A Saltire in 2009

The Saltire is Scotland's national flag which is the oldest flag in Europe and the Commonwealth, and it has its origins in a battle fought in East Lothian in the Dark Ages. Its believed that the battle took place in 832AD. An army of Picts under the High King of Alba, and aided by a contingent of Scots had been on a raid into Lothian and were being pursued by a larger force of Angles and Saxons under one Athelstan. The Scots were caught and stood to face their pursuers in the area of Markle, near East Linton, north of the modern village of Athelstaneford. Fearing the outcome of the encounter, the Scots' King led prayers for deliverance, and was rewarded by seeing a cloud formation of a white saltire (the diagonal cross on which St Andrew had been martyred) against a blue sky. The king vowed that if, with the saint's help, he gained the victory, then Andrew would thereafter be the patron saint of Scotland. The Scots did win, and the Saltire became the flag of Scotland.

This photograph was taken at 8.15 pm this evening looking towards East Lothian, near Athelstanesford. History does repeat itself. . .

New Blog Banner and St Andrews

Mrs H. and I were driving home from a lovely weekend in St Andrews with Mr & Mrs K. and stopped to take the photo in the banner of this typical Lammermuirs spring scene. Hefted sheep on the hills and the burning of the heather.

On a Sunday there's no golf played on the famous Old Course at St. Andrews. people are free to walk it and so we did, all the way out on the front nine and back on the back nine. It was a glorious, but breezy day. It's well worth doing if you are interested in golf or not as you get some great views on the first 9 holes as you approach the water at the around holes 7 and 8. Coming back you get this famous view of the R & A Golf Club (the building on the far left) and a property (the dark red building on the right) that is currently standing empty but it would make a wonderful boutique hotel or apartments. The American owner of the property had intended converting it into a luxury time share in which a two week stay was going to cost something more than the Panamanian national debt – the developer has gone bankrupt.

Owl Watch – Winter Edition

After a torrent of emails, well actually one, and in my capacity as Mrs. H's conduit to the blogosphere, here's an owl update.
The owl box has been improved with the addition of a rooftop patio; this is designed to avoid them falling off as easily as they did last year. This is, of course, assuming they return. Last night when Mrs. H returned from Edinburgh at about 9.15 pm she saw one of the owls fly out from beneath the barn; we know they've been in there a lot during the cold weather as they leave their droppings.

Mrs. H also suggests a visit to Jim Wilson's web site. Jim lives in the Lammermuir Hills and has to be one of the best wildlife photographers in Britain; his owl photographs are both staggering and beautiful.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

...the forecasters got it spot on. . .

There's snow in them their hills. . .

In the absence of any serious posting, due to a surfeit of work and a trip into Edinburgh today for domestic admin, here's some shots taken on the drive back home. Six miles or so up the valley nearing the top of the moors. More heavy snow forecast on Thursday. . .

Winter Light

Yesterday in the garden...

Wandering in the winter light
The wicked and the sane
Bear witness to salvation
And life starts over again

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's been very cold here for the last three days, Thursday night was -4, Friday -7 and last night -10. During the day it has not gone above freezing, giving us frost on frost; the upside of which has been beautiful scenery. This morning we took a longer than usual walk and Mrs.H. (being the camera buff that she is) got some great photos, including this one along the lane . This afternoon digging the parsnips out the ground was a challenge. . .still, they are certainly well frosted, which always makes them taste so much better.

Several people have asked about the owls. Well they've long gone from the nest box and apart from hearing screeching in the night from all around we have not seen any of the Barn owls, not that we would recognise them anyway! We're going to add some design modifications to the ledge so they don't fall off the nest so easily next year.

Truck Hits Wall in the Borders – No One Hurt!

News here in the hills is always a little on the slow side but yesterday morning the gritting truck demolished some of our dry stone dyke after it skidded down the hill...slight irony that. We are one of the few rural B roads to see the gritting truck; it's because the road goes up to a reservoir that supplies the whole of Berwickshire. Anyway the nice man at the council telephoned Mrs. H. to say that they will get it fixed. The number of people who can dry stone dyke is becoming less and less – still we know a very good one.

