'This heart-breaking and heart-broken country'....

in the words of Maurice Walsh, talking of the Ladder Hills. It was a beautiful sunny and bright day, but there was an icy wind blowing, and then, when I saw the Cairngorms, I saw they were plastered in snow!  There was nothing at all on the Ladders or Cromdales.
Frogs were laying in the burns, flocks of Oystercatchers sunned themselves on the banks, and the woods were full of small birds, Siskins, Bullfinches, Chaffinches and Thrushes.