Monday Walks

  We managed to do our Monday walk on Monday this week. It was a lovely day, if a bit cold. We had decided not to go too far from home today and went on one of our favourite walks. We parked down at Merkinch at the old Kessock Ferry pier  The tide was pretty far out and you can see for miles to the west. I suspect that most people are unaware that they are also looking across the area where the Kessock Ferry was "upset" with the loss of 40 lives in 1734. On a cheerier note, there was bound to be some bird life about, we thought. Sure, enough, there were Curlews,  Oystercatchers, Redshanks and Ringed Plovers.. If only I hadn't left my camera at the house! However, this very cold looking Heron was close enough to capture with my phone. A bit behind him was a Greenshank. Once you get past the Local Nature Reserve and the herons, a few steps takes you to the Caledonian Canal, built by Thomas Telford in the early years of the 19th Century. The locks and basin we were walking a...

The plan had been to go out for the day every Monday. We would have a nice day out and incorporate a walk as well. However, the weather was so bad this week, that Monday became Wednesday and we went to Brodie for a few hours. There is a walk around the ponds and the castle grounds, which we decided to do before lunch and a look round their sale. Here is Sharon beside the pond, where we started the walk. Originally there were a number of ponds here, arranged in a more formal way. The ponds became enlarged and more naturalised over time, so that by the turn of the 20th Century, the ponds were very much as they are today. There were sculptures made from tree trunks all along the walk. This little owl watched us walking on by. It was quite a nice open mixed woodland at first and pleasant walking. It wasn't long until we came to the first of two bird hides on the pond. Most of the birds we could see were Mallards, but there were a number of coots and some swans to be seen, as well as a ...

Monday - the start of a new week. It is also just after the start of a new year - 2024. The time when people make all sorts of promises to themselves to improve their diet, their fitness, their frame of mind, all sorts, really. Well, coincidentally, I needed to improve all sorts of things. I had a bit of a heart scare on the Christmas Day just past. I had also signed up with The Knee Mentor to try and improve the function of my arthritic left knee. My wife, Sharon and I, had been thinking that we were in a bit of a domestic rut - always cleaning the house on a Monday, she to Keep Fit on Tuesday, me to golf on Wednesday, and so on. We like to walk, but I have been doing less and less of that as my knee got more and more sore. The medical advice was to get out and walk. The knee mentor's advice was to get out and walk. We rearranged our week and I got a new knee brace, which was all the motivation we needed to get out of the house on Mondays and find somewhere nice for a walk. You ca...