A Daily Walk

We take a walk every morning if we possibly can but the last few days have been a bit of a struggle because the high pressure sitting over us has brought such cold nights - last night dropped to -4C - and icy conditions. Where we go depends on where we feel safe: the last thing we want to do is fall and become a burden on the emergency service. 

Yesterday was unusually dry so we felt safe to walk up to the community of Backies to buy some beautiful free-range eggs from one of the crofts. Where the frozen snow persisted on the roads we picked our way along the grassy verges.

Backies, being high on the hill above Dunrobin, has some superb views, this one across the Dornoch Firth to Tarbat Ness lighthouse and then across the Moray Firth towards Lossiemouth. In such open panoramas the clouds, picked out by the low-angled winter sun, often provide the main interest.

Today the sun shone in a cloudless sky but the ground was rock-hard after the overnight frost so we walked along the front below Dunrobin Castle where it was warm in the sun even though the air temperature remained below zero. We meet hardly anyone, though when we do it tends to be the same people again and again, so we are getting to know some of them, like the lady with a Labrador called Mac.

However, the main interest for us is always the plants, fungi and other wildlife. Today we stood with the sun warm on our backs and watched an oak tree full of what might have been bright Christmas decorations - in fact a flock of about fifty yellowhammers.

Perhaps surprisingly, elsewhere in the Dunrobin woods there is a tree which someone has decorated. It's a kind thought but I prefer the yellowhammer decorations.