Blustery today

Despite a fairly gloomy forecast the storm seemed to have abated during the night and left the morning still windy but with blue skies. My sister-in-law arrived mid-day to join me for a walk and we decided to go up to the Loch Turret reservoir to see how it was looking after the continuous rain. As the skies had been permanently grey since I returned from holiday I was taken by surprise when the road turned a bend affording us the first view of the hills. They were covered in a mantle of fresh snow and looked magnificent against the blue (albeit pale) sky.

The road became a bit slushy in parts as we neared the car park at the top but the temperature remained at 4' so we were not in danger of driving on ice....yet! Once we got out of the car we realised that it was blowing a hooley and any remaining cobwebs were quickly whipped away! The reservoir was overflowing still and the outflow was delivering a steady and large volume of water down into the river below. The water on the loch itself was whipped into numerous small white horses and more resembled a rough sea than a peaceful reservoir. The walk was very invigorating and once we had 'persuaded' Bruce to climb three iron steps enabling him to take a final leap over fencing, we were off at a fair pace with the wind in our faces. I have to say that Bruce had tried everything to avoid the steps, including getting into the icy water to find a suitable diversion until he eventually conceded defeat after Cara ran to his rescue. Only then did he agree to the ignominy of my lifting him up the narrow steps and over the fencing.

About half way into the walk along the shore we came across a piece of water where a swollen burn was cascading down from the hill above, over the pathway and on down to the water's edge. Being a bit unsure of how waterproof our boots really were we decided to find an alternative crossing and eventually had fun navigating our way further up the hill, making use of large boulders in mid-course. This blip is of Cara and Bruce trying to encourage us in .... their feet being 100% waterproof! On our way back we just made it to the car, repeating our little exercise with Bruce and the steps, before a blustery snow shower edged its way across the loch from the north.

We did see a flock of small birds during our walk but unfortunately didn't have binoculars with us. They seemed to be feasting on old flower shoots on the heather and as they flew we caught a glimpse of red. We wondered if they were goldfinches.