Monday 11 August 2014

A Drop of Rain...

Ok it may well be an ex-hurricane but Bertha has proved too much for the loch side lane. Collapsed trees and mud and raging torrents of water have cut off the lochside from the outside world!
There was a tail back of at least two cars when I walked along  to take some photos
It's rained and rained and rained....
It makes our little burn with it's leaky sides seem  pale and insignificant by comparison!
The water flows over the wall, turns right, fortunately, and flows back into the burn again!
It does rain here (it's Scotland after all) but generally not like this. Heavy rain since yesterday evening. There have been landslides in many places. James who diverted our burn is coming back to do some adjustments, he says, before the real weather sets in?!
Ps. One day the unattractive breeze block wall will have a drystone wall in front of it.....that's the plan.

Thursday 7 August 2014

A little bit of summer


We've had family and friends staying. When it rained, which was often, the lego brought down from the loft provided hours of fun for two small boys - and their dad!
Two small blackcurrant bushes planted two years ago provided 4lbs of blackcurrants making 12 jars of delicious blackcurrant jam
The garden, even if a bit scruffy and weedy, cannot fail to please when set against such a beautiful backdrop. 
Cromarty  on the east coast with its woods and fields is so different from the west coast. I can't think of anywhere else where there is such easy access to both the west and east sides of the country. It gives a wonderful variety of landscapes and coastlines
Back in the spring we had some work done to relocate a small stream in the garden. It sounds very grand but it isn't. The stream is not very big and relies heavily on rain running off the hills to make it work. It hasn't worked for most of the summer. Although we've had rain it hasn't been enough. I did a sketch "The Stream with No Water!" In the winter when it is full I'll put a photo on here to show you that it will work - sometimes. While the excavation work was going on I pulled out from under a pile of rocks and boulders an old  Fulham pottery bed warmer. It was well and truly buried and I'm amazed it was still in one piece, and so shiny too. The large crack down the side is probably the reason it was thrown out in the first place. Our piece of land was used as a dumping ground for many years. I've pulled lots of broken bits and pieces out from under the remains of a collapsed dry stone wall near our boundary.
These bottles scratched but not broken have all been found in the garden. They seem to have more glass in them than bottles have today. They are solid and quite heavy. Which is probably how they've survived.


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