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Blogs by Linda Watson
A wonderful Friday in SW Scotland! 5/28/2010 9:52:55 PM
Yesterday was a really good day! I have been suffering all week from the most dreadful toothache caused by an abcess, but the antibiotics finally started to work, so I went off to my Latin group (LwtLoLA)and worked on Ovid's Metamorphoses with the others. I like Ovid very much! This was Phaethon driving his father's chariot and losing control.
Then the dentist drained my abcess - no pain but much gain!
In the afternoon it was Spanish with my Dorothys (Dorothies?) (see previous blogs.) Only two this week, so all was harmony as the contentious Dorothy was at the Chelsea Flower Show.
After that I drove from Kirkcudbright to Dalbeattie via the coast road and it was beautiful! Clear blue sky and a calm sea. I stopped by the sea and found the shore threaded with silverweed and its bright yellow flowers. The views across the Solway to the Lake District hills were stunning. The lanes were fringed with the lace of cow parsley, red campion, lesser stitchwort, wild garlic and bluebells and green, green ferns. I had a quick walk in Dalbeattie woods and, amongst the now fading carpet of bluebells there, I found new plants emerging ready to take over from them - wood avens, oxalis and, I think, sanicle, although to be sure I have to wait for the flowers to come.
The rhododendrons are all in full bloom at the coast, and the farmers there are busy cutting their grass and carting it home to the silage pits. Its only twenty miles from here to the Solway but the difference in the vegetation is remarkable. Even eight miles south of here the fields are being cut and harvested, whilst, as you will know from my previous blogs, our grass has only just begun to grow in the last week and it will be the end of June before we can think about cutting it. As I said in LwtLoLA, this is my favourite time of the year as our slower start to the Spring makes it last longer than further south and we can enjoy the fresh green of the new leaves for far longer, before they take on their blousy summeriness. We are truly lucky to live in such a beautiful place!
Take care,
Lxx
Ps Forgot to say - six pairs of swallows are nesting in the farm buildings. I have just been watching them collecting nest material in the farm yard.
