Walking the River Almond

 The unseasonably hot weather continued today, and we sought shade alongside the River Almond for our walk. It's a lovely river, and we were lucky to get excellent views of several birds, including Grey Heron

Goosander 

and most excitingly we got a great view of a Kingfisher, a bird most usually seen flying at top speed along the river, not stopping to pose like this (if you click on the photo you'll get a better view of the kingfisher!)

We also saw Grey Wagtails, Mallards and Dippers. 

It was lovely also to see several Speckled Wood Butterflies, including this one

Tree Following September Update

 This year for Tree Following, I've chosen the beautiful cooking apple tree in Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden. You can read the post where I introduced the tree here. 

The tree is around fifty years old and produces a lot of apples (last year was a bumper year and I gave apples to colleagues, neighbours, students in my writing classes as well as friends!). The apples are excellent in apple crumble or just stewed and eaten with custard or added to porridge. 

Here are some photos of the tree from the middle of August:

The apples were already looking well developed

but I don't think that this year's harvest will be such a bumper harvest as last year's!

I also took more photos on 1 September. 

By 1st September, the plums on the nearby plum tree were already ripening, and some were ready to eat (and tasting delicious!)

The nasturtiums are also ready for harvesting, the leaves taste very peppery and can be added to salads or to stews. The flowers are also edible, but I haven't tried those yet (I prefer to leave the flowers for the pollinating insects to enjoy)

The hydrangea bush is looking wonderful 

This Magpie feather had fallen in the garden - it's easy to think of magpies as being black and white, but many of their black feathers are actually very iridescent and show blue, purple and green depending on the light 

We were in the garden again today and I noticed this spider's web in the tree 

Although the apples aren't really ripe yet, this one has already fallen from the tree

 Several Speckled Wood Butterflies were flying around the garden, including this one

 and several tiny froglets were wandering around in the grass, having left the garden pond to explore the wider world

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People who follow trees in the UK may be interested in the Woodland Trust  competition to find the Tree of the Year. Trees are nominated for their age or importance, in some cases their historical importance, in others because they have been threatened with destruction and the local community has rallied round them. The winner will represent the UK in the European Tree of the Year competition!

Voting is open until Sunday 15 October, and this year's winner will be announced on Thursday 19 October.

Find out more and cast your vote here. 

Blackford Hill and Pond

 Today was the third day of our staycation in Edinburgh, and we had arranged to spend the day separately (apart from lunch) each of us spending time with various friends. This afternoon, a friend and I climbed Blackford Hill. I had first walked past Blackford Pond 

walking along this shady path 

I was pleased to see several butterflies, though the Red Admirals evaded my camera, I did manage to capture this Speckled Wood 

We then walked up the hill, which has some magnificent views across Edinburgh to Arthur's Seat 

and a good close view of the Agassiz Rock. 

 

In 1840, the Swiss Geologist Louis Agassiz, found evidence at this volcanic outcrop that ice had once covered the landscape, in this case leaving horizontal scratch marks on the rock surface. This lead to further research to uncover more evidence that parts of Britain had indeed been ice covered in past times.

North Berwick

For the second day of our staycation in Edinburgh, we caught the train to the coastal town of North Berwick. We wanted to catch some sea breezes to cool down as the weather is so unseasonably hot at the moment. And the bach at North Berwick is beautiful.

Views towards the harbour at North Berwick are dominated by the Bass Rock, which is a huge gannet colony. Although avian flu is decimating seabird populations across Scotland, gannets are not being as badly affected as many bird species. Large numbers of gannets now have black eyes, instead of blue, after having survived bird flu (read more about this on the RSPB website here). From a distance, the Bass Rock is still white from the many gannets. 

There are quite a lot of small islands off the coast here 

and the beach is beautiful

A lovely place for a late summer walk.

We also, for the first time, visited the old St Andrew's Church, now a ruin. 

In the photo below, you can see the current St Andrew's Church in the background.

 You can read a little about the history of the three St Andrew's churches of the town here.

We were also impressed by this floral display near the railway station, which is maintained by North Berwick in Bloom.
 

Easter Craiglockart Hill

 We're off work this week and having a staycation in Edinburgh! The weather is beautiful (though possibly too hot to be honest). Today, we had a lovely walk around Easter Craiglockart Hill.

