Natural highs and lows

Late September in Orkney and we're still enjoying blue skies, sunshine and modest breezes. Typically, I had managed to tweak my lower back, one of those annoying muscular twinges that benefits from keeping moving rather than remaining motionless, so walking was a good remedy. Fortuitously, we were due to carry out our Autumn vole transects, monitoring activity for the Orkney Native Wildlife Project. The drive to Mull Head, even as a passenger, wasn't pleasant, but once out on the moorland, my spirits raised and we set about the first transect, recording any signs of chewed bits of grass and the digestive results of said chewing. As ever, on the march between the two transects, we stopped for lunch and some scenic views. No voles here, but there is a Harbour Seal... Also between the transects, we happened upon some ONWP staff out testing their latest bit of Stoat-spotting gadgetry, a drone with a thermal camera. Never mind invasive mammals, even during the day, with this technol...

The weekend just gone saw a trip to Edinburgh to celebrate Megan's birthday and attend a Valtos gig. I have never spent much time in Scotland's capital city, with the previous highlight being a junior school trip to the zoo many, many years ago. Megan on the other hand, spent her student days there, and the venue for the gig, La Belle Angele, was one of her old stomping grounds. Megan had spent the previous week visiting friends in Inverness and Glasgow and taking in a Belinda Carlisle gig with her besties. I met up with her outside Waverley Train Station and we walked to our accommodation via a coffee and cake stop. Wildlife-wise, I was struggling to see many species of bird as we pottered the streets, but the walls and pavements provided plenty of flora to identify. When we reached our accommodation, maybe 25 minutes from the city centre, the view from the lounge window was not what I was expecting. Renting a top floor flat gave us a vista across Holyrood Park towards Arthur...

I'm not big on plans, or perhaps more accurately, I am quite big on plans but even bigger on continuously re-assessing the situation with each new snippet of information, so that the initial plan morphs into something completely different. I am told that this is intensely annoying to any prospective plan-ee. So, last weekend, I did have a plan, a fairly simple plan, but it was a secret as the planned thing was a surprise. However, I had done a bit of groundwork mid-week, suggesting an outing once the Monday to Friday grind was over and I was now on the point of enacting said plan to synchronise people, place, time and space. Megan: "My friend S has just messaged, her and I are going to go for a walk on Saturday morning, just into town, over the brae, popping by the new cafe and then the deli. OK?" Me: [Inwardly] Aarghh! [Out loud] "Yeah, no worries... maybe we could have our walk tomorrow morning?" Also me: [Hastily checks weather forecast for Sunday] And so it ...