It's been unseasonably warm here the last few weeks and the forecast called for another beautiful weekend. Sitting here on Sunday afternoon it feels over 15C and probably the equivalent of any of our nicest days from July or August last summer. We decided to take advantage and get out of the house. So Saturday morning we packed ourselves a lunch and headed just north of Aberdeen to Newburgh and the Ythan Estuary, a tidal estuary with a nice complex of walking trails through flatland and sea dunes. At some points during the year parts of it are roped off to protect the terns that nest here, but they had yet to arrive so we, and Casey, had the run of the place. We had a wonderful day walking over the beach towards the dunes. Casey was doing her usual wading through the shallows when she first noticed the curious seal out a little deeper. They were both definitely very curious about each other. You could see Casey's little brain trying to process what this strange little sea-dog was all about and how it could so easily disappear. The two of them got quite close before the seal decided to high-tail it and leave. It was adorable to see. Casey was quite disappointed.
We trekked on a little further into the dunes where Fiona set up and took some amazing pictures of the inlet and the headland. She's an amazing photographer and has learned quite a bit about her craft in the past few years in Scotland. Her photos are spectacular. I'm trying to convince her to get out more and take pictures before we leave.
I took Casey down the beach for a stretch and Fiona put on her wildlife photographer hat and hung out with the seals who were lazing in the sunshine. Again, she got some great shots.
We had a picnic lunch between the dunes and then headed for home. We were all quite tired after our day out, none more than Casey. We had a nice dinner and then caught up on some TV, watching some past episodes of one of our new favourites, Homeland. We also watched a good French movie called Potiche before turning in for the night.
Sunday's turned out to be a better day than Saturday. The sun was shining and when we went for a walk we had to turn around after a few minutes to put our jackets back in the house. We did a little bit of walking, a lot of laundry (taking advantage of the sunshine to dry everything outside) and worked on our projects. It's been everything a weekend should be.
