

We both went to a talk on the Wildcat which is a secretive animal so rarely spotted except on Autumn Watch and at the Kingussie Highland Wildlife Park. The programme of protecting the species includes neutering all tame cats as the cross breeding is the single biggest threat to their extinction. Look at http://www.highlandtiger.com/ for more information.

A weekend of sunshine.

The picture is early morning in the community woods that are the edge of Grantown, seperating it from the river. It is mostly Scots Pine and birch but there are pockets of beech that are just slowly turning to autumn gold.

The woods have paths winding through them and our preferred walk is through the woods to Cromdale and back along the river. It has been and "after feeding Dad" and "before feeding ourselves" walk, between 5 and 7pm.

Now there isn't enough daylight so we have shortened it but will soon have to start walking the afternoon.

Winter days are short here. How depressing that will feel after a couple of months, wehave yet to discover. Not working helps because all the daylight hours, even if there are only 5 of them can be spent out doors...(in the snow?)

Burghead Harbour.

Missing picture from last blog restored...plus another to fill the page.
It is a proper fishing town, no pleasure cruises here.

A walk by the sea.

The River Spey runs to the sea. The Moray Firth is a beautiful stretch of water that links the North Sea to Loch Ness. From Nairn to Banff it is silvery gold sand, nabks of startlingly varied pebbles and mostly deserted.

There are shore birds, dolphins, seals and even whales to be spotted and today there were 2 collies (as ever on my blog pictures). This time Ralph was with me as we walked the 14 mile round trip, through the woods and along the shore. It was warm and sunny and as you can see the views were stunning.

The 2nd picture above shows the start of the Moray Coastal Path from Findhorn which felt a little moon-like...maybe a bit like the top of Bleaklow with no rain.
The harbour is at Burghead...a real fishing boat coming in but sadly not a fish shop to be had. We ate a club sandwich in the pleasant "Bothy Cafe" (you can either eat in or eat oot, the sign stated).

Finally as we neared the end of our shore walk back, the sun was giving the shore this silver sheen on the wet sand. You can see Moss's reflection.

It's a definite plus living only 22 miles from the sea.

Tree felling...

Before...

After...

Spot the bird...

To follow on from the bird table post with the little Siskins, Tits and Chaffinches we now have the pictured cock Pheasant. He may eat the debris off the bird table bit one day he will be on our table!

This is to be taken lightly because it depends on Ralph actually finding all the parts to his air rifle and then actually taking aim and making contact!

Meanwhile our bold (in appearance and habit) bird friend lingers in and around the gardens of the neighbourhood and we can enjoy his wonderful colours and irritating call. No females around so it is much like Sandal Farm where we had a resident cock pheasant too.

Highland wildlife..well, some of them are.

Snowy Owl chick. Schreeches for his mum!

Siberian tiger...luckily not a native to Scotland. This is a tiger cub and weighs 140kg.

The Timber wolf...bit like Pip only hungrier!! Also no longer a native to the Highlands.

A Polish pony. responsible for caving in the bonnet of a car, not mine and I didn't take my new Skoda having heard the tale.

A Bison...um, from the States...

We did see the Scottish wildcat which looked like your ordinary moggie only with a fat striped tail and plenty of deer, also the Capercaillle which is a huge bird. The trouble is that these photos included their wire mesh so weren't very visable.

It was a lovely afternoon watching the animals in the nicest of enviroments in sunshine with the mountains a s a backdrop. The animals all looked at ease in large enclosures...only we didn't see the Red Panda, the beavers, the otters or the Elk.