Tea in the Trees

Tea.  Evening meal. Dinner. Whatever you call the meal eaten later on in the day I had mine sat with the trees tonight. It looked like it was turning in to a lovely afternoon so I decided to finish work on time (no extra time today), pack some food, and go for a walk. 

If only it had been that simple!

1. Arrive home and fuss Titch who is in cuddle mode. 

2. Feed Titch after giving eye drops. 

3.  Prepare soup for flask to take out. 

4. Heat milk for hot chocolate to take. 

5. Throw milk away as it separated on heating 

6. Dash out to buy fresh milk. 

7. Make hot chocolate with fresh milk. 

8. Pack rucksack. 

9. Set off and get stuck in traffic as by now everyone is on their way home. 

10. Finally get to destination and set off walking. 

11. Come across lovely spot to sit down. 

12. And chill ........... 

It was a glorious evening to be out walking. 

There were a few people out but not too many. 

Sometimes those last minute decisions make all the difference.... 

#spurofthemoment #walking #greatoutdoors 

Weekend DIY

The last few days have vanished in the blink of an eye!

After going with DH for his physiotherapy appointment on Friday morning I went out on a short run to try and keep some sort of routine going. Then it was a quick change and off out to lunch with a good friend and a catch up of what's been happening over the last couple of weeks with us both.

Saturday was spent washing, shopping, and finally, later on in the afternoon, a trip to Ikea to pick up a few bits that we've been after for a while. With my back still not quite being 100%, and DH now using two elbow crutches again for a while, it made for a somewhat difficult experience loading and unloading the car! But we did it, and planned to build a couple of pieces on Sunday. So, I emptied the corner unit we were replacing, left everything on the table in the dining room, moved it in to the garage, and then started to unpack the pieces of the new unit from Ikea..........only to find we'd picked up the wrong size!! Hmm. A full sized bookcase instead of a half width bookcase. And unfortunately the full width one doesn't fit in the space we've got! So we now need another trip to Ikea at some point to get the right unit. It's not even a mistake I can get really annoyed about as I will probably fill another bookcase at some point - it just wasn't on the list of things to get just yet. We ended up building a smaller unit for the spare room and getting that a bit more organised, and I've had to pack away all the stuff left on the dining room table to clear some room there until we get the right unit to put it all back in.

So a complete DIY/organising weekend instead of a walking weekend. I did, however, manage another run with DD on Sunday when she called round briefly, which was good.

Bank Holiday

What a glorious bank holiday weekend it's been. It's so unusual for us to have sunshine throughout the whole of the bank holiday, but it's been very nice.

The nice weather started on Friday, the day after we got home from Scotland. After picking Titch up from the cattery we decided to carry on taking the cat run down. As we'd removed a lot of the wire previously it was a case of unscrewing the pieces of wood and pulling it all down. And, as it wasn't fixed the floor, this happened easier than we thought! We'd managed to demolish two thirds of the run in no time at all!

So, with a now quite large patio area I set to work with the pressure washer to make it look a bit more respectable.

As the nice weather was forecast for the whole weekend, and as we now had a quite nice patio area, we set off to do some shopping on Saturday for some patio furniture and food for a BBQ. After a very long time waiting in the DIY shop we finally arrived home with a nice four piece patio set which DH managed to put together for us in time for us to sit out and enjoy while the sun was still out....

Then on Sunday I set off for a short solo walk. DH is still finding walking some distances a bit difficult (not sure what he's done but one of his knee's is quite sore), so rather than make it worse I went off on my own. I wasn't out long, but managed to have a 4 mile walk and hardly saw anyone for most of it as I went off the beaten track on to the moors....

And with even more nice weather forecast for yesterday, DD came round in the afternoon so we could go for a run (maybe not such a good idea in the heat, although it had cooled down a little bit by the time we went out). As I'm only just building up my running again it was good to do some interval running rather than just continuous. And thankfully my back is still feeling ok today despite increasing the length of time we spent running.

So a good weekend in all And another weekend booked away for us - another trip over the border up to the south of Scotland coming up in a few weeks.

Finally over the border!

Last Monday I had a trip to the Cattery. After nearly ten months since I last went, it was time for Titch to stay there on his own for the first time. The new owner seemed really nice and made quite a fuss of Titch before I left. 

And then it was time for us to set off, heading north to cross the Scottish border after a long time away. The weather was kind to us all the way there, and we arrived at Kippford in time to unpack and still get out for a short walk before finding somewhere to eat. 

Kippford is a lovely, very quiet place in the south west. No grocery shops. Two pubs. And lovely views. 

We had a lovely meal in one of the pubs, then as DH headed back to our accommodation I carried on for another short walk and to get some photos of the sunset. 

Tuesday started quite nice so after breakfast we drove to Gatehouse of Fleet and parked at Cally Park. We came here last year and it’s a lovely area to walk. 

Although the bluebells weren’t fully out it was still lovely. 

We made it to what’s called The Temple where we had some lunch. Then DH headed back to the car and I carried on a different route to make it a bit longer for me. 

I managed to see a few bluebells out..... 

  

....and wild garlic.... 

....and finally made it back to the car before the rain started. As the weather had turned we drove up to Clatteringshaws Loch and the cafe and visitor centre. 

And then back to Kippford for the night. 

Wednesday dawned beautiful again. We’d decided to go right across to Stranraer and explore that area as we’ve not really seen much of it. We ended up on some single track roads and discovered some wonderful places, including a beautiful Woodland Trust glen .... 

...and walked up to a strange monument with fabulous views ....

.....before finding a wonderful secluded beach for lunch ...  

We did a bit more exploring before finally getting back to Kippford. After we’d eaten DH headed back to our accommodation and I took the path towards Rockliffe. 

It was a lovely night to be out ... 

And then time to pack on Thursday morning, but we didn’t head straight home. Instead, we went to Kirroughtree - lots of forest walks to choose from. So, just one more walk before we set off for home.... 

It was a lovely few days north of the border. Long overdue, and perhaps not long enough (just three nights), but so worthwhile. 

#scotland #dumfriesandgalloway #kirroughtree #walking #greatoutdoors #spring