Blair Atholl and Perthshire, 2007

If you have a wide enough screen, please try viewing this bigger . I hadn't even noticed until I cropped and zoomed this photo, but the small structure in the right-hand lee of the mountain (so just left of centre in this image) is in fact the top of a ROC post — a cold war era bunker, built for two or three people to live in whilst monitoring the fallout from a then-feared nuclear war. Thankfully it was deemed no longer necessary in 1991. I think the field is better off as horse-food.

Once a petrol station, but for over twenty years a bookshop instead. The lovely proprietor made me a cup of coffee as soon as I went in for a look around. I felt terrible that I didn't buy the £40 book I really wanted, but I've bought enough toys recently... so I bought a £5 book instead, just so I had contributed. If you want to browse for yourself, it's in Blair Atholl (near the fabulous water mill where they still make their own bread!) The bookshop is next to the hotel, actually on what used to be the A9, hence the petrol station story. Follow signs for Blair Castle to get here. Oh, and this is also the first shot to be uploaded of something I suppose I'd better get used to over the winter: my car with its roof up!

Blair Castle has a very special woodland with some of the tallest trees in the country, which have been being planted as an arboretum there for hundreds of years.

"This is how you get treats, dear. Just remember to look cute."

Well, no. Just fascinating-looking ones. I am guessing these are something like pine nuts. They had a strange, translucent quality to them.