The Hostas and the rest of the plants in our shady area by the front door are growing well this year although they did suffer from the attentions of the slugs and snails despite a treatment with nematodes and the new eco-friendly slug pellets.
It’s been a long time since we managed to get out onto the cliffs but a visit from friends Simon and Caroline gave us an opportunity to visit Meikle Ross, just a few miles away from Craig Cottage.
The SongWave Choir is up and running again now and they gave a concert at Dock Park in Dumfries in early June. This will be followed by more concerts around the area later in the month.
We had a good kayaking session down the River Dee past Threave Castle with the Kirkcudbright Canoe Club.
There was a good turnout for the event with around 30 assorted kayaks out on the river. There was a bit of extra excitement at the end of the trip with a short section of rapids where the river passes under the A75 road bridge which I unfortunately failed to capture photographically.
After a couple of years of lockdown we finally organised a trip outside Dumfries & Galloway. We had a 5 day stay on Mull with Mull Wildlife Breaks. Each day, we were taken out by mini-bus to see different areas of Mull and Laura our guide pointed out the variety of birds and other wildlife. We also had a boat trip day when we saw sea eagles nesting on Ulva, puffins and other sea birds around Lunga and lunch at Staffa & Fingal’s Cave.
We had the opportunity to get a skip, sponsored by the Solway Firth Partnership, to collect rubbish that had accumulated over a period of several years along the stretch of coast between Kirkandrews and Carrick. A team of local volunteers set to work over a fine, sunny weekend in March to fill the skip.
Here’s the newest addition to our garden, a mosaic heron made by Yvette Green of Baobab Tree Mosaics. We saw some examples of her work while we were down in Gloucestershire earlier this year and ordered the heron for Gabrielle’s birthday.
John’s birthday this year was celebrated in the usual style with a feast of meat and potato pies and mushy peas. Here are the magnificent pies before being tucked into by us and our visiting friends, Karen and Mike.
In the lead-up to the COP26 environmental summit meetings in Glasgow, a giant puppet called ‘Storm’ made a tour around Scotland. Storm represents a sea goddess and is made from recycled materials. She was greeted in Dumfries by the SongWave choir of which Gabrielle is a member.
It has become a bit of a tradition in Kirkandrews to celebrate major birthdays with cake and refreshments so it was chocolate buns, bunting and bubbly for Gabrielle’s birthday this year.
