Birds, Music and Late Nights

In the last two weeks, on the beautiful, sunny clear days, I have been very aware of all the birds around.  Nothing hugely exciting to attract the attention of a real bird watcher but they do fascinate me.  The oystercatchers dabbling along the water’s edge, the inevitable seagulls, the occasional curlew (although they seem to prefer a sandy beach rather than our rocky shoreline) – these are spotted on a daily basis.  It is still startling to be walking home late at night in the dark and suddenly notice the ethereal form of a heron stalking and fishing along the edge of the sea.  Last week there were two about twenty yards apart.

Turnstones

I am always pleased when I manage to spot some turnstones as they are so well camouflaged.  Colin’s photograph shows them quite clearly, but normally I see them by looking down from the path above when they can only be spotted by movement.  The turnstones are only about half the size of the oystercatchers but not nearly so glamorous or noisy.  The swans swim past regularly and can look quite dramatic when seen by moonlight.  The garden birds continue to visit the feeders – loads of chaffinches, a few great tits and coaltits, but so far few sparrows or bluetits.  Hope they have survived this long cold winter.

On Wednesday and Thursday when the rest of Scotland was being buried in heavy snowfalls, here at sea level we had 48 hours of horrid, torrential, horizontal sleet – not pleasant.  On Thursday I ventured up to Glasgow for a concert only to find the musicians were snow bound in Crieff.  A huge vote of thanks must go to Westbourne Music, the promoters of the concerts who managed to find alternative musicians at two hours notice.

And what a superb concert it was.  We were privileged to see a 20 minute concert version of La Boheme by Scottish Opera’s Education Unit – a harp, cello, soprano and delightful, charismatic narrator.  The latter nearly reduced the audience to tears when she told us of the death of Mimi.  The second half of the concert was two classical guitar students from RSAMD – such confidence and virtuosity from two charming young men.  The audience unanimously felt we had in no way been cheated by having this ‘ad hoc’ concert in place of the advertised programme.

Late Nights aka the Winter Olympics

While the ladies and mens curling teams were still in the competition I wasn’t getting to bed until after one o’clock in the morning.  Self inflicted morning sleepiness was small price to pay for all the excitement.  Sadly there were to be no medals this year – both teams played far too inconsistently to succeed.  I didn’t watch much of the other sports but did stumble across the wacky fun of skicross – not certain that is the correct name.  If you missed this it involved four competitors all skiing a course at the same time in direct competition with each other rather than individual timed runs.  It was fun and exciting to watch.  The four would shoot out of the starting gate and negotiate terrifyingly steep mini ski jump ramps and then have sections of more traditional looking downhill runs where there were opportunities to overtake each other.  It did remind me of the old TV programmes of Its a Knockout and Jeux Sans Frontiers – you’ll need to be a certain age to remember them.  I shouldn’t mock – it probably takes a great deal of courage and skill to take part.

Tree Planting

We had another successful trip to McLaren’s Nursery on Tuesday.  Yesterday was a glorious day and I spent a large part of it in the garden undertaking the main task of planting the two baby trees.  They had to be small, partly for the situation they will be living in but mainly because they had to fit into the car to get them here.

The Stakes are Bigger than the Tree trunks!

I’m looking forward to spring to see what the Kilmarnock Willow and Ornamental Cherry (Kojo-no-mai) look like with more than two withered leaves each.  I also added some bulbs.  Everything I planted a few months ago is looking healthy and well settled and hopefully will come through the winter with flying colours.

The Beech Hedge

The beech hedge, although still very small seems to be well established.   The autumn colours are beginning to show and it is getting easier to imagine how it will look in a few years time.  At the moment the ‘stockade’ fence still dominates.

I have also used the broken chunks of slate to make a stepping stone path leading up through the gate.  The slate was uncovered by the digger driver when he was turning over the big border for me.  There was so much rubbish in the border, including great quantities of broken glass, that it wasn’t totally unexpected.  I’m not sure what the slate had been used for – perhaps the roof of an outbuilding.

