Dog Spotting Group

Bird watching group today, and the snow was still on the ground from last night. An ideal day to pop on my new and hardly used (except in the house) wellies! Did I think of that? Did I 'eckaslike! (Who used to say that on TV?).

Walked through the Meadows to get my bus, and it was sunshine and blue skies, and no wind. Just gorgeous. The poor wee crocuses were covered in snow. I couldn't resist crawling about, trying to get a low shot. I had a plastic bag with me, so I was able to do this without getting a wet knee.

By the time I was on the bus, there was a whiteout. You could hardly see in front of you. Nice for bird watching!! However, by the time we were all there, and it was a depleted group this week, it was sunny again. But on our walk, we had a couple of hailstorms and snowstorms, in between sunshine.

However, there were not many birds to be seen. A couple of buzzard types away up in the trees. A few tits chirping away, plenty of crows and wood pigeons. But all was not lost! I had a great time taking photos instead, although I discovered it's quite hard to get a decent shot in snow.

But mainly I did some dog spotting. I saw SO many lovely dogs, all proper breeds and some unusual ones. There were two Irish wheaten terriers, a Pyrenean mountain dog, two cocker spaniels, two black flat-coated retrievers (they're the ones in the photo)and, inevitably, a cockapoo. I didn't know what they all were, but always asked.

I walked on following the Braid Burn, instead of going back the same way with the group. We were supposed to go up the hill where Juliet assures us there are hundreds of skylarks, but as we didn't do that walk this week, she's adding it on as an extra at the end.

I had to walk through another hailstorm to get to a bus. There were 11 of us, crowded in a wee bus shelter. All ages. And we were all chatting about the weather and generally passing the time, waiting for buses. One chap suggested a game of cards. I suggested betting on which bus came first.

It occurred to me we could have been a jury - just a random cross section of the community. And we would have found Vicky Pryce guilty first time around! (Sorry, non UK readers - this case was famously thrown out a couple of weeks ago because the jury didn't understand the question).

So not the best bird watching weather, but it was a lovely walk in the snow. An ideal day for wearing my new and hardly used wellies. Pity I forgot.