Over bank, bush, and scaur

This Sunday we walked into Cecilia Forest with Alice, Maddie and Paul, leaving the Pesky Puppy at home.

It was all slushy and wet and misty and rather beautiful as we came out of the forest above Kirstenbosch

and on to the contour path. Then the sun came out.

Me and Paul enjoying the forest.

This plant (Penaea mucronata) is called Noughts and Crosses - and I have always wondered why, but now I can see.

Drinking tea high up on Cecilia Ridge.

The restio of the week is Restio quadratus, with its four-angled stems.

For the first time since Dougal died, I thought I saw a fairy in the tops of the trees ...

Every little stream was in spate, and there was water cascading down over banks, bushes and scaurs*

and all the rocks were covered with moss.

We met our neighbours near the Cecilia Carpark, and they had a new puppy too, which then took all the magic out of my mind as I remembered that we had to now go home THE PEST. (I tried to tell the Food Lady to offer it to them too, but she ignored me.)

Back home I decided I had better teach THE PEST how to dig, as he is related to Dougal (and me!) so he has to learn what Scotties do best. So we dug out some onions for supper.

THE PEST with his onion.

Another pest we dug up with the onions - that made us both sneeze.

THE PEST removing the Food Lady's fleecy blanket from her chair,

and settling down to sleep after all that digging. Thank Goodness. Peace at last! He almost looks cute in his heart-shaped patch of sun!

 

*For those of you without a working knowledge of Gaelic, a scaur is a precipitous bank or rock; a scar.