All those that follow my blog from south of the Scottish border will be enjoying the end of your spring flowers, the daffodils will be maybe getting past their best and warmer weather upon you. Our old neighbour up here would tell us frequently do not put any bedding plants in until well into May, all because you can never tell when we will get a cold snap. Sure enough when the forecast on April the first said snow was on it’s way after a couple of dry, above zero temperatures we all thought ” no we won’t get that”. but drew the curtains back today and sure enough to a fairly low level the hills had a dusting of snow and we had sleet. At least at the moment are daffs are starting to show some colour and the primula’s are budding up so we are showing some improvement, but this snow and cold may well knock them back a bit
5th.
Of course the Chaffinch happened to be a pair of posers and stared straight at the lens.
10th
The first of April was the start of the village Angling Club Brown Trout season but as I stated the start of the month has not been great weather, first that snow then very strong winds. So today was the first day I have managed to get out with the rod and have an hours dabble way up in the hills at Sarah’s pond.
I have shown you before up here but this was Sarah’s today and as you can also see the minute I started fishing, down came the rain (hence only the hour of fishing).
The feeder stream into the pond and as you can see it is flowing fairly fast due to all the rain and snow on the hills above.
From this shot you can see that the Trout were rising to the fly and I had tied a special fly of my own design to fish today. A dry fly (which means it would float on top of the water) which was made from some Jute that I had asked for when we went around the Verdant Works in Dundee , which is a museum of the Jute industry which was very large throughout Dundee in the past. The jute was really soft and I thought it would make an excellent floating fly which proved correct as I caught three on my first day of the season. No record breaking size but great enjoyment and all three were returned fit and healthy. Two of eight inches and a good fish of eleven. The first one is pictured below and was one of the two eight inch.
This shot in the rain shows our house the green rectangle in the middle, parked at about the same altitude as our house , then a half mile walk up the steep track in front of the shot. Good feeling at my age that I can still walk up it with not to much difficulty.
13th
Just a follow up on the introduction words the flowers have come along in leaps with just two real days of sun so far.
Daffs and Tulips just about out.
Heather buzzing with Bumble Bees and making a good show again this year.
Primrose and Primula doing well.
Fritillary
Tricular doing okay
That’s it for the first part of the month, I promise you something different for the second half.