Yesterday was such a beautiful day, as late summer slides into early autumn.  Some of the rowan trees are already turning, starting at the top with that unbelievable salmon pink.  I find this time of year brings on a whole heap of mixed emotions, besides being the obvious harbinger of change and winter (oh please, not one like last year, I cannot slither past the Omni for another three months) there is the feeling of a job done.  Crops are harvested, the fields are neatly shorn with their Weetabix tank battles* deployed for our amusement.  Decent greengrocer’s shops are full of fresh local produce, whilst if you look up you just might see a skein of several hundred geese heading for their winter accommodation.

Elspeth & Colin came to see us yesterday and we took a run past some of West Fife’s finest scenery – oh and by the way, congratulations to whoever planted the wild flowers at Crossgates, they’re stunning – we came down past Goat Quarry and Otterston loch, it gleamed and glinted in the sunshine as seven cygnets raced across for the bread we did not have with us.

Later we went up to Loch Leven which is truly one of my favourite places on earth.  A trail has been set up so that you can walk not quite all the way round it  (a bus follows it on Sunday folks, so go then) with stone seats and wooden benches all along, most of which have been inscribed with poetry.  Don’t go by the map, which for some reason has been oriented in alignment with Betelgeuse, and made Paul very cross.  The late sun picked out the hills in sharp definition, there were birds everywhere and loads of people out walking.  If, as has been reported, the white tailed sea eagles have returned to this neck of the woods then we may have found a better vantage point at the north shore.

Now we have the whole gorgeous technicolour tree fest just around the corner, which usually culminates in Slaley week.

*No prizes for guessing who came up with that name for the round hay bales you see in the fields just now.