We seem to be creatures of habit.  Not only did we visit the Glen Esk Caravan Park again last week, but we completed the double and made our second visit to the Woods at Fishcross as well.

I love to look at the Ochil escarpment, along the Hillfoots.  The view is always changing.  I remember my first view of these hills was in 1961, on a bus from Stirling, heading towards Dollar with my mother and father.  My father had just been appointed Janitor at Dollar Academy and we were off to see our new house.  After an early start from Brechin we boarded the train at Forfar (you can’t do that now!) bound for Stirling. The last bit of this mammoth journey was by the bus which was heading for St Andrews, and as the road came round past the Wallace Monument on the Abbey Craig, there were the hills, so bright, so close you felt you could touch them in the bright, clear June sunshine.

For Mary these are the hills of home.  She would see them every day as she grew up, from her home in Tullibody.  For me, they became an important past of my teenage years as I explored Dollar Glen and the hills behind.

Last week’s visit to the Woods gave me some more shots of the Ochils;  Dumyat as the sun had just gone down;  mist giving as soft focus effect to the hill; and a view eastwards, towards the Dollar hills.  Fraser commented on last this picture that it remind him of Austria, “The Ochils are pretty spectacular, ” he said.  He’s right.