Tales of Home

top right corner.  but fuzzy.  Possibly a second to the left of it on other side of tree, just the head poking out.

azriel wrote:I thought it was on the right hand side ( as you look at it )  of the black roof ? in the long grass ?

naw, that's a fox.

azriel wrote:I thought it was on the right hand side ( as you look at it )  of the black roof ? in the long grass ?

{{We have a winner! Well spotted Az.   }}

Spoiler:

No, that's the fox.  How about this guy (don't tell me it's in the tree)

Spoiler:

I thought it was the extreme left, as you look at it, in the long grass under the door of the shed. you can see its head.

That's a mastiff.

Do we all need 'Specsavers' ?

Now that lockdown is finally easing, me and my girlfriend are making the most of it and going for lots of walks, some great scenery/nature in the local area, here's a few photos I took the other day when we went for a walk down by one of the rivers (we saw some trout, which were about the size of your forearm, for too fast to get a good photo of though...)

{{ Cracking pictures Malick- your in a lovely area- and sunshine! Haven't seen the sun up here for oer a month, been a terrible summer, good spring awful summer.
You want try guddling those trout! (dunno if that translates or not, but in heat of day trout go under ther banks for shade, and if lieon the riverbank and you reach a gentle hand in you can sort of hypnotise them by ticking their belly, then one swift quick flick of the wrist to get it out and lunch!   }}

Oh, over here that's called "noodling". Practitioners are rare and highly revered.

{{ We used to do it as kids at the Little Eck a river which comes out of Loch Eck where they spawn and goes into the sea at the Holy Loch, where the village I grew up in is. My grandfather taught me, he was a shepherd for decades on the Isle of Bute and was handy outdoorsman. Was poaching mind you (Dave would be out with his gun!) but the water bailiffs turned a blind eye to couple kids nabbing the odd one the tricky way, they were more out for people coming down in the night from Glasgow and netting the entire river and taking them back to sell fresh to the resturants in the morning. }}

In my book kids should have free hand to pinch apples, snag a fish or two, etc. I may draw the line at watermelon.

Malick - were you implying that you couldn't go on walks during the lock down? Or maybe that you just couldn't link up with someone at a distance for a walk?

Absolutely lovely pics ! really loved the bugs on the white flowers, & the cows. I love cows, ever since farmer Parsnip called me a cow I thought, how'd you like to live like one You are in a smashing part of the country Malick. Beautiful Dragonflies.

halfwise wrote:

Malick - were you implying that you couldn't go on walks during the lock down?  Or maybe that you just couldn't link up with someone at a distance for a walk?

The latter, me and my girlfriend don't live together (and about 12 miles from each other) neither of us drive and there were heavy restrictions on public transport when lockdown started, both of us have relatives have underlying health conditions (so were keeping travel at a minimum when we were at the peak-I went four months i think without using public transport) and her step father is working from home at the moment, so we went several months without seeing other in person when lockdown was at its height ...thankfully that is all behind us now and we are making up for lost time It sucked being apart from so long (we hadn't spent more than a week apart from each other before this) but it had to be done, people all across the country were making similar sacrifices (one of my neighbours is a nurse at a city hospital so we've heard second hand just how awful the pandemic has been ), and we knew it was only going to be a temporary thing.

Not to say I wasn't going for walks myself in the local area (quite the opposite actually-there's lots of woods/fields round where I live and I'm not too far from the beach, socially distanced of course)

azriel wrote:Absolutely lovely pics !  really loved the bugs on the white flowers, & the cows. I love cows, ever since farmer Parsnip called me a cow I thought, how'd you like to live like one  You are in a smashing part of the country Malick. Beautiful Dragonflies.

Yeah, there's some beautiful scenery/nature round my way (south Hampshire to be precise) especially in summer, and yeah lots of dragonflies, not too fond of cows myself but was hoping we'd see a deer or two...

beautiful photos Malick, it is great to see so much insect life still about, the Dragonflies are lovely. We called it 'trout tickling' as a kid, we went to shallow rivers, I never caught one though and I made my brother put the fish back in the river, he moaned but I was a horrible older sister.

