Today’s constitutional was a once round Holyrood Park, just on the road, nothing off piste today. I just needed a good long walk, and to get milk too. The park can be quite busy on a Sunday but I wasn’t expecting to see so many folk up by Dunsapie Loch…..

I thought, wow, I know people like to take photos of the swans but this many? Is it a photography club outing?! The chap hunched down at the water’s edge had the longest lens I’ve ever seen! Just one swan swam majestically in the middle of the Loch, loving the attention.

Ah, hang on, no, everyone’s attention was on something else, something to the left of the swan. A ripple, did a fish just jump? And another one. And I saw it – an otter! Holy mackerel, Batman! That’s a first, an otter in the top pond, and it was having a fine time frolicking! Oh, she knew how to work the crowd, a little peekaboo here, a frisky leap there, disappear a while to keep us in suspense, only to reappear a short distance away for a brief flirtation before diving down again with a flick of her tail.

Honestly, that is an otter, I promise you.

Toodle pip!