The run of good weather has come to an end but more will follow hopefully. It was unusual weather for us up here in Scotland and other parts of the country. It was a good chance to test the bbq out and what comes with a BBQ, beer and wine of course. Never one to miss an opportunity for outside cooking, the only time I do cook I will add, and sit with a cold beer in the sun with a view to die for.

We had five BBQ’s over the warm sunny days and these included, Burgers, sausages, chicken portions with skin on, chicken skewers fried eggs, mushrooms, bacon and even some lovely steak. Not all at once I will add.

I know what you’re thinking, will the egg not fall through the grate. No, we put the eggs in a small stainless bowl and they cooked a treat, same with the mushrooms. I have other ideas for future.

The cold frosty mornings and warm days were much appreciated and view from our camper was nice one morning with the snow capped mountain with the sun shining on top and hazy atmosphere.

I needed some new walking boots so a trip to Stirling was the plan for an our day off. Now whenever I buy something I have to do a lot of research so I am sure I know what I am getting. I got the choice down to three different pairs of boots so off we went only stopping for breakfast on the way at the Scottish antique centre cafe. Which do such a nice breakfast.

The lady in the shop was very helpful and had all the time in the world for me and my trying different boots on. Proper old school service which I like. Pair one were very nice and fitted well, pair two were two narrow so thrown out of the mix, pair three were not in the shop, these were the ones I really wanted. So I had to make a decision. Do I take pair one or they could order pair three and get them sent to our base to try. After a few minutes umming and arring I decided to get the others sent out to try on.

The other boots arrived two days later, all excited I opened them up and gave a wow they are nice and then tried them on. Left foot fitted like a glove, right foot too tight so a little sad face and back in the box they went. It was as if they were two different sizes. The following week back to the shop and exchanged them for the first ones I had tried on.

So the season had started and the lorry that empty’s our cesspits arrived, a different driver to normal. As he turned into the driveway he hit the big white boulders and ruptured his diesel tank. Quick thinking I got him to pull out the entrance and into the pull in area where he sat with about 400 litres of diesel trickling out his tank. He had only filled it up the night before.

Phone calls were made and a rescue truck was on its way and a clear up crew. The driver was very upset about the whole thing but he calmed down and as I said to him. These things happen and no one was killed or seriously hurt and every thing else can be fixed.

Nice day day off time to get out on my bike. Having not been out on my bike much in the winter I was not going far this day. Only did sixteen miles but was nice to be out on the bike in Scotland again. I took a route I have been before and a bonus was I saw some deer which is always nice.

What you looking at

I have told you about the drive from here to the lovely tea room before. It’s a great drive so we had to get our first visit in of the season. A lovely sunny day and we were off towards the car park where we parked up and walked through the woods to get to the tea room. The walks are graded, blue, red and black. None of them are very long but the colours indicate the incline and difficulty. Blue being mostly flat, red not so flat and black bloody steep.

Because Nikki was with me we chose to go to the tea room via the blue route. A pink route was not available. It was a nice walk and the early lunch at the tea room was nice. Nikki walked back on the blue route while I chose to go via a red and black route and meet her back at the car. Was it steep, did it make me pant was I glad I went back that way. Yes.

The next day another walk was planned but from the campsite which would take us across the fields down the hill around the western end of the loch and back up the hill to base. While telling Nikki about the route she did suggest we take the car into Killin and walk from there but I said I was going to walk because we would pass the Killin hotel on the way back I might like to stop in there for a couple of pints which I could not do if I drove down there. At this point she changed her mind and said that would be nice so we walked down.

We took a picnic and had our lunch on the edge of the loch as it was so peaceful. Then continued our walk and tried to go past the hotel but a strange magnetic force dragged us into it. We sat in the garden overlooking the river. I know Nikki was thinking all the time. We have to walk up that bloody hill after we leave here but she did it. I waited for her at the top.

After building a BBQ bench in our compound I was getting creative so where a tree had been cut down we had decided it looked like something so some eyes were burnt into the stumps and a off cut was used for a mouth. Meet Stumpy.

After the poo truck incident we thought what could possibly go wrong now. Spoke too soon as last Saturday afternoon our water pump decided it had had enough. Our site water is via a bore hole with a pump which has been on its way out for the last two years. So more phone calls and emails resulting in everyone on site having to drive down the road a mile to fill their water barrels from our other site. The pump people called but couldn’t get here until Tuesday .

When they arrived they confirmed the pump had died, no kiss of life was bringing it back. We had to tell everyone to leave the site and all the bookings for the next week were cancelled. So we have a very quiet Easter weekend. And the pump is getting fixed next week hopefully.

Apart from my tractor breaking down, a caravan wheel falling off just down the road coming to us, another caravan hitting some small rocks on our entrance and getting stuck and a lady shouting at me about the lack of water life is going on as normal on a campsite. Never a dull day. The red squirrel has been spotted on different parts of the site and we have seen him ourselves and this morning I heard the first cuckoo.