Easter Craiglockart Hill on a hot summer's day

It's been very hot and humid today! We went for a walk round Easter Craiglockart Hill, taking advantage of the shade of the trees in the woodland and the cooling breezes on the open top of the hill. It's a lovely place to walk

first you walk uphill through the woodlands, then you reach the top where you get lovely views across the gold course to the Pentland Hills

We also walked into the grounds of Craighouse. These historical buildings have served as a hospital and later an University campus and are currently being converted into housing, with new buildings been built too.

There's been a lot of controversy over the plans for this, and the end result will probably still be at least slightly controversial, but the agreement between the developer and the council leaves some green space to be enjoyed by the local people, including the orchard area

There are wonderful views from here too, looking over Edinburgh to the distinctive hill of Arthurs Seat

There's plenty of wildlife to see around here too including this chequered ten-spot ladybird

We then walked around Craiglockart Pond where the resident mute swans have youngsters, only two of which were available for this photo call

 the moorhens also have young - this one is almost grown up

around the pond there were lots of spiders

including this hunting spider

After lunch we continued our walk along the canal, where there were lots of pond skaters and tiny fish (though I don't think any of the fish are visible in the photo below)

We also met this lovely friendly kitten with no tail