Recycled Path

Over the last few weeks I have been making some further enquiries as to the history of the house.  I still can’t quite pin down when exactly it was built.  Copies of documents from the Land Registry show the land being sold by the Marquis of Bute in 1828 and I am more inclined to thinking that perhaps there was an earlier house on the site before the present one was built about 1851 – no proof though.

Colin continues with his Mr Fixit ‘hobby’.  Since completing the insulation work in the attic he has become a joiner and has nearly finished putting smart wooden edges to the four skylight windows and fitting blinds to them.

The last photograph today is a ‘belt and braces’ hopeful deterrent to terminators.  We are fairly confident that they no longer come from the top of the garden because of the ‘stockade’ fence and there has been no evidence of them in my part since the latch was mended on the front gate.  This Heath Robinson barrier is just there to gently persuade the deer to go elsewhere for a snack.  No way will it stop them as they would clear it in one little hop.  Still, it makes me feel better.  The great stones are there to stop the chairs from taking off for Ettrick Bay.

Not Quite a Stockade Fence

Writer’s Block?

No, not really.  I did consider using that as my excuse for such a long gap since my last post but I have to be honest and say there is no real reason for my recent silence – just never quite got around to writing – apologies anyway.

In the last ten days Rothesay has had that distinct ‘closing down for the winter’ atmosphere we first noticed at this time last year.  The visitors have dwindled to a trickle although those here today are enjoying some really beautiful autumn weather.  It is very still, with bright sunshine and the clarity of the air is sparkling.  The hills across in Cowal and round above Ardbeg are glowing, with the sun turning the dying bracken to gold, and the leaf colour on the trees goes through every shade of russet, red, gold and brown imaginable.

Another sign of impending winter is the start up of all the clubs, societies and organisations.  My first outing was to the Ballianly Women’s Rural Institute last Monday.  I still can’t quite believe that having been a city girl for six decades  I can get such pleasure from this group.  It is probably the ‘community’ aspect which attracts me.  This first meeting of the season was a very jolly time with two of the members demonstrating their skills.  One very elderly lady showed off her embroidery, and then another member made chocolate truffles – eat your heart out Nigella.  The thing I like best is the very funny banter going on between the speaker and the audience.  Perhaps not very sophisticated but a great deal of simple fun.

Last week also saw the first meeting of the North Bute Literary Society – I learnt a lot about Sir Edward Elgar I would never have been bothered to find out about elsewhere.  All helps to keep the little grey cells firing.

Colin has finished all his marathon insulating work up in the roof space and around the attic room.  It is a very impressive piece of work and hopefully should make a measurable difference to our comfort and fuel bills.  He has already launched into his next project – giving the edges around the skylight windows a proper finish.  We also hope to find time in the next couple of weeks to get two small trees for the big new border.  That will mean another trip to the wonderful Mclaren’s Nursery on the mainland to look forward to.

The deer have been frequent visitors to their part of the garden.  They seem to come two or three times a day for a few days and then disappear for weeks on end.  At long last the blacksmith came last week and fitted a new latch on the front gate.  If I can trust that the deer don’t know how to work this I might be tempted to try planting up the big tubs with some winter pansies and bulbs.

Four Legged Visitors

Yes, you guessed  -  my ‘friends’ the deer came round for elevenses yesterday morning, and had such a good time that they called in again for supper.

Which of us is 'behind the fence'?

Colin took the photographs from over the wall at the very top of the garden.  The back of the house and Rothesay Bay are just behind me.  The deer are really very pretty, delicate looking creatures and I will happily live with them as long as they continue to obey the rules.  They can have freedom to roam in the ‘deer park’ and I will continue to have sole use of my half of the garden.

The Terminator posing

Looking at these photographs you could be forgiven for thinking that we live in the wild countryside.  We don’t – Rothesay is a sizeable town and to come down from the hillside these cheeky deer come through the woods, past two rows of houses and across a road.  They come into the ‘grazing’ area two houses along from us where there is no back fence and then easily clear the two intervening walls to reach our lush grass.

