Sunday 5 July

We got to land on the Bass Rock on Friday and it was wonderful to be so close to thousands of gannets and to be able to observe their behaviour. Although the pong, the poo and being dive-bombed by herring gulls wasn't all that pleasant........

Here is a shot of incoming gannets. The boat skipper chummed the water with fish as we approached the rock, and soon the sky was full of birds. My camera does not buffer well in RAW format at speed, so this was taken in JPEG.




I'm looking forward to hosting Rob MacKenzie The Opposite of Cabbage tour later in the month. I've been following his travels when I can and hope I can do justice to the earlier stop offs.

In fact there is so much to look forward to this summer, the Scottish Poetry Library's School of Poets Courtyard Readings, as our contribution the Edinburgh Festival; The Beechgrove Garden TV programme coming to help me with a project in my own garden; and our 30th wedding anniversary - which I feel deserves a telegram from the Queen at the very least! Getting to 100 years old is a scoosh these days, but staying married for 30 years is bloody hard work!