Summer on Corstorphine Hill

A lovely lunchtime walk round Corstorphine HIll with Crafty Green Boyfriend today.

Several hoverflies around too, most notably this Leucozona glaucia, which isn't seen very often in Edinburgh, though this is the 2nd I've seen in the city

The Shetland Coast

Shetland is made up of many islands and all of them have beautiful coastal landscapes, here are just a few photos bfrom our recent trip

 the three photos above are from Papa Stou

 near Lerwick on Shetland Mainland

Burra (above and below)

Plastic Pollution on Shetland - a post for Plastic Free July

Shetland's beaches look beautiful (though tend to be rocky rather than sandy)

and the sea looks free of anything other than the occasional raft of auks floating past 

Unfortunately however there is a lot of plastic pollution around. The strandline which is made up naturally of seaweed and crabs is nowadays even here full of plastic and other waste. Sometimes on the beach you also find plastic like this bottle

We picked litter from the beaches as much as we could and if everyone did that it would make a difference. You can join in a beach clean with Marine Conservation Society, find out more here. Or your local Park friends group may organise regular clean ups. I pick litter every week as part of my volunteering work with Water of Leith Conservation Trust, who also run regular group cleanups - find out more about volunteering with the trust here.

One of the problems with plastic pollution is that often it looks like food to birds or sea mammals that are hunting and so they take it to their nest to feed to their young. This means that the young birds have their stomachs filled with plastic rather than food and so may starve to death.Not Whale Food specifically campaigns on this aspect of plastic pollution.
 
There are also many simple ways to reduce your use of plastics, see for example this list from Greenpeace. (However it's important to remember not to replace one problem with another. If you use cloth carrier bags instead of plastic bags you need to be aware that more energy is used in their production so just make sure that you have a few rather than keep buying lots of pretty bags, similarly keep cups are more energy intensive than throwaway cups so you need to keep using your keep cup not get rid of it after you've used it four times just to buy a prettier one.)

You can also commit to not using single use plastics for a month for Plastic Free July.

What are your top tips for reducing your use of plastic?

Summer Day in the Garden and Making Friends with a Neighbours Cat

Another lovely day yesterday. We spent the afternoon in Crafty Green Boyfriend's mother's garden

It's looking lovely as ever and is a haven for insects such as this pellucid hoverfly

It was until recently also a haven for frogs but a heron visited recently and ate most of the frogs and this is one of the few left

We also visited the next door neighbour's new kitten, who is full of energy and very cute

 he was fascinated by my shoes

 He's going to be an indoor cat as one of their cats recently died after being poisoned.

Granton Goes Greener launches

Yesterday we had beautiful weather for the official launch event for Granton Goes Greener, the project I currently work with.  Most of the event took place in the grounds of Granton Parish Church.

The local MP, Deidre Brock and the church minister Norman Smith officially opened the event

I also said a few words

There were lots of things going on, including activities with the Boys Brigade

a chance to have your bike serviced by Grease Monkey Cycles (who were kept very busy during the event!)

along with childrens crafts, a guided walk with Pilton Health Project and the chance to make miniature gardens with Eco Congregations. Our clothing swap shop has now expanded quite a lot and took place in one of the church halls

There was a poetry reading in the church itself  featuring Rita Bradd (pictured below) and

Elizabeth Rimmer. I stood in for another poet who wasn't able to be there on the day.

We then went outside for the children's stories, featuring stories from Jane Edwards

Julian Thomson

and Jim Abercrombie with his grandson and his two rabbit hand puppets

The church congregation were brilliant at volunteering their time, including baking an amazing array of cakes (which I ended up being too busy to sample!) and making this brilliant bunting from upcycled fabric.

All in all it was an excellent day, a great way to officially launch the Granton Goes Greener Project.

Animal Friends on Shetland

why was this incredibly friendly cat wandering wild in a bird reserve?

 making friends with the sheep and horses and Papa Stour

The Flowers of Shetland

Shetland was a mass of flowers when we were there! It was beautiful to see whole fields full of colour.

Cotton grass

orchids 

thrift 

blue squill (here with thrift)

and birds foot trefoil (the yellow flower with the thrift below)

There were also wonderful lichens everywhere