Spring is here

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that it’s 3 years since we moved to Stirling – it seems to have gone by so quickly. It’s about as long as we lived in Bishop’s Stortford which was our longest-lived address as a couple.

I’ve been keeping myself busy and finally went on my first hill walk of 2010. I gave myself a gentle reintroduction and chose a fairly short walk up a hill I know quite well – Ben Ledi near Callander. Even so, my thigh muscles hurt for 2 to 3 days afterwards particularly going up or down stairs! I went with a friend from the university - Staffan who is originally from Sweden and who works for the British Trust for Ornithology (birds!) - who offered to drive.

The weather was good till half an hour before we finished the walk and when we arrived back at the car we were met by 2 very wet and drunken Glaswegians who asked for directions to the nearest pub! Somehow Staffan didn’t notice their drunkenness until after he’d offered them a lift into Callander! They claimed to be on a charity walk – carrying a black bin bag full of Budweiser - and said they had spent hours going round in circles looking for Callander but that every signpost they saw said it was 7 miles away! Anyway, they were well-behaved and even insisted on giving us a tenner for us to get a drink! Having deposited said drunken Scots in the town, we ended our day in the Laid Inn pub where I had my usual tea and shortbread!

A few pics of what we've been up to recently and of some local landmarks.

Our street

View from Mine Woods towards Dunblane and Highlands

Spring daffodils just coming out mid-April, Kings Park, Stirling


Brave, hungry duck, Stirling Uni campus

On Easter Sunday we had a wee Easter party with friends and family – everyone brought something to eat or drink and we had some really lovely cakes. I used the opportunity to bake some bread- a wholemeal loaf and a soda bread loaf. I wasn’t expecting my nephews to eat it as they tend to like what they know but one of them loved it so I’ve given my sister the recipe! Sonia baked her Catalan cake- the ‘Mona,’ Antoine from Brittany baked a lovely orange cake, jenny (part Scottish, part Argentinean, raised in Venezuela!) make empanadas – like pasties.

Easter party, our place


View of Stirling castle & distant mountains

Michael and I have been out for a few bike rides and walks around the local area – we can walk to nearby Bridge of Allan in about 30 minutes so we’ve done that a few times and we cycled a different route through the Mine Woods between there and Dunblane – we saw 2 of the red kites hunting over the fields and a male pheasant foraging in the bushes. We had a lovely sunny day last weekend and we walked to Kings Park where the daffodils have finally come out after the cold spell and snow we had recently. Spring has come late in Scotland!

Our new local - the Birds & the Bees pub