Monday 3 April 2023
Yesterday afternoon, it was so sunny and warm that we sat on a bench in the garden to eat lunch, sat on a bench in the woods to admire the view and quiet and I hugged a tree. Thanks to the sunshine, I even enjoyed cleaning upstairs ahead of today’s visitor, Nicky. She’ll be the first person to drive here. We’ve sent her some directions, including not to give up hope after about forty minutes of driving from Lockerbie. The plan is, she’ll message us from Lockerbie so we’ll be at the gate looking out for her about forty-five minutes later.
Our shopping habits have changed quite a lot here, out of necessity mainly. We went to Selkirk (monthly farmers’ market) and Galashiels, spent a fortune and now have a very well-stocked fridge. We are also adopting what seems to be essential in Scotland, plenty of traybake/brownies/cake. I have still lost and kept off half a stone since living here, so I’m less alarmed by the increase in cake consumption (but a decrease in snacks, so maybe it evens out).
Hopefully while Nicky is here, we should have two new-old chairs arriving. This is not interesting for anyone but us, I can see that, but the living room area still looks like it’s missing something, and chairs may well be it.
I had a go at making the landing look a bit more exciting. It’s a sunny ledge, but also gets cold. The plants are sort of doing okay. Well, actually, not that okay. One fern may well be at the end of its life and I think the peace lily may never recover from whatever it didn’t like about being in the bathroom. It’s a bit makeshift/naff with the throw but I will move it around in the coming days. Unexpectedly, we both like the dusty pink IKEA clock on the old (not silver, unfortunately) hunting trophy that’s from Chris’s family.
I checked the wildlife cameras yesterday. We’ve finally realised that all the no-action photos and videos were probably triggered to film by a bird flying past; one camera in particular is clearly on a flight path. I’ve moved that one to an area we’ve never tried a camera and which I think might be ‘badger bank’. The favourites from yesterday were birds, an is-it-a-crow and a what’s-that-bikini-thrush. I sent the bikini-thrush video to my friend Fiona who can often identify birds. She thinks it‘s either a lesser-spotted bikini bird (haha) or maybe a fieldfare. Birds need to stand at exactly the same angle as the ones in bird identification pictures. I have an old Reader’s Digest AA Book of Birds (I expect there are a lot of people who will recognise that book!) and I’m now likely to have a bird obsession following on from the sheep obsession.
