7 Feb PJ Wander

Three photos of the sunrise, moving slightly more north of east each time. I like the patterns on the water.

Flowering currant bud burst

Moss and lichen on a cherry tree

Winter grass and old cherry bark

From two days ago

Dried alchemilla leaves and stalks in the flowerbed; plenty of homes for wee beasties in there

The cowberry bush that has its roots in and under the old fallen cherry tree seems fine

As does the honeysuckle

Dragged an old oak log down from the top to saw up for firewood. This shows the underside of a bracket fungus that was growing on it.

Pre-sunrise pyjama walk

I should explain that as well as the PJs, I'm wearing a thick dressing-gown, a toscana sheepskin gilet, a fleece headband with a shetland wool hat on top of that, and cashmere fingerless mitts when I do these pre-sunrise PJ walks. And on my feet thick wool hiking socks and neoprene-lined Muck boots.

And I've had some coffee and flapjack (recipe anon) already.

This morning was a typical soft west of Scotland morning, not as chilly as yesterday when the ground frost never melted until after dark because, as you will see, the cloud cover increased overnight. I walk uphill along the south-east side of the garden and down again.

This view, looking down on the loch, is from about half way up the garden that is above the house (literally! at the top of the garden we can see over the top of the house)

One of my baby oak trees, self-seeded but nibbled in its infancy by roe deer, thus the chicken wire

The result of my sticking a pruned flowering currant twig in the ground seven years ago; still in leaf in November

Part of the old, somewhat collapsed, flowering current and some lichen-covered, collapsing bird cherry

A bit higher up the garden and a bit more light

Down nearer the house again. This is to show how our roe deer visitors bite all the ends off the monbretia leaves

Dying bracken – love the colours – just over the fence in the field

The view east above that bracken

And just before walking in the back door, the old ship's companionway steps up from the terrace to the 'lawn', some heather, and so winter leaves of garden bistort (I think that's what it is anyhow; keep forgetting)

While I stood still to take photographs I could hear birds waking up. A few flew overhead from the trees – down to the shore gardens, perhaps – and I particularly enjoyed the sound of splashing eider ducks as they ran across the water to join some friends.

The Old Rowan

After doing a bit of garden tidying today (not that you'd notice!), I walked up the garden with my camera to try and capture the deep blue of the loch and the autumn hillsides on the other side before the sun sank behind the hill at the back of us. There were a couple of windsurfers zipping about in the choppiness.

You can just see the two sails

Best I could do from the distance. He was out of the picture in no time.

Then I tramped further up the garden and turned around to look at the last of the sunshine on the larches at the bottom of the field. This is all at about 1300GMT. Shortly after that we lose the direct sunlight on this side of the loch in winter.

Love that deep blue and the white wavelet caps

Part of the tallest larch here came down in a storm a couple of winters ago; that's why it's a funny shape.

Rummaging about under the old cypress tree, I enjoyed the colours when I looked up. The wind was strong enough to sway the whole of this multi-trunked tree, as I realised when I felt an odd sensation of swaying when I'd braced myself against of them to take the photograph!

And then I noticed all the fungi on the old rowan. When we moved here there was an old step ladder leaning against this rowan and evidence of a treehouse from long ago. Where the trunk had been cut was clearly dying but the tree was making valiant efforts to keep growing. It has been successful so far and produces a good crop of berries most years even in the shadow of the cypress and with the fungi now really taking hold.

You can see a couple of the huge rusty nails left over from treehouse days

Old and new layers of this bracket fungus, by the looks of it

And here are views of more of the tree

One of the big old dying branches

The main trunk with the young valiant growth to the left.
The blue plastic is covering a wood pile

Fungus and iron in an old tree,
and the colour of the cypress twig caught my eye

As I finish this at a quarter to four, the hills across the loch are turning russet in the last of the sunshine. The lower part of the slopes are already in the shadow of the boggy brae. Short, sharp and blustery this day has been but full of life.