A few days away

Partner-who-loves-tea and I have just had a few days in Scotland, meeting up with Friend-über-special and her husband and mother who are touring there at the moment.  We had a wonderful time.  Here will be plenty of posts to come.  On our first day we ambled up to Dunblane using the motorway for the trip up through England to the Border but then taking lesser A roads, B roads and unclassified roads. 

 One of these unclassified roads was from Enterkinfoot to Mennock alongside the River Nith. We stopped to admire the river and were rewarded by seeing a Red Squirrel.  

Once common in England they have largely been replaced by Grey Squirrels but here in Scotland there a few places where they can still be seen in numbers.  While I was photographing the squirrel P-w-l-t was shouting at me (in a whisper), “John, John!”   Shouting in a whisper is a special skill since it is designed to attract the attention of the person without disturbing the wildlife to which she wants to alert the person.  

I turned and was faced with a normally very shy Roe Deer walking past me.  Our side of the bridge was the unclassified road we were on but the other side, for which it was aiming, was a main road with lots of traffic.   Fortunately it came to a stop.

And then a car turned into our road and chased it back over the bridge past us.

Later when we were walking in the woods the deer came back and we watched it for a while before it bounded off into the distance.

What a great start to our Scottish trip.