September and October have been the best weather months of this year. September was mostly warmer than July and August and the sunshine has continued on into October along with generally light winds.
Here’s Gabrielle under cloudless skies out around the back of Barlocco Island in her kayak on October 1st.

The fine weather has also given us a chance to start on the next phase of garden work in the lower section of the garden. One of the first jobs is to put in a retaining wall above the small cliff in that part of the garden. This is the first section of work, clearing away the soil from the top of the cliff so that we can start building a wall.

It’s been a bad year for sloes this year, due to some bad weather earlier in the year when the blackthorns were in bloom, so we won’t be able to stock up on much sloe gin but it has been much better for blackberries. Here’s Gabrielle last week along the coast at Carrick collecting blackberries for the freezer.

Here’s a good crop of fungi on a log in Cally Woods last weekend. Unfortunately I don’t think they are the edible kind.