Squirrel Cottage, in Dumfries and Galloway

At the end of March a year ago, in 2025, Lucy and I drove across to the other side of Scotland to Dumfries and Galloway

on a wet afternoon, to stay in an old gamekeeper’s cottage near Newton Stewart on the Bargaly estate

for a short holiday. It is named squirrel cottage for a good reason,

surrounded by trees and set back from the lane, it is intensely quiet, and the bird table next to the bedroom windows, at the back of the house, hosts not just squirrels and a great selection of woodland birds, but, at night, pine martens. We didn’t see them, but they knocked over the bird table and made some noise –

so on the first night I woke at about 2 am to find that Lucy had decamped from her room and dragged her mattress and duvet onto the floor of mine, and was sleeping with Nonna next to her, as in the little picture I painted later. (The curtains were not actually open.)

It was much too spooky for her. Vague noises which could have been the pump for the borehole, owls hooting,  and all those trees shading out the light, never mind the pine martens.

But in the daytime it was a beautiful place to stay. We had no wifi and no signal at the cottage, and did a lot of walking. With the help of sandwiches and flasks of tea and coffee and cake we did  ten miles the first day, from the cottage.

a woodland nature park (Galloway Forest Park) with the convenience of a visitor centre

scenic paths

streams

which the little white dog loved

the lanes getting there and back were extremely pretty

just the right side of dilapidated houses

lots of belted galloways (belties)

early spring, so primroses and lambs everywhere

In the garden there were the old kennels for the gamekeeper’s dogs

and all those trees. Bargaly House was built in the late seventeenth century by the horticulturist Andrew Heron, and he was a tree planter. Generations of trees make the estate very wild. The current owners are renovating the main house and have three cottages to let, link here

The next day we went further east for our walk, to Gatehouse of Fleet, and walked around this brackeny gorse covered hilly area to the Rutherford Monument (1842) which commemorates a minister from nearby Anwoth, the 17th-century theologian Samuel Rutherford, who later became Professor of Divinity at St Andrews University

the views were rather obscured by low cloud.

It was a little chillier than expected

another treat was a Pictish carving, surprisingly far south and west, as the Pictish Kingdoms were based in Aberdeenshire, Fife and Perthshire. However there was a fort here, so perhaps the Picts spread further than we used to think.

not a good photograph – the walk we were following from the internet has a much better one here

It was a pretty walk, with plenty of small ups and downs. Then we drove in the other direction to Wigtown and had lunch in a wonderful bookshop with café added, Readinglasses, where we both bought a pile of books.

They sell new and secondhand books, allow dogs and have comfortable seating for reading.

All the books are written by women, and their food is great. Back in the cottage with our stacks and stashes …

It was just a short break so on the third day we were on our way back, and had a beautiful sunny day

a walk around another Galloway Forest Park, and then we drove home up through Ayrshire, with views along the coast, of the Isle of Arran and Ailsa Craig.

I am so lucky to get these little trips with Lucy. We are planning another one soon, into the heart of Pictland, in Aberdeenshire.