The new blog banner was also taken this morning down by the burn. Steam was rising as the sunlight warmed the frozen ground.

Books & Barnstorming

I've been having a slow week on the blog front due to no other reason than I've been working my socks off. I've been in London to finish up two books that are coming out for Christmas. . .leaving it a bit tight but it does focus the mind. I've also been meeting with a publisher about some new book projects, two of which have a deadline that is daunting. On the way home yesterday I had to change trains in Newcastle so I stopped into the hotel that is attached to the station to watch the Newcastle, Spurs game; I saw the first half, which was the rubbish one! Today has been a merry-go-round of trying to keep a number of different and disparate projects moving right along.

Click to enlarge

My friend Kevan just emailed me this, he was staying in our barn while I was away and captured this at 7 a.m. on Tuesday. Kevan suggested that we should sell him the barn or he "will mount a hostile takeover!" I think he liked it. . .

I have to ask myself why I leave. . . Mrs. H. reminds me that money doesn't appear from views

Before the Flood...

My friend Kevan just sent me these pictures of the Whiteadder that he took last week from virtually the same places as I took them yesterday . It looks a little different....

A Wet Day in the Borderlands

Mrs H. and I went on a digital photography course today which was held about four miles up the valley from us. It's been a filthy day here in the Borders and on the way home I took these pictures; I didn't get much chance to practice what I'd been taught as I was too busy trying to keep the camera dry. This is the River Whiteadder, yes there's also a Blackadder, which is pronounced Whit-adder and it's normally a third of the width of what you see in the picture. It's great to be back home...log burner lit, curry for supper and a malt whisky beckons. . .

Book Shops in the Borders

Today Mrs.H. and me had a holiday. Where did we go? The Borders of course, because as everyone knows a day out of the Borders is a day wasted.

There are two new book shops that have opened within striking distance of us and so it was important to visit them to see how they are doing and get a feel for what they have to offer. First we went to Kelso, which is a little over twenty miles from where we live. In actual fact our motives for going there were mixed, as we had to pick up oatmeal. The best Scottish oats that money can buy; it's from Hogarth's Mill which is slap bang in the middle of Kelso.

The new Kelso bookshop is called Latimer Books and it was a delight. Well designed, a great collection of books and an owner who was helpful, knowledgeable and just the perfect person to own a book shop. What I like about the shop is that unlike many other bookstores they are dedicated to selling just books – no cards, no CDs or DVDs, just books. Brilliant! Naturally I had to buy something. One was the biography of the architect Pugin and the other was ‘The Lodger’, a mystery, come novel, about Shakespeare.

From there it was a ten-mile drive across to St Boswells and the Main Street Trading Company. This is a bookshop and cafe combined that has been opened by a former director of Children's marketing for the publisher Bloomsbury. It couldn't be dissimilar from Latimer Books and it's a great bookshop, in a very different way, but just as appealing. It's much more spacious and it was very interesting to see that what they stocked was very unlike the selection at Latimers. Main Street’s advertising and web site say...."Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore" It's a quote by Henry Ward Beecher; of course they are right. Here I bought a book about the French Resistance called oddly enough ‘Resistance’. The cover and foreword (by William Boyd) are very enticing. I can't wait to finish what I'm currently reading (I biography of Oswald Mosley) to start on all three books.

So it was a day far from wasted….and I look forward to many more visits to both shops. This evening, sitting and looking at the books made me yet more sure that e-readers are in fact – b****cks! What's fantastic is that people who obviously love books want to maintain the tradition of great independent book shops where you get advice that is backed up by knowledge and love of what they do. Good luck to both shops, of course they'll need a little in this tricky times, but not too much I suspect as both are up there with the best.

Peacocks in the Borders

Mrs. H. just came running back into the house saying, "Quick, quick, where's my camera." Next thing she's hot-footing it back down the garden. This was the result . . . as she said, "I didn't think we'd be seeing this."