The hill has lovely views across Edinburgh

The steps in the photo below were built a year or so ago and have made a real difference to the accessibility of the hill and protect the ground from excessive erosion.

We saw a good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies (see if you can spot one in the photo below!) 

It was lovely to see Harebells growing on the hill

Crafty Green Boyfriend took some close-ups of these lovely flowers

We walked through the orchard near the Craighouse development. This development has caused much controversy, though this seems to have died down and the developers seem to be sticking to their word of preserving both the historical buildings (which used to be a psychiatric hospital and then was used by Napier University before being sold to developers - you can read more about the history of Craighouse here)

 

 

and much of the greenspace, the orchard is certainly lovely 

and there are beautiful views across to Arthur's Seat 

Corstorphine Hill

We had a lovely walk round Corstorphine Hill yesterday, in warm sunny weather. 

Speckled Wood Butterflies were flying around everywhere, though this is the only one that stayed still enough for a photo (click on the photo to enlarge the image)

We walked to the top of the hill, where the Corstorphine Tower was built as a memorial to Sir Walter Scott (you can read more about the tower here). 

Near the tower is this magnificent Scots Pine tree 

Signs of autumn are starting to show, including the presence of galls on some of the oak trees, including these Knopper Galls, which are caused by the knopper gall wasp (Andricus quercuscalicis). The gall starts off quite small on the top of the acorn,

but then grows

and grows until it takes over the entire acorn. There can be a lot of Knopper Galls on the same tree. 

You can read more about Knopper Gall wasps on the Woodland Trust website.

Second hand September - what really happens to clothes donated to charity?

This month is Second Hand September, a chance to highlight the value of buying second hand, focussing on clothing. When you shop second hand and donate unwanted clothes to second hand shops, you reduce waste, take a stylish stance against climate change, and help create a fairer world.

However, only as little as 20% of donations may end up getting sold in the shop. Many donations end up in countries in the global south, where there is big trade in second-hand clothing. Once in those countries, again there is no guarantee that the items will be sold, and mountains of unwanted clothing litter places from the Atacama Desert to rubbish dumps in Africa. 

This article, on the Guardian newspaper website, highlights how creative entrepreneurs across the world are using waste clothing to create their own highly sought after products, including children's toys, home textiles and shoes. 

The African country of Ghana imports around 15m items of second-hand clothing each week - read more in this article on the Guardian website.

Buying second hand is of course good, because you are genuinely reducing waste by re-using things. Donating is also good for the same reason. The problem lies in what happens in between. Many people buy clothing and wear an item only once for a party or for a photo to share on social media. Then these items are donated to charity, or even worse, thrown away. To make things worse, many clothes these days are poorly made and don't last long, even if you wanted to wear the same item to several parties or a whole series of social media posts.

So, even better than buying only second hand clothing this month, can you actually go all month without buying any clothing? And if you do need to buy new clothes, buy fewer items and make sure they're good quality. And think about how to make your clothing last longer: 

If your shoes get worn down, can they be repaired? (There aren't so many cobblers around these days, but if you can find one, use their services and make your footwear last longer). 

If a button falls off, sew it back on.

If a zip fails, replace it if you can or get a local repair shop to replace it (there may well be more clothing repair shops now than there used to be, there are certainly several in Edinburgh). 

If an item rips, consider creative ways of patching it up. 

If an item no longer fits, can you alter it, so it does fit? (Again, either do this yourself or take it to a clothing repair shop). If you can't alter it, and it's still in good condition, then donate it to charity.

If an item is no longer in good enough condition to wear out, where it around the house until it falls apart, and then use the cloth as rags.

How about upcycling fabrics? Here is a tweet from Oxfam (one of the UK charities that has a lot of second hand shops) showing how one of their volunteers upcycles fabrics into clothing.

The Or Foundation (Strap-line "Too much clothing. Too little justice") is a charity that works in Ghana and the USA to campaign on reducing clothing waste and move towards a circular economy.

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Second Hand September is all about celebrating second hand clothing! Can you commit, for the whole month, to buying only second hand clothes? And don't forget to donate your pre-loved items! Find out more about Second Hand September here and sign up to take part here.  

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If you're interested in issues around clothing, you may be interested in the thought-provoking Fashioning the Future report from the War on Want charity 

Remember, click on the coloured text to go to other websites where you can find out more!