Signs of spring

From my bothy office I can hear the conversation of the blackbirds, and the irregular piping of oystercatchers circling down the hill to the lochan.  It's very pleasant.  (Admittedly the photo of our orchard is last spring's.  We don't have apple trees in flower in March in Scotland.  But you catch my drift).

I'm busy with a very suitable project for spring in the form of 'Beyond the Garden Gate', a festival surely designed in heaven by Moffat Book Events.  It's Moffat, it's May-time and someone has invented the perfect blend of open books, open gardens and old-fashioned Teas.  Click here for more.

And enjoying managing the website of the World Peace Sanctuary at Allanton House, Auldgirth, where many warm and wonderful projects happen all year round.  Here they are.

Lots of other things too, life is filled with variety at the moment - interpretation panels for Loch Ken, and Criffel, work starting on that most fun of festivals - Dumfries and Galloway Wild Science - click here - and work with the National Scenic Areas on Viewpoint Voices.  Think mapping the Solway coast in local poems.