Dogless

This morning A took Django for a walk with her three women friends, but it was nicely sunny, so I went on my own to the Estate. It was rather muddy in places, and not as sunny as I'd hoped, but it was still more than pleasurable with the late autumn colours.

There is quite a bit of work going on in the Estate, as it prepares to launch itself as a hotel and luxury holiday cottage venue. Not only is there now a much more driveable access to the cottage in the photo, but the horrible mess of the grass in front of Penicuik Old House is being addressed. Two years ago they claimed to be "rewilding" what used to be regularly-cut turf, and they scarified the surface, but it was clearly never seeded. Maybe they expected seeds to be blown from other areas of the estate with almost zero density of wildflowers. Now they've removed the ropes and mowed it back hard.

A and I arrived back at the same time - more precisely, she returned in the car whilst I was standing outside the house responding to a friend on messenger - and, after lunch, I got on with a piece of programming that I'd been thinking about on my way round the Estate.

In the afternoon, A made a squash tarte tatin, which we ate for tea, after which I took Django out for a dry but very dark early evening walk.

So, a Blip entry without any mention of Turf or football, neither of which were stunningly successful today!