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 After returning from Berlin, I was blessed with both glorious weather and the return of my luggage which had been lost for a week! The sunshine meant I saw more butterflies, some were old favourites like the Peacock and Red Admiral, but also a new one for me, the Speckled Wood which was resting on the ground by the Bowling Green.  I am afraid the photos are nothing special.  I tend to take photos to remind me of what I saw and when, so I can record them, and the phone is always handy and records the date as well.

Red Admiral on a fuchsia in my garden, Peacock on Devils-bit-scabious at Spey Dam, and Speckled Wood on the dirt at Newtonmore

On a walk along the Coffin Road (at the South end of Newtonmore), the young swallows were lining up on the fence wires.

Whilst my husband was at the dentist, I took a stroll to the old Primary School site which is now abandoned and overgrown and recorded a few plants. Some I think were remnants of "garden" planting at the school.  There were Everlasting Sweetpeas, and the Scotch Burnet Rose which used to have the lovely name of Rosa pimpinellifolia but is now called Rosa spinosissima.  It has ball shaped flowers and then black hips.  It is too late for the flowers but there were plenty of hips which are rather attractive with their ebony globes and red ends which are remnants of the original rose.

Scotch Burnet Rose

The pavement was covered in a succulent, Sedum acre, Biting stonecrop, which would have had yellow flowers but now just has the white starry sepals.

It had also decided to form a miniature garden in a bit of litter about the size of a pencil sharpener.

Taking advantage of the glorious weather, I drove up to Spey Dam and looked at some lichens on the rocks. The views were glorious.  And the lichens were interesting - but I have still to identify many of them, so that will have to wait for another time.

I was not the only visitor - plenty of walkers, and a previous explorer seemed to have left their trainers behind...