{{ Brief visit to Kilmun Church, Kilmun is directly opposite the village I grew up in, on the other side of the Holy Loch, with Kilmun Hill dominating the horizon in that direction.

Heres the church itself, the original was a monastic setttlment over 1000 years ago, founded by a St Munn, which leant the village that eventually grew up the name Kilmun.
The main church you can see only dates from 1841 however the tower is much older but of unknown exact date but medieval for sure, but exactly when less sure. And there are remains of an earlier 12th century church.





In the 14th Century, when it had become established as an important centre for Christianity, and the loch was now named its current Holy Loch, the very powerful Clan Campbell, who held Inveraray as their seat and also more closeby, Dunoon castle (sadly there is nothing but some foundation walls left of this in town, atop Castle Hill) adopted Kilmun Church as their spirtual home, and buried their dead there in a special masuleum.
They also made it a collegiatte church where prayers were said for the Campbell dead and forgiveness for their sins. To this end there were five chaplains appointed to this task and they all lived in that old tower.





The graveyard is quite extensive, as you'd expect after all these centuries, and besides the above Campbell stuff there are grave stones on three sides of the church, and stretching up the hillside behind into the trees.









Oh snapped these from a moving car on way back, thought I'd throw them in as few places I'd mentioned of late.
This is the head of the Holy Loch, the sandbanks that give the village I grew up its name (ships moored there to shelter from storms used to sign off letters as 'from the Sandbanks'). Very fertile ground so there are farms at the lochs head, grows very lush grass for sheep and cattle.



This is where the little Eck river leads into the Holy Loch, following it all the way back it will take you to Lock Eck the mirror loch (not my picture, just for illustration) and somewhere inbetween this picture and Loch Eck, thirty seven or so years ago you might have found me, guddling for fish on the riverbank.





(Kilmun Hill in background here of the lush grass fields at the lochs head)


This is where the US Naval Base was located, this first picture is of what is now the Marina, but was origially built by the US as a supply warehouse, this is the place my dad ran for the Americans.



And this is the main pier that serviced the ship. The base itself was directly across the road from it. When I was a kid this place was a constant flow of people, launches went back and forth constantly, tannoys made annoucements every few minutes, Shore Patrol, well patrolled and there were a ridiculous amount of taxis (at one point per head of population we had more taxis than New York).



The building on the end has been refurbished but is basically the same, but it was more a guardhouse back then, more armed. My mum worked here on the base as a cleaner when I was small, and I used to go in to work with her sometimes, this was one of the less pleasant bits to clean as the right side, as you look at it, was a temporary jail cell for sailors the Shore Patrol had picked up, and usually they were steaming drunk.



The view back to the head of the loch, Kilmun Hill on the right, village of Sandbank starting on the left.



And this is the carpark for the base, it was always packed. On the left side nearest camera and for about half the length of that side was where all the motorbikes were parked, rows of massive US beasts, Harleys and stuff, and where we used to play live Top Trumps, picking bikes and seeig which had the highest top speed on the speedometer. The row of taxis waiting to collect from the disembarking sailors would also stretch passed even the length of this carpark.



And finaly home to a rather cool looking sky. }}

fab photos Petty.

{{ This young fella turned up bold as brass this evening to eat the hedge. }}

If you set up a salad bar what do you expect?

Nice pics Petty

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/d-day-landing-craft-lct-7074-reaches-dry-land-portsmouth-2951500?fbclid=IwAR3RbDr9ZxnRvkIZ3MzlIywE8G7PKEg4uMPKD3MsPuJVQbJykH-NTgsmHbs

I live near Portsmouth, definitely going to have a look round when they open it to the public...

I'm something of a WW2 geek, but I had no idea they were that big, nor that 800(!) were in use on D-Day...

(If any of you are ever in England and have a interest in Military History, Hampshire is packed out with relevant museums and historical venues, many of which are cheap or even free to look round)

Yeah I always thought of them as being about 1/4 that size. That's almost Star Wars dimensions.