Solitude.

Absence of company is the meaning, according to Chambers Dictionary. Not counting three cats who have slept most of the day away, I have been absent of company, and it has been bliss!

Time to smell the roses.
This rose is scrambling through a hedgerow up the road. Surely been planted by man? It looks too much like a cultivated rose than a wild one, but then nature is a good gardener. I know one is not supposed to dig up wild flowers, but I would love this to be scrambling through one of our hedges.
Watching the birds come to our feeding station by the kitchen window.

Frequent visitors to a our bird feeding station are two goldfinches, some days three. We make sure we have a variety of seed to please them.

I planted up three tomato plants, donated by Lucy. (Forgetting we no longer have a greenhouse, now we have moved.) I have put them in a trough and sprinkled some cut and come again lettuce leaves and hoping the shelter provided by the summer house will be sufficient for the tomato plants to survive. Should the temperature really plummet I can move the trough into the summer house. I also potted on some chilli peppers I grew from seed. They are still inside the summerhouse. The instructions on the packet say they can go outside once they have grown a bit more. I have now grown, from seed, basil, dill, coriander and borage. I have done the latter four before, but demands of running the b&b meant they didn't thrive as I never had the time to keep nurturing them as they needed. Now I do have the time.

The reason for this wonderful solitude? My sister in law has come to visit for a few days. She and Mike have gone off to view Peregrines nesting further North from here by Huntly. So I have the whole day to potter.

She arrived late afternoon, yesterday, and has gone round the garden and identified the plants we were unsure of, and advised on what to prune and when, what to get rid of, all in all I think the garden got the thumbs up. We had a lovely meal at a nearby small hotel/restaurant and along the way gave lots of encouragement to the relatively new owner. (Would need another blog session to go into all that, tourism in the North East of Scotland - watch this space.)

The weather has returned to our Aberdeenshire norm. June = warm, gentle breeze. Well, for now!

This morning I went to get the Sunday Paper and returned amongst a cavalcade of Classic Cars. Somewhat bemused, as I knew there was a gathering of Classic Cars in Fraserburgh, I still do not know where they were travelling to. Joined the cavalcade by the cemetery and carried on all the way to our house, where they turned left and I turned right. People on the route were waving at us,so I waved back.

So not a day totally without company.