Exit through the rhubarb patch

I really hadn’t expected to see the deer at eleven o’clock in the morning as mostly they come early in the morning but it was even more unusual to have them return about five in the afternoon.  In between we were out harvesting our apple crop.  We picked 13 pounds of apples which is a minor problem as they don’t keep very well.  They are a quite tart eating apple, a bit like a Cox’s Pippin.  I spent a long time experimenting with the microwave trying to dry apple slices.  Not very successful so I am bagging them up to distribute among friends and neighbours.

Snippets of News

Because of all the recent excitement of tractors and elegant boats some of the more ordinary happenings of our life have been missing from recent blogs.  The first item may be ‘ordinary’ but can be better classified as very, very infuriating – you can probably guess it has something to do with deer!!!

Over the last two weeks, since we had the mini digger in the garden, I have put considerable time and effort into preparing the new large bed for planting.  I have dug it over completely, breaking and mixing in the largest lumps of manure and removing a huge quantity of large rocks and a frightening amount of broken glass.  There is something strangely therapeutic about a spot of muck spreading.  Last week we took a trip to the mainland to a wonderful plant nursery near Lugton in Ayrshire.  I managed to overcome my feelings of being overwhelmed by choice and bought a carload of shrubs as the beginnings of my planned planting scheme.  At the same time I couldn’t resist the bargain of some very cut price bedding plants.  On Saturday I duly installed the latter into the three large pots at the front of the house and yesterday I started the exciting task of planting the shrubs in the big border.  This morning at breakfast Colin gently advised that I should keep calm when I went outside.

Every flower head had been neatly removed from the begonias in the pots and my beautiful huge red geranium flowers had also gone.  Very upsetting, but at first Colin said he thought the culprits hadn’t gone round the side of the house into the back garden.  Sadly on further inspection there were tell tale hoof prints in the newly dug border and a beautiful purple leaved heuchera had received a severe pruning.  This was the only one of the eleven shrubs / plants to be damaged but it did give me a wake up call.  I had become complaisant in my love / hate relationship with the terminators and now realise that they are very discerning and will only eat expensive plants.  So war is yet again declared.  By lunchtime the wrought iron front gate was back on its hinges with a temporary catch made of a bit of dowelling and some insulating tape – we need a blacksmith to repair it properly, and Colin is contemplating how to put a gate in the pathway between the house and the side garden wall.  Open plan, alfresco dining arrangements for deer are hopefully soon going to be thing of the past.

Moving on to the much more cheerful topic of the Wedding of the Year – Keith and Nicky have done a fantastic job in arranging not only a wedding but also a reception / farewell party in the incredibly short space of five weeks.  The ceremony itself , in Park Circus, the Glasgow Registrar’s Office, will be followed by a meal for the family and close friends attending.  Then, in true celebrity style, there will be a further celebration 12 days later with a party for over a hundred guests.  I am hoping that the world publicity rights have not been sold to Hello or OK but will remain with lochielbute.wordpress. com – the fee will be a modest extra glass of champagne.  My outfit is nearly complete – a trip to Glasgow tomorrow to buy a feathery ‘thingy’ for my hair is all that is required.  I went into the florist here in Rothesay to order buttonhole flowers.  As well as being asked the standard questions about colours etc I was also questioned on what boat I was going for on the day of the wedding – not a regular question in Edinburgh florists.

Rothesay has been very busy with all the holidaymakers.  It is Glasgow Fair fortnight and unfortunately in equally traditional fashion the weather has broken.  We had nearly eight weeks of warm, almost completely dry, sunny conditions but now we are back into the more normal ‘changeable’ pattern.  At least the midgies have not been a major problem.  Some days there seems to be more passing traffic on the water than there is on the road in front of us – sheer bliss.

