If you fancy stretching your virtual legs a bit and getting some good fresh air, come along on a walk through the Balbirnie Woods again.

I’ve heard some people, mainly on the radio, complaining that they are being bothered by their allergies already but it’s hardly surprisng because the blossom trees have been in flower for a couple of weeks, and of course the willows are full of pollen around now. I think this rather spindly specimen is an almond tree.

We’ve lived on the edge of the woodland for nearly two years, I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone. To be fair, we still miss the Beveridge Park and esplanade walks we took when we lived in Kirkcaldy as woodland isn’t always the best place to walk through, it’s best avoided when it’s really windy, just in case a tree or part of one decides to bop you on the head!

A couple of days ago we tried to ring the changes by going a different way through the woods thinking we would still end up where we always walk eventually, but we ended up in an area we had never been in before, which was a nice surprise, after a while one group of trees tends to look like another so it was a bonus to reach an area which had some good views of the surrounding countryside, as you can see from the photo above. The photo below is of the wee town of Markinch in the distance. The church spire belongs to the 12th century church, St Drostans.

On the way back home and close to our house a buzzard swooped into one of the pines ahead of us. It’s still a thrill whenever I see a buzzard or any bird like that, even although it seems that there is now a very healthy population of them. Just about every time we go for a drive anywhere now we see buzzards sitting on fence posts and streetlights. I suppose it means there is plenty around for them to eat. So far I haven’t been able to get a decent photo of any though.

The snowdrops are reaching perfection now, you can’t see them all that well in the photo above though. Last year a commenter informed me that these snowdrops had been grown commercially 70 years or so ago, at a time when the Balbirnie Woods were part of the Balbirnie House estate, he had been employed as a young lad to pick them. Most of the land is now owned by the council and the big mansion house is now a popular venue for stylish weddings. Below is a photo of it from the woods just above, as you can see they’re keen on flying saltires/St Andrews flags. There can’t have been a wedding on as they don’t have the red carpet out.

The walk was quite a bit longer than we had planned and I was glad to get back home for a coffee and sit down before I had to start cooking the dinner.

I hope you enjoyed the walk.