My favourites photographs of 2017

New Years day 2017 and our annual walk round Potholm to finish in the Market Place at 11.00am to coincide with the finish of the Whisky run. Bowman as usual keeps us in hand. 

This was not taken by me as it was on a beach in Barbados in January. Best friends Tom and David have both had a tough year health wise but are now on the mend and can look forward to 2018 and hopefully no more problems.

This is my granddaughter Eleanor (far right) with her friends in San Jose, California and they look smashing in their new hair styles and each of them is a different hair colour.

Hannah and Leo with Granny Gaye the night before we depart to San Jose in March.

And this is the welcome party waiting for us on our arrival in San Jose

Bridal Veil waterfall in Yosemite National Park early April. We spent a few days here in a lovely cabin and the weather was beautiful

This is Mirror Lake in Yosemite with Tommy and Eleanor.

In May we went with John and Sandria to Orkney to celebrate both John and I becoming 70 this year. John and I have made it 12 year challenge to visit all of Scotland's inhabited islands and this island of North Ronaldsay took us to our 50th Island. Needless to say it will take much longer than 12 years to complete our challenge as we still have about another 30 to visit and most of these are in very remote places. 

This is us on Rousay on a glorious spring day with virtually no wind. 

Gaye with the beautiful Bay of Isbister on the Orkney mainland in the background

The Last of the Summer Wine Walkers on a June day trip on the Carlisle to Settle railway line including a 5 mile walk at Ribblehead viaduct. A splendid day. 

Our annual last week of June walking and socialising holiday this time in Galloway where we stayed in a fantastic house beside a Loch at Colvend near Rockcliffe. It was a most enjoyable week but the weather could have been better.

Fiona and Hannah on a visit to Alison and Tom Hutton in their beautiful garden when they were over for Common Riding.

While Fiona and the kids were in Langholm for the Common Riding Hannah asked if we could go up onto the Langholm Moor to find the wild goats. She borrowed my camera and this was her best effort. It was accepted and displayed on the BBC Scotland website as a photo of the week and also featured in the Langholm paper. 

Hannah just loved dogs so a walk with Bowman and Ruger who belong to David was a great event for her and she was in her element looking after them. This was Tom's first walk after his operation and he was exhausted after it but did enjoy himself. 

We were delighted to get places in the draw to walk the Queensferry Bridge on 2nd September. It was a beautiful day and the organisation of the event was superb. 

This photo was featured together with an article in The Eskdale and Liddesdale Advertiser. 

In October Alix Stevenson and I were guests of Rick and Cat while they ringed these barn Owl chicks before they flew the nest. This was the second nest of the adults and it has been a great year for Raptors on the Langholm Moor with 37 young Hen Harriers flown and almost 50 Barn Owls

Halloween and our 3 American grandchildren were dressed for Trick and Treat

During our holiday in the South Lakes with Fiona and the kids Leo proved to be an excellent archer scoring a total of 7 points in this go and coming very close to a bullseye.

And as my final photo of the year the family photograph Fraser used for his Christmas Greeting card. It has been a fabulous year despite the poor weather this summer but we still managed some great holidays and family visits to both California and Newcastle. Next spring we will all be together near Barcelona for 2 weeks and it will be the first time all the family have been together since Common Riding in 2014 before Elliot was born. It will be wonderful to have all our 5 grandchildren together and I am sure they will give us some very happy memories.