A bit of snow and I’m like a kid at Christmas

I’m still at Dundreggan.  It’s still cold.  And there’s been some snow at river level in the glen.  Today Steve and Allan are busy so I get the opportunity to take a walk in the morning sun.  Even though there is just a very light covering of snow, everywhere looks beautiful.  I walk up the Red Burn, then cut across the hillside towards Binnilidh Bheag, before walking down past the wild boar enclosure.  The boar are nowhere to be seen, but there are deer on the hillside, and I spend a few minutes watching a Red Admiral trying out it’s wings and sunning itself on a rock.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon walking the riparian planting area; a joint project between TFL and the Forestry Commission Scotland.  I found some Alder that I’d planted in May in the FCS area, all looking very healthy, and some of the Aspen and Birch that I’d planted three weeks ago in the TFL area.

That was after Marion had left yesterday morning, and today I still have some of her squash soup to finish.  It’s good soup.  Almost too good.  I know about the squash, the chillies, and some of the other veg that’s in there, but I can’t quite work out how she’s managed to get it to taste like a cross between soup and jam.

This evening I go and check out the wild boar, after dark but before tea.  It’s below freezing and vegetation crunches under every footfall.  I walk up the side of the enclosure, and eventually hear some low level grunts.  I keep going a little way and then stop.  I can hear one of the pigs walking down to where I’ve just been.  In the dark it’s easy to imagine that there is no fence between us.  As the two larger boar walk about looking for me, one above me on the slope, and one below, sniffing the air and sending out short deep grunts to each other, I get just a small taster of what it might be like to meet a potentially dangerous animal in the wild.  It’s a buzz.  Of course I’m safely behind a fence, but I feel sorry that in Britain we’ve pretty much eradicated this kind of experience from our lives.