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Author Archives: Don

Enfield at Large —

20 Apr

All that sunshine going to waste this evening – so out came the RE350 Classic ..

My Oxford Products Sports Pannier Bags fit just fine and don’t look out of place on the wee Enfield. I bought them almost twenty years ago for a trip to Dubrovnik on my XJR1300 – the first of many jaunts to the Balkans over the next few years —

This bridge over the River Almond where the bike was posing earlier this evening takes me even further back. It’s seventy seven years since I was picking tatties with my mum in a nearby field. I remember it as a wet boggy place and the poor Clydesdale horses would sink to their haunches trying to pull loaded carts in the mud.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2023 in out and about

 

Feels Like Home —

19 Apr

Yes at last 1HR is beginning to feel like home .. most of our cardboard boxes have been unpacked and we can see clear carpet underfoot instead of wading through clutter.

Our ospreys have also made themselves at home in the treetops just a couple of hundred yards away across the wheat field outside our door. Yesterday we watched the aggressive male osprey drive off a red kite that got too close to the nest in a display of ariel combat against the blue skies that had to be seen to be believed.

There are still deer around and Helen invariably comes close to a few while on her early morning walks with Loki. The roe are their usual skittish selves but the red deer treat the forest as their home and are as curious about Helen and her dog as they are about the deer. Loki takes it all in his stride as if born to it, which in effect he was with his first two years or so spent on the Isle of Luing before three years as a ‘townie’ in Comrie. There is no doubt he appreciates being back in the wild as much as we do.

We are to be connected to basic ‘slow speed’ internet tomorrow, or the next day, so there’s every chance I will be blogging again soon.

Cheers for now – Don 🤠👍

Thanks are due to Helen for the pics taken on her morning walk with Loki —

 
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Posted by on April 19, 2023 in out and about

 

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Cherry Blossom Time —

10 Apr

While her son Sam lives in an ocean of cherry blossom where he is a University Professor in Japan —

Helen makes do with a solitary little cherry tree in full bloom outside the East Gate of Dollar Academy on our walk yesterday — 😉

 
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Posted by on April 10, 2023 in out and about

 

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Easter Sunday —

09 Apr

It has been a tough couple of months with everything that’s been thrown at us – but – today we managed to put all the shit to one side and went out for the day.

Just the two of us —

doing simple things —

sumthin old – something new —

What’s not to love xxx

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2023 in out and about

 

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Ospreys are Go —

07 Apr

Our new home is full of surprises – not only do we live in the middle of a wheat field – but we share our field with a pair of ospreys. Up till now we have watched them prepare their nest in the treetops and pose on the bare upper branches of a neighbouring pine but I had never seen them fly until today. As I was returning to my kip with my first tea n toast of the morning – one of them flew past my window towards the river. It returned shortly afterwards looking laboured but my bleary eyes couldn’t tell if it was carrying a fish or not.

No worries – I hope to be better prepared next time 😉

Quick edit – I should have known – she who knows best was outside getting dog ready for his morning walk and saw the osprey flypast with a large twig/small tree in his beak – obviously to carry out some running repairs on their nest 🤠👍

 
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Posted by on April 7, 2023 in out and about

 

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A New Home With a View —

03 Apr

and what a view —

We have moved twenty miles east and are looking south over another part of the River Earn valley to the Ochil Hills.

Magic! 👍

 
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Posted by on April 3, 2023 in out and about

 

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Counting Sheep —

03 Apr

hasn’t really helped me sleep these past two months and there has been many a night spent tossing and turning while house-hunting and everything that goes with it.

Been living on adrenaline throughout with the downside being that when everything is sorted – as it was the last day of March – I was surprised to find that without the adrenaline driving me on I became zombified for a couple of days.

The third day had me back to normal. It helped that it has been brilliant sunshine all day. I’ve managed to sort the Rates out and I’m fairly convinced that we will have internet of sorts at our new abode within the next fortnight. Not the ‘full fat’ high speed fibre optic that the whole world craves but it should be slightly better than nothing.

So – out came the bike —

and so did the bloody sheep —

All one hundred and ten of them!

No worries – it was real nice to be doing sumthin normal for a change 🤠

 
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Posted by on April 3, 2023 in out and about

 

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Loki says —

29 Mar

‘Where’s MY lifejacket dad?’

 
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Posted by on March 29, 2023 in out and about

 

Poor Seamus —

21 Mar

gets a welcome ‘ere ear —

I had the bright idea that after a week based indoors that Seamus would be ready for a night out fastened in Loki’s kennel where he could see and hear what was going on around him but be safe from nocturnal prowlers.

About 4.00am I heard him howling from below my window and brought him indoors where his main interest appeared to be ‘gimme food!’

Closer inspection on returning from her morning walk by ‘she who knows best’ showed a badly torn ear to add to his catalogue of scars!

I guess he had fallen asleep with his head against the wire grill and a passing native said ‘Hello’ with a sharp claw!

🤔😳

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2023 in out and about

 

Birthday Boy —

21 Mar

81 today ..

I’ve got the key of the door of our new home and while I am having a well earned rest from actively flitting today —

Helen is off on her early morning walk with Loki —

A few pics – south towards the Ochil Hills – sou-west towards Stirling and west towards Ben Vorlich —

We are in a beautiful part of Perthshire —

If I ever get time to look at it – still got lots to do 🤠👍

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2023 in out and about

 
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