Roads to Joy

We walked up out of the little burgh, past the Golf Club and on into the woods. The trails in these woods are, as I discovered in one of my Googling researches, maintained by the Local Initiative New Galloway group, LING for short. Anyway, we were on a mission to check out the bluebells, which had just begun to emerge a fortnight ago when we were last here.

Lovely sloping hillsides covered in blooming bluebells greeted us. Perhaps they were not quite at their peak, but it was a near thing. After a few attempts at capturing the display, we ambled on. The bird song was intense, and I was supposed to record some for later investigation on a Cheep app, but I was more in a visual mood. Okay then, my beloved riposted, let’s identify each of these tiny white flowers, with your iPlant Picture-This app.

So we identified the greater stichwort, revisited the common wood anemone, and then discovered the common wood sorrel with its trefoil leaves. All little white blossoms but each a unique species making its presence known on the wood floor. For good measure I captured a nice image of the common dog-violet with its own intense blue.

So well known as to be considered ‘common’ but no less appreciated for that. It was such a delight, wandering through the woods, and then just when we were getting that little bit tired, as we reached a switchback in the upward-sloping path, we discovered a wooden bench, apparently laid on especially for oldies like us, and we sat ourselves down to enjoy the landscape spread out before us. And to catch our breath, of course.

There looked to be the ruins of a castle on the far mountain range, but yet again we’d forgotten the binoculars! Never mind, there’s always tomorrow for another inspection, now that we know the walk is a feasible delight.