Brooke Marie

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turning 30 and hearing a cuckoo

AUTHORS NOTE: I have ZERO spacial awareness and hired the worlds biggest motorhome because in the car park next to all the other motorhome it looked positively normal sized. Only when I drove it out the car park did I realise my error.

OFF WE GO!

This May I was lucky enough to hire a motorhome and visit Scotland with my mutually nuts, mutually impulsive and mad friend, Issy. I abandoned all parental and wifely duties, I left The Farmer with Ted at home (I still maintain that women should throw hubby’s in at the deep end, it turns out they’re perfectly capable and you’re actually free as a bird if you’re assertive enough to say “RIGHT I’M OFF FOR A WEEK, GOOD LUCK MATE”) as I headed off to turn 30 in my most favouritist country ever… SCOTLAND. We set off on our jolls at 5:30am and just before we slammed the doors and woke my mum and dad up we heard the sound of a cuckoo from the trees near my parents house, we would then hear it again on our walk up a Scottish hill and again by a loch although i’m sure not the same one that’s following us. Having never heard one before we were both absolutely chuffed! We got to see a dipper too which I think could possibly be my favourite bird, it’s little dipping dance was quite contagious and I found myself dipping too.

HERE SHE IS…

A rekorderlig and some Swifts

Sat in a pub garden on the very first day after arriving in Comrie, a little village/town close to Crieff we sat drinking Rekorderlig (This would later lead to us joining onto a large christening party and ending up in a random house party until walking back to the campsite at 2am) but that’s beside the point. As we sat their musing on life and discussing the worlds best wildflower identification book i’d just found in a charity shop we were joined by some beautiful birds, after much debate and whacking the Binoculars out we decided they weren’t house martins (white belly) and they weren’t swallows (very long tails) they were swifts and they were marvelous to watch!

Whilst in Comrie we also saw the highland band practicing, they closed the road and paraded up and down playing amazing music and putting a right old skip in our holly highland step, and who doesn’t love a fell runner in a kilt? Or is that just me? Sorry hubby if you read this ;) We also saw droopy English Bluebells (I only ever seem to see the Spanish straight one where we live near Bridlington.) and spotted my first ever Wood Anenome. We also managed to dip ourselves into a loch, visit Luss in Loch Lomand and wild camp in the woods and anxiously discus axe murderers hiding behind trees instead of sleeping.