“THE RAIN it raineth every day”, as Will Shakespeare’s clown sings in Twelfth Night.
WHEN SOMETHING new turns up that I think I should have known about I sometimes wonder what I’ve done with my life.
COUNTRYSIDE SOUNDS are often as big a giveaway of what’s going on round about you as actually seeing. There are the obvious examples of birdsong and identifying the singer, or the sound of livestock warning me to keep Inka in about. A fox’s sharp bark when we’re out last thing at night or a roe buck’s rasping cough are less familiar but tell me what’s on the move.
TALKING TO an experienced countryman, he reckoned we’ve lost a fortnight of the autumn weather – winter has come early. The thought was reinforced by son Robert who e-mailed a photo taken on Thursday morning outside his office at Ardverikie of the snow-covered peak of Carn Dubh. I’ve been checking out the winter woollies and the long johns to see what damage the family moth has inflicted since I tidied them away into the bottom drawer last spring.
‘Katie Beardie had a coo / A’ black about the moo / Wasna yon a denty coo? / Dance, Katie Beardie.’