I don't know where 2012 went to, but it seems it's over a year since I last blogged. 2012 was spend with me fighting a constant sinus infection that refused to respond to all the antibiotics they kept shoving down my throat and resulted in me having sinus surgery in November. The outcome of this was that the infection was caused by an allergy to something in the environment around Nairn. This had been suggested by my GP back in 2011 when this problem first occurred and my GP had said that there was a problem around Nairn with a lot of people suffering from a year round rhinitis and they had no idea what caused it. This is born out by the fact that Gill has streaming hay fever symptoms within a week of arriving in Nairn. Following the surgery I was referred for an allergy test - this finally occurred this week and confirmed the 2 allergies that I new about, that is a grass allergy and also a cat allergy, but it also showed I have an allergy to wheat, but nothing to show what was causing this sinus problem. If it re-occurs I will have to seriously consider moving from here.

2013 started with me approaching the BIG 60 and I decided to spend it in my favourite ski resort of Davos. I had a glorious 10 days skiing, only spoilt by developing a tooth abscess on my birthday which resulted in an expensive visit to the local hospital and two visits to a local dentist.

April found me down in the Lake District where I met up up with Malcolm who is also in his 60th year. He had decided to a spend a weekend in each of the three main climbers hotels/pubs in Wales, the Lake District and Scotland, and this first weekend found us at the Wasdale Head Inn.

Due to an injury to my shoulders and neck I was banned from using a rucsac and was not able to go with Malcolm, Phil and Tony on their walk up Scafell Pike.

Tony, Malcolm and Phil before their walk up Scafell Pike

From the Lake District I headed across the country to near Newcastle where I met Gill and we spent a day visiting the Beamish Museum. Gill having been there before but this was my first visit, and a fascinating place it turned out to be and well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Back in Nairn in the middle of May, our resident swans on the River Nairn, Popeye and Penny produced 9 cygnets andthankfully none where taken by the Gulls, Crows or resident Otter in the harbour. These first few pictures were taken when they were just 3 days old.

There are many more wonderful pictures of the swans on Joe's blog at Simply Superb Swans please pay it a visit.

Whilst I'm talking about wildlife, the list of visitors around the house continues to increase. One evening I was sitting watching the TV and became aware of movement on the patio, and there to my surprise were 2 Roe Deer calmly eating the plants in my flower tubs. They didn't seem too bothered about me and I was able to get a the following few pictures.

Another visitor has been a badger, but so far I have been unable to get a photograph of it.

Now that summer appears to have arrived I paid a visit to the NTS gardens at Inverewe yesterday, and what a sight - a riot of colour from the Rhododendrons. I am only posting a  couple of pictures here, but you can see the rest at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_webster/