Flodden, Fungi and Food in the Lammermuir Hills

Yesterday I decided to spend a little time walking over the hills looking for the site of a long gone group of houses called Ellemside. I've got an 18th Century map which shows it, but it's not up to the standards of the Ordnance Survey and so its precise position is up for debate. I thought the farmer had harvested his barley, but he'd only done half of the field and so my searching was somewhat abortive. I'm interested because a few days before the battle of Flodden in 1513, on this weekend 495 years ago, the Scots army mustered at Ellem and King James IV, "stayed in a house at Ellem" - it could perhaps be one of the houses at what was called Ellemside. So there I was metal detector in one hand, my spade in the other heading off down the hill toward the river valley; apart from finding a Victorian brass dog whistle it was all fairly fruitless. As I got closer to the valley I saw that the barley field ended and there was a field of grass; closer still I spotted what looked like mushrooms, on closer inspection I decided they were. Now, having once been on a fungi foray with a mycologist my fears of picking mushrooms to eat have been heightened rather than reduced.

There was nothing else for it - Dave was the answer. I knew he was working on a piece of wood sculpture in his studio at the old sawmill so I headed off to him to get him to come with me for some formal identification. I admit I did this with some trepidation as Dave, on at least once occasion, has had his lips turn blue from eating dodgy mushrooms. "They're definitely field mushrooms,” announced Dave as he sliced one off its base and took a bite. I watched for his lips to turn blue - fortunately they didn't. The two off us set about picking two large shop scale weighing pans of the beautiful mushrooms. Dave explained that it was important to cut them from their bases to leave the spores in the ground so that more would come. There was even a 'fairy ring' of little brown mushrooms; Dave cut a couple to check in his mushroom book as to their edibility.

With my 5 lbs of mushrooms I headed home, dropped Dave off to continue his sculpture, and thought about what to do. His idea was mushroom soup; I've never made it but after checking two or three cookery books I found several recipes. I decided to combine the best bits from several and ended up with ten or so servings of delicious mushroom and pancetta soup - it's in the freezer. There's enough mushrooms left for us to have risotto tonight. It will be a meal fit for a Scot’s King.

A Biblical Sky....

Tonight, a couple of minutes before my Cecil B. Demille moment with the owl...

Owl Right!!

Because I'm such a rubbish photographer I had the camera on the wrong setting....but as luck would have it it was on video and I caught this....but you'll have to be quick....

Saturday Night's Alright For Fledging

This just in from Mrs H. ....."As I walked up the track in the distance I could see two owls - one bigger than the other. The smaller one was bobbing and weaving; this was the best photo I could get. I then walked along the road to try and get something better. By this time there was only one big owl who screeched at me a couple of times before flying off.

There had been no hissing from the box, but there was when I came back. Perhaps the youngest has fledged and the two I saw was an adult giving the younger one some mouse catching lessons. There's now hissing from the box, it probably wants to make sure it gets some dinner."

All The Owl News That's Fit To Print

Last night was dire....2 inches of rain and it didn't stop from dusk 'til past dawn. Therefore the owls went very hungry as according to the Lammermuir's font of all owl knowledge, known to me as Mrs. H. "Owls don't fly in the wet because they cannot stay airbourne for long so they cannot hunt." At least that's the gist of it. Anyway tonight is much better but the net result is we have hungry owls. This just in from Mrs. H. "I have seen the adult back and forth but it is a very hungry owlet after last night. It still looks quite fluffy when it spreads it's wings. The middle owl is still flying to the box to be fed I have seen him tonight"

So there you have it, all the news that fits from Owl Watch 2008

Owl Watch

Click on the picture to enlarge

Mrs H. is not sure whether this is the oldest one or the middle one!

Sunday Night at the Lammermuir's Owl Watch

I have a lot of pictures of blue sky with small dots in them that are owls on the run....but this is as good as gets as far as this evening's walk in the conifer forest goes. Click on it to see it enlarged