The current spell of warm weather has been good for Wine o’ Clock sessions on Friday evenings. Here are some of the usual attendees in full conversational flow.
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Tag Archives: Friends
The Devil’s Bowling Green
A hike with Cathy and Ros, starting from Bruce’s Stone along the Buchan Ridge into the heart of the Galloway Hills. The walk started with a stiff climb up Buchan Hill, giving good views back down to Loch Trool.
We followed the Rig of Loch Enoch to Craig Neldricken where a short detour leads round to the “Grey Man of Merrick”, a rock outcrop resembling a face staring back down the valley.
We skirted around Craig Neldricken and Craignairy, heading for the Nick of the Dungeon, passing this little lochan with good views across to Benyellary, Merrick and Kirriereoch Hill.
Cathy and Ros with the Nick of the Dungeon and the Rhinns of Kells beyond.
From the Nick of the Dungeon we hiked up to the granite plateau of the Devil’s Bowling Green for a lunch stop. Craignaw is the hill in the background.
We headed down the slopes of Craignaw to skirt around the right side of Loch Neldricken then followed the long track down the valley past Loch Valley and along the Gairland Burn back to the head of Loch Trool.
Anniversary!
It was our 40th wedding anniversary on 3rd January. We spent a couple of days up in Ayr with relatives and friends and attended the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s New Year concert. The picture is from a walk at Culzean Castle with Ailsa Craig in the background.
On the way back from Culzean to Ayr we called in at Rozelle Park for a walk around the grounds. Unfortunately the Maclaurin Gallery was closed on 3rd January but we enjoyed a tour round the park grounds and a new sculpture park themed on the First World War. Most of the sculptures are chainsaw carvings in wood but there are other too, including these doves made from wire mounted on woven willow columns.
More July Activities
Wine o’ Clock has been taking place most Friday evenings through the year but it’s good to be able to venture outdoors now that we have a taste of summer weather. There are still a few fleece jackets in evidence but some hardy souls are in short sleeves.
We had a trip to the deep south and one of the highlights was a visit to the amazing gardens at Great Dixter, near Hastings. Here are a couple of pictures of the riotous planting there:
Kirkcudbright was visited by the Kelpies in July and August. These are models of the enormous ones that are installed near Falkirk but they fitted well with the scale of Kirkcudbright harbour.
Following on from the wine-tasting in June, we had a seashore wildlife walk in July, led by local naturalist Jim Logan as another fund-raiser for Kirkandrews Kirk. Unfortunately the weather was atrocious on the day but a small band of hardy souls ventured out into Kirkandrews Bay and discovered a range of interesting shells and marine creatures. Here’s Jim identifying a specimen for Howard.
Wine Tasting at Kirkandrews Kirk
In early June we held a wine tasting fund-raiser in the wee kirk at Kirkandrews. The event was very well attended, helped enormously by the provision of a mini-bus to transport people from and back to Kirkcudbright. Twelve wines were sampled in a blind tasting quiz format although after the first six most people just seemed to be happy to enjoy the drinking part! Members of the kirk trust provided tasty snacks to accompany the wines and the event raised a few hundred pounds to assist with the ongoing repairs and maintenance of the kirk.
Portpatrick
We had a day trip over to Portpatrick, near Stranraer, to meet our friends Hilary and Jonathan who had sailed over from Largs via Northern Ireland. Portpatrick is probably the most scenic harbour village in Dumfries & Galloway and has some good harbour-side pubs and restaurants too. Here’s the view across the harbour towards the Crown Hotel where we enjoyed an excellent meal and some tasty local beer. The Crown is the black and white building just right of the blue building on the far side of the harbour.
Down South
In late November, we had a trip to visit relatives and friends way down in Kent and Suffolk.
Visiting Cath, Jerry and Ellen in Kent, we had some good walks around the North Downs, especially around Cobham and Jeskyns Country Park where Betty got to play with a bunch of other crazy dogs and we sampled some excellent beer and food at The Cock pub in Henley Street. Here’s the path through Ashenbank Woods on the way to Jeskyns.
In the church at Cobham there was a carving that looked a lot like Betty.
We then ventured up to Westleton in Suffolk to visit Elaine and David for a couple of days. It was our first visit to Suffolk and we got a good look around the local area, visiting Covehithe, Walberswick, Dulwich and Southwold for some good coastal walks and more tasty food and beer. We also had a great Jazz evening at the local village hall. Here we are on the beach near Covehithe, enjoying a bracing stroll and keeping an eye on the incoming tide.
After a walk along the flint pebble beach followed by some muddy lanes, Betty needed to get her legs cleaned off so here she is, sampling the waves at Dunwich.
Kent and Suffolk are highly recommended for their selection of good pubs and beer. Here are a few of the ones that we sampled. This pint of “Proper Job” IPA from the St. Austell brewery was so good that it had almost disappeared before we could get a photo of it.
This is a pint of “Trigger” pale ale from the Musket Brewery in Maidstone, being enjoyed at “the Cock” in Henley Street.
Adnams is the beer of Suffolk and their brewery is a prominent feature in the town of Southwold. This is a pint of their “Mosaic” pale ale disguised in a “Ghost Ship” pale ale glass at the Bell Inn at Walberswick.
Welcome to the Wining Wall
The wall feature is now finished and the grass is growing up around it. Our friend Mark from Magnolia, Texas had helped to build the wall while he was visiting in August and when he got home he made us a magnificent sign to put on the wall. (Click on the picture for a closer view) His wife, Susan, came up with the name of “Wining Wall” which we think will be very appropriate for its intended use.
Ski Trip
We had a trip to Madonna di Campiglio in the Italian Dolomites with a group of people that we had previously skied with quite a few years ago. It was our first outing on skis for four years so it was a bit of a shock to our legs. Our party was staying in two different hotels but we managed to meet up at various points during the day, especially for coffee and lunch stops. Here are some of the group, poised at the top of the resort, with the Groste Pass and the Brenta Dolomites in the background.
Gabrielle enjoying a scenic beer.
One day was very windy and it closed down some of the ski lifts. You can see the snow being blown off the Brenta peaks.
We found some good food up in the mountain restaurants. Gabrielle’s spinach dumplings were very popular.
Beach Gate
Here’s a flashback to the storms in January 2014 when our steps to the beach and part of our lower garden wall were washed away. We have also had a few issues recently with cows trying to get into our garden from the beach area so it was finally time to do something about our lower garden boundary. Luckily our friends Anna and Nigel were visiting in September and Nigel asked if I had any garden projects that he could help with. The first job was to dig out some holes for the gate posts. The ground where we wanted to place the fence posts consisted of large rocks in a matrix of soft sand and shells so we had to excavate some pretty big holes. Eventually we got them down to the right depth, inserted the gate posts and filled in with some of the rocks that we had removed. A liberal application of “shellcrete” was then applied around the rocks to bind everything together and provide a big, heavy stable platform for the posts. Shellcrete is similar to a concrete mix but uses lots of small shells from the beach instead of gravel for aggregate. Here’s Nigel with the freshly planted gate posts.
We then installed some new steps up into the garden from the gate and wedged them in place with more stones. The final task was to rebuild the wall up tho the gate posts. It should now be OK for keeping out the cows but I have a feeling that it may need about another 12 inches of height to keep sheep from jumping up it.
