Around a hundred metres back from the Golspie coastline there's a sudden steep incline, the remains of an ancient cliff cut when sea level was higher - or the land was lower. Trees at the top of this are battered by any easterly gale and even heathy ones can become casualties, as happened to the one on the left of this picture which....
....was literally torn up by the roots. However, trees are loath to give up. The original trunk is now covered in moss while a new, and very healthy trunk grows vertically from it, and....
....several more small trunks are growing out of a newly invigorated and wonderfully complex root system.
This particular tree only came to our notice because, at our age, we welcome the occasional stop for a sit down and rest even on a day like today when there's still a bitter northwesterly blowing, there are frequent snow flurries, and the air temperature hasn't managed to struggle above 3C.
So this tree, with its numerous, nicely moss-cushioned seats at various levels, was very welcome, particularly as it was evident that, despite the continuing cold weather, the tree, and many others in the Dunrobin forestry, was beginning to burst into leaf.
From the dried nuts left from last year we think it's a horse chestnut - a very obliging horse chestnut.
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