In case I am creating a wrong impression here – our life is not totally hedonistic, we do have to do the shopping, cooking, laundry, ironing and even an occasional hoover and dust, but it all seems easier when I just have to raise my eyes and my magnificent view is still there.

What Every Garden Should Have

Creating the new border

It is a very big border and would have taken me a couple of years to dig over, so a friendly digger driver was drafted in to do the needful.  A foot deep layer of dung was spread over the ground first. Then the pungent offering and about a foot of the compacted soil which has been under the plastic sheeting for up to 15 years was all mixed together.  It was just a mini digger but the skill of the driver was impressive none the less.  Both Colin and I were itching to have a shot, but for the safety of the wall it was probably best we weren’t let loose with this ultimate in gardening toys.

Now it is all down to me to design a mixed shrub and herbaceous border, buy the plants and get them safely planted.  This is the exciting part and I hope to get started next week.  At the top of the top photograph you can just see our nascent beech hedge.  It has established really well and seems to have survived the attack of wooly aphids a few weeks ago.  I saw the terminator this morning, grazing in the ‘deer park’ ie on her side of the fence/hedge.  There has been no sign of the deer in my share of the garden – the herbs in their pots have only been nibbled by the snails!

Birds

Where do oystercatchers go in summer? There is only an occasional lone specimen to be seen on my morning walk.  For the first time I have seen baby seagulls.  The first sighting was a lone befuddled fledgling wandering pathetically amongst the parked cars in Rothesay.  I am no expert but I had a feeling it had left, or fallen from, a rooftop nest just a bit too early – his feet were too big.  The second sighting was when driving through Glasgow.  On a corrugated factory roof about 30 seagulls were perched, about half of them strange looking fluffy chicks.  The youngsters were nearly as large as the adults but covered in browny grey down.  These made quite a contrast to the flocks of tiny sparrow and coal tit fledglings who are swarming and bickering over the seed and fat balls feeders in the garden.  Colin is waging war with a very intelligent crow who persists in finding solutions to his ever increasingly ingenious ways of fastening the fat ball feeder to the bird table.  I get the feeling they are both enjoying this game.

Gardening and Archeology

In the last ten days we have done quite a bit in the garden.  Colin helped me and we tackled the overgrown wall/hedge at the very top of the garden.  This is where Fauldtrees Road does a right angled bend and, the same as  down the long side wall, there is no pavement, just a shallow ditch.  This was quite silted up with vegetation debris and our trees and shrubs (and weeds) were making a successful take over bid.  So we played at being council roadmen crossed with jungle explorers for a morning and made a considerable difference.  It took three trips in the car to the recycling centre to get rid of all the excess material.  Before this exploration exercise we had thought that the base for the ‘wild hedge’ was the tumbled down boundary wall but it is now revealed as a great raised bed – about 3 feet high and 3-4 wide.  All our machete work created great gaps in the flimsy barrier – not just deer width but possibly elephants could get through too.  A couple of days later Colin  plugged the gaps with some fence posts and wire mesh.  The idea is that this will deter the deer long enough for me to plant some holly bushes and very prickly berberis – they can’t eat that, or can they?

The next thing was a bit of archeology.  In my clearing around in the garden near to this raised bed I have uncovered further shallow terraces and three steps and also some very pretty large ‘marble’ boulders.  Unfortunately no standing stones or chambered cairns yet.  The gardening team were back this week and have cleared away a large area of horrible red chips and the underlying industrial strength black plastic sheeting to create a wide shrub and herbaceous border.  The  soil here is heavily impacted and has a ‘dead’ appearance so the gardeners will loosen it with a rotovator and dig in copious quantities of dung and then it is over to me to design and plant my border.  It will be nice to have at least a bit of the garden under cultivation again.  Still no sign of any leaves on the beech hedge – still looking very twig like.

