Lily pond

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of this artificial lake in the grounds of Knockdow, Toward. I don't think, in fact, that I'd ever realised there were waterlilies in it, as we usually drive past on our way to Loch Striven. Today, however, we thought we'd walk that bit of road, and found it delightful. For a start, a large section of our walk was silent apart from birdsong - not the vandal-squawking of crows nor the demented hysteria of oystercatchers, bu mellifluous and distant, for the most part, enhancing the silence rather than destroying it.

Our return to the familiar stamping ground of the Ardyne carpark was marked by the noise of two tractors and a roaring from a beast in the field, as well as by the powerful smell of the muck being spread by one of the tractors.

All of which has nothing to do with the lily pond. But it was there ...