....... but there was ice on the birdbath this morning!!
I went out, broke it up and took it off - and some time later it was still lying there, unmelted!!
This little sparrow looked thoroughly miserable!
But as soon as I filled the feeders, things looked a lot livelier
When we went into Hawick for our usual Thursday morning cuppa, we were a little bit early, so we walked round to where we sometimes see a heron on the River Slitrig. I was disappointed not to see him (I know, I always think that herons are male!) ....... but then Malcolm spotted him sitting on a garden wall above the river - maybe the water was just too cold!!
Although it was starting to cloud over a bit, we went out for a walk after lunch. We decided to walk the route that we have only walked once, but this time we would do it the other way round, so that we didn't have to walk up the very steep hill! Usually when I show you photos of the Minto Hills, you only see one - but here are both of them!
We have had quite a lot of rain recently, which meant there were some tricky stretches to negotiate
We were distracted for a while ...... but I'll tell you why later! This calf was keeping a careful eye on us, although it was a good distance away
This horse obviously believes that the grass is greener on the other side
When we got back home, I lurked just outside the garden gate, hoping to take some photos of the birds on the feeders - but the sparrows just sat in the hedge and laughed at me!
So what caused the hold-up in our walk?
picking lots of rosehips ........
...... and even more sloes!
As we hadn't picked sloes before, we brought a little bit of a branch home to check that they were indeed sloes - a quick google search confirmed we were right (thank you Wikipedia!)
Now we will make sloe gin and rosehip syrup! To finish, two photos of the birdbath ....
a brave sparrow takes the plunge in the cold water .......
..... while the other birds stay firmly on the rim!