A New Chapter

Well I'm here sitting in my renovated bungalow composing my first blog in months. I must say it has been worth every second of hard work and some trying times but I couldn't have done it without the help of my now very close friend Graham who was an old school pal I reconnected with a couple of years ago. I went to my old house last night for one last look before I shut the door probably for the last time and I didn't get any of the emotional feelings that I expected in fact I felt nothing, it was like closing the door on part of my life and moving on with some wonderful memories and a few sad ones.

There's still a lot to do around the house, mainly finding space and where to put things as I've down sized and lost some cupboard space but it is a pleasurable task that I can do at my leisure. After some organizing I text Tootlepedal to see if there was a pot of coffee on offer, which there was. It was nice to catch up with each others news and I was most impressed with his 125 mile bicycle ride recently. We arranged to meet later in the afternoon as Tootlepedal was keen to show me the wild flowers that were abundant on Meikleholm hill.

We met at the appointed time at the top of Jimmy's brae which now is a short walk for me and headed up the hill. Apparently the grazing cattle were taken off the hill awhile ago allowing the wild flowers allowing the wild flowers to flourish giving the hillside a meadow appearance.

A small collection of the flowers we came across.

The town in all its glory

The long and winding path

Tootlepedal stops to take a shot from Hunters Gate, a favorite place amongst favorite places.

Some serious tree felling across the valley.

I'm always in awe at the amount of effort and labour it must have taken to cart the stone uphill to build these wonderful walls.

looking up towards Potholm

Tootlepedal commented on the light grass seed heads which has come out reasonably well on camera.

  

We camme upon a flock of foxgloves.....

......before taking this final patriotic shot 

We made our way back down the hill and I left Tootlepedal and headed off on my very short journey home. On summing the day up I feel as though I very much have entered a new chapter in my life and with friends like Graham and Tootlepedal around I sense some good times ahead.