So one is Mossdale in 2015 and the other one is Mossdale c. 1930 – of course my mother did point out that the modern bungalow would not have been there then.

In the second picture you can see my attempt at taking a photo of his paws.

On Friday R and I walked down the old railway line to Loch Struan. The loch was almost completely frozen over, with only the areas of flowing water near the entrance and exit rivers still liquid. R couldn’t resist throwing stones on to it to see how thick the ice was, and it seemed to be a few inches at least. In the distance we could see a flock of geese at the far end of the loch sharing the one small pool which was free of ice.

On Saturday afternoon (having spent the morning spending money in Dumfries with my Mum), R and I set out to walk further down the railway line to Loch Skerrow, where there used to be a station (well a halt) on the Portpatrick line. The path was extremely snowy, icy and in places treacherous and we made such poor time that when it got to 3pm and we hadn’t even got to the loch, we had to turn back for fear of not getting home before dark. It was a shame because Skerrow is a really evocative (and even spooky) spot. The line closed in 1963, and you can still see the much decayed platform, the remnants of the spring that must have watered the steam engines, and the ruined station buildings. I would have liked to put my own pictures on – but you can see what it looks like now and how it would have looked in 1963 here – http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?loc=Loch%20Skerrow No human had been along to Skerrow since the snow came, and the path was completely covered with the tracks of deer and of some carnivore (I think a fox although it may have been a badger).

This morning we walked up past Mossdale Loch (which again was completely frozen up), up on to the ‘Raider’s Road’ and then back round to Struan. As we still had time before lunch, we carried on and did the ‘Mushroom Walk’ (so called because in autumn I have never seen so many brightly coloured fungi as on this walk). It ends at a place on the river that I always find rather sad. Until 1900s there was a school in Mossdale (actually in the house where my parents now live) and children would come from the surrounding farms to study there. To accommodate this there was a metal footbridge over the river to give them access (people were hardier in those days because it is at least two miles just from the bridge to Mossdale). Anyway, when R and I first visited 15 years ago, the old bridge was still there (though rusted over and quite impassable), but a few years later, presumably for ‘health and safety’ reasons, it was removed. Another piece of history gone for no good reason – but I can never stand on the bank without thinking of the long dead children in their petticoats and moleskin trousers with lunches in hand swinging over the bridge on their way to school.

Anyway – we had a very nice time and thanks to my Mum and Dad for having us.

My highlight was feeding the next door neighbour’s hens while she was away and gathering the eggs. They are actually really sweet creatures, they make a constant thrumming noise when you are feeding them (almost like cats purring), and peck any crumbs right off your feet. I’d really like to have half a dozen myself, but with pine martens, foxes, badgers and otters in the immediate vicinity (plus our two cats of course) I don’t think the poor things would last long. Shame because it would be great to have our own eggs – though I could say for a stone cold fact that I would never be able to kill and eat a chicken so perhaps it is better that we don’t, because they would end up as pets.

The main picture is of a little house made by my (very talented) mother which sits in the garden. The other pictures are some views of the area (the one of the view to the back rather reminds me of the iconic default background to Windows XP).

The little village my parents live in is also very pretty and quaint and you can walk straight out of the back of the house and down to Loch Struan (about a mile away) down an abandoned railway line. The line used to run from Castle Douglas to Stranraer via Gatehouse of Fleet until it was closed in the 1960;s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatehouse_of_Fleet_railway_station Walking along the line is quite evocative and sad – particularly the old abandoned station at Skerrow. You can imagine what it would have been like with the steam trains huffing past – but now it is silent and more decayed every time we pass it. There is another railway story related to the village, that in the 1930s the royal train stopped there and Edward VIII got out on the platform at Parton. He gave the station porter a shilling with his own head on it – but later it was lost in the village. I keep meaning to look for it with a metal detector – it would be a real piece of history if we could find it.

So R and I walked down to the loch and I took some photos and a short video which I will add in as a separate post. Along the way I ate quite a few wild strawberries (R doesn’t do eating anything that grows wild), and at the loch we saw some little frogs. It was also quite interesting to see that the selection of plants and flowers is a bit different down here, and also that summer is considerably further advanced, for example the hawthorne has berries on it here – whereas back in Argyll it is still in flower.