It’s been a while since I posted any photos of our cat, Heidi. She loves being out in the garden and these days she spends a lot of the time there.
Here’s a close-up:
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.
Category: photos
Saturday Snapshots
Today’s Saturday Snapshots are from our visit last week to Polkommet Country Park, West Lothian in Scotland. The Park has some lovely woodland walks alongside the River Almond:
Our granddaughter couldn’t resist getting her feet wet:
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.
Saturday Snapshots: Wych Elm
We have a wych elm in the back garden. This year it’s been absolutely full of seeds, many more than usual:
The seeds have been blowing all over the garden, covering the lawn and borders. They grow in clusters:
One got caught in a cobweb:
Here it is in close-up:
Wych Elms are hardy trees and have greater resistance to Dutch elm disease than other elms. The name ‘wych’ comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning pliable and refers to the tree’s twigs. Its wood has many uses, including underground water pipes (in the past), boat building and the seats of chairs – it’s also the traditional wood used for coffins.
I love trees – and they are good for you:
A garden without trees is as hard to envisage as an art gallery with pictures. Trees soften the landscape. They provide shade in the summer and protection during the winter. A screen of trees around the house can provide enough wind-shelter to reduce by a tenth the energy consumption in the home. Their canopy of leaves acts as a highly effective pollution filter, absorbing many of the major atmospheric pollution gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulphur dioxide. Research also reveals that we are happier and more relaxed when we are in leafy surroundings … (The Therapeutic Garden by Donald Norfolk page 105)
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Saturday Snapshots: Loch Ness
My Saturday Snapshots are some more photos from our last holiday in Scotland. We had been to Inverness and decided to drive back to Coylumbridge along the road following the western shore of Loch Ness. We stopped and went down these steps from the road.
It was a calm peaceful scene – no sign of anything on the loch – not a monster in sight.
There are a few interpretation boards by the side of the road above Loch Ness. They are not in very good condition now, a bit dirty, but you can still read them. The one below states that St Columba is said to have seen the monster in the 6th century, that ospreys fish in the loch and that seals sometimes visit chasing salmon and trout. What I didn’t know is that a Wellington bomber had crashed in the loch during a snowstorm in 1940.
The next board states that the loch is 38km long and up to 238m deep, rivers feeding into the loch generate hydro-electricity that was first used industrially in 1895 for smelting aluminium. This board includes information about the Caledonian Canal, which links Inverness in the north to Fort William about 60 miles to the south. The canal, constructed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1822, is really a system of four canals linking to the lochs, one of which is Loch Ness.
I think it’s time for some new interpretation boards to replace these old and grubby ones!
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads
Saturday Snapshots
This Saturday I’m continuing to post photos from our recent holiday in Scotland.
This is Loch Morlich is in the Glenmore Forest Park, 300 metres above sea level, between Aviemore and Cairngorm Mountain.
There is a level circular walk around the Loch, which has a Sailing Club. I took the two photos shown above on a wet and cloudy afternoon when there weren’t many people around. I hadn’t expected to find a beach so close to the mountains and about 30 miles from the sea!
Later in the week on a brighter day we went back to Loch Morlich, just a bit further round the shore. This part of the Loch is the home of Loch Morlich Watersports Centre and we arrived just as groups of young people were leaving, so we had the beach to ourselves: :
There is a Beach Cafe:
Loch Morlich is managed by Forestry Commission Scotland and is the first and only fresh water loch to ever have received the Rural Beach Award in Keep Scotland Beautiful’s (KSB) Seaside Award campaign.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy.
Saturday Snapshots
Last Saturday I posted photos of An Lochan Uaine near the path on our walk through Glenmore Forest Park. Today here are some more photos of our walk after we left the lochan. The route continued along the Ryvoan Pass on the old Rathad nam Mearlach – or Thieves Road. Cattle raiders used hill tracks like this to move their spoils avoiding the more well-used routes.
As we went gradually up the hill this building came into view:
It’s a bothy – see this article explaining what a bothy is. The photo below shows the entrance:
and this is what is inside:
There are some rules:
It’s a very welcome shelter – especially on a wet, windy day!
For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy.
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