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.