The Plug

Sunshine and Snow in March

All last week we have had this very colourful boat working in the bay.  She is the Kingdom of Fife, an anchor handling tug and supply vessel and she is carrying out maintenance on the anchors holding the enormous yellow buoy to the sea bed.  Not sure exactly what this buoy is for  -  the only ship I have seen moored to it was a naval vessel before Christmas.  Locally the buoy is always referred to as ‘the Plug’ and seemingly all children are told that it is a gigantic  bath plug.  If anyone ever pulled it out all the water in the bay would drain away just like an enormous bath emptying.  Wonderful story, I quite fancy a look at the seabed  but I would need a guarantee that someone could refill the bay with lovely crystal clear seawater again.

The view from higher up

On Wednesday we saw the Terminator enjoying breakfast in the top half of the garden (her part).  This is the first we have seen her since the stockade was erected.  So far everyone seems happy.

Will the Cease Fire Hold?

On Friday in the pouring rain our two charming gardeners spent the day erecting a sturdy fence across the middle of the back garden.  The weather was awful but they soldiered on, managing to complete the task in the failing light, apart from hanging the gate.

Our view of the fence

It is taking a bit of getting used to but will look much better when the beech hedge is planted in front of it sometime in the next few weeks.  I hope I live long enough to see the hedge grow to a reasonable height.

The Terminator's view of the fence

An added bonus to this piece of work is that the younger of the gardeners is going to take down the tree-house and give it a good home in his garden, where we hope that in future years it will be much loved and played with (his sons are aged only a few months and two years at present).

On Saturday we had been out all morning and returned in the early afternoon.  We had to laugh on finding the Terminator in the top part of the garden and her two young happily enjoying the grass on our side of the fence – this only an hour before the gate was hung and bolted into place.  Were they just enjoying a last taste of our delectable drying green or were they laughing at me and thinking how foolish humans can be?

I can still see you

Could this possibly be the last deer induced post?  Only time will tell.

Is this the deer equivalent of 'two fingers' ?

Happy New Year

I hope you have all had the celebration you enjoy, whether that was riotous, peaceful, in a ‘jumping’ crowd, quietly with friends and family, of the ‘can’t quite remember’ kind, or even tucked up in a comfy bed with a mug of cocoa and a good book.  We had a very quiet time.  Suddenly in the last hour of last year we realised that we had no idea how the people of Bute celebrate Hogmanay so we topped up our glasses and toasted each other and our very good fortune to be here.

Our First Foot (to the garden anyway) was at 9 o’clock this morning.  When I opened the back curtains my friend the Terminator and her two young were happily enjoying my hospitality, quietly munching away at the grass.

The Terminator First Footing

I am still struggling with this love / hate relationship.  They are very pretty creatures and they have to eat somewhere; in some senses it is a privilege to have them visit like this.  BUT there are huge areas of forest, moorland and farm land they can browse on (they will not starve) and in a domestic garden they are totally indiscriminate in what they chew on.  I cannot plan to ‘garden’ until I decide how far I am willing to ‘deer proof’.  My latest thought is to split the garden into  two areas – one third for them and two thirds for me.  I do hope all my 2009 Posts don’t degenerate into a rant against the deer.

Tasty ferns on the wall

The seagulls could complain I am on their patch

The Terminator was feeling very laid back and the family stayed around for well over an hour.  This gave Colin plenty of time to play with our new camera, hence the better photographs.

Our lovely shiny metal stork looks a bit snooty in these surroundings.  He was much happier in the ornamental grasses in Edinburgh.  I will create better surroundings for him some day.

It is a beautiful sunny day so we spent a couple of hours at Ettrick Bay.  First enjoying coffee and a scone in the cafe  -  they are genuinely open 365 days in the year.  The tide was out so we walked the whole way across the bay and back.  About a dozen other folks and a few dogs shared the beach with gulls, oystercatchers, curlews, ducks and a great big crow.  A blissful way to welcome a new year.

Wide open spaces, sand and sky

We hope that 2009 will bring you and those you love good health and contentment, and that this fragile world will find peace and financial stability.  A Good New Year to everyone.