CHARLIE AMONG THE SUNFLOWERS

We started our holiday in the best way by calling in on sister A1 and being treated to a delicious lunch to fortify us for the journey. Here's her cat, Charlie, caught between sips from the vase of sunflowers. Now we're installed in a little stone cottage deep in a private estate in the south west of Scotland. I was going to say how completely silent it is, but since I started writing I can hear a noise - some sort of game bird I think - coming from the wood at the back (the sun has just gone down). Other than that we have no neighbours within several hundred yards and there is no traffic at all. This may change in the morning as there is a farm a few hundred yards in the other direction and I don't know what they get up to. There was a welcome pack when we arrived - home-made lemon drizzle cake, bread, butter, milk, eggs, mini pots of jam and marmalade and a bottle of red wine... everything one could need for breakfast!