This is a much photographed landmark around these parts. It’s a restored castle that belongs to an actor. It’s not something I’d normally pick out to take a blip of but I was giving Ruth a lift to Brown Envelope seeds and the low winter sun was catching the castle beautifully.

An unusual day for me as I drove to Cork for a meeting. The traffic and bad road surfaces were great reminders of why I rarely venture beyond the village.

Back to blip after a few weeks without getting the camera out much.

Various developments mean that I’ll be doing a lot of building over the next few months so prepare for many shots of timber and tools.

Ben and I have been working on the shed at the back of the house for the last couple of days. We put the doors on today. They are made from recycled aluminium from the old mobile home that we dismantled last year. It was very satisfying creating new things from old.

Fionnuala giving Hazel a riding lesson on Chester.

I generally hate posts with shots of people’s food…

But Ruth is back and the things she produces from the garden are wonderful. Here we have a double-yolk egg from one of the new hens and a salad of orange pepper, chillies and tasty green leaves all picked from the garden or tunnel today. Not bad for January!

I was thankful for blip today as it encouraged me to go for a walk across the river. There are a lot of great photo opportunities over there. Must try to go before it gets dark next time!

You can just see our roundhouse nearly on the horizon.

Winter hibernation is nearly over – it was good to have a visit from Mike today and I’ll be collecting R&I from the Cork in a bit so the house will soon come back to life.

Drove all the way back from Aberdeen to West Cork today. Just Fionnuala with me as R & I have gone to Shetland to see a new baby.

It’s a mighty long drive. We set off at 9am and got home at 11.30pm. I managed to sleep on the ferry which makes it doable.

This is near the beginning of the journey on the road between Banchory and Fettercairn. It’s a stunning route and is usually snowbound at this time of year.

I’ve just uploaded pictures from the last 10 days in Scotland to blipfoto. It’s been a nice break from the computer. Wet and grey here so expect some damp West Cork shots to follow

An attempt to capture the ‘big’ Aberdeenshire landscape and Glassel village hall.

We drove from West Cork to Aberdeen today. It’s a long journey!

The ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan is new and made us feel quite out of touch with the modern world. There were screens everywhere. You could play on iPads, watch movies or TV and also play computer games.

This is a shot of a mother and child playing one of the xbox 360 Kinect games.

Last one from Ireland for a few days…. This is the place I’d be calling into if I was here in the next week. Frustrating to just drive by this evening without time to go in…

Time for some shots of the pubs in the village. They look extra inviting at this time of year.

The Sandboat is on quite a sloping street as you can see from the bench out front.