By Bernie Bell

We parked in the car park in St. Mary’s village, Holm, between the sea and the Loch of Ayre, and embarked on a walk around the Loch – walking along a grassy track which begins just past the information board on which the wildlife paintings were done by the pupils of St. Andrew’s Primary School.

heading for the bridge – with accompanying landscape art?

After crossing the bridge we walked through what is now a grassy patch with wild flowers, including magnificent Teazel

And some equally magnificent Angelica plants – on one of which a Red Admiral was sunning itself

A variety of species of little trees have been planted which means that, one day, this will be a fine patch of woodland

Then, into the woods, where we chose to take the left-hand path at the ‘T’  junction

and found ourselves walking through a fine mix of trees

And on a Docken stem, the cocoon of ? 

Be Warned…The board walk through the trees is very slippy in places.

This section of the walk leads to a stile

If you cross this stile, you can connect up with this walk….

St. Mary’s Walk

But we went back the way we came, to the ‘T’ junction, where we proceeded along the path ahead through the trees to….The Roundhouse!

inside which is a wee, wild garden with Roses, Cotoneaster and Potentilla

And on, to a re-cycled polytunnel deep in the woods

The place just got more and more like a Fairy-tale – Hansel & Gretel – Little Red Riding Hood.

A view through the trees, across the Loch, to St. Mary’s

And then –  tree/house…

Returning towards the village, looking back over the Loch

Somewhere around here are the remains of an Iron Age broch…

https://canmore.org.uk/site/2387/st-marys-loch-of-ayre

Walking along the side of the Loch nearest to the road we encountered a Cormorant in trouble…

http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16471

We then walked down through the village to the public toilets by the pier to thoroughly wash our hands – Bird Flu is still with us.

It was a strong, healthy bird – but a thorough wash-up was a good idea.

I snapped the Hero of the Hour by a nice piece of tile-work…

Continuing the theme of old phone boxes….

http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16467

…..the now defunct Post Office – where it’s just about possible to read ‘Holm Post Office‘ on the sign over the door – not for much longer though…..