\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>s I drive north through Angus, birch and rowan begin to replace ash and oak, and by the time I reach the foot of the glen, the purple-streaked tops of the Cairngorms have come into view. Glenisla is the last lowland valley before the mountains begin, and it\u2019s home to a rare sight on either side of the Highland line: a thatched roof.<\/p>\n The building is a lodge house on the Knockshannoch estate, and is believed to be the only remaining thatched roundhouse in Scotland. I\u2019ve driven three hours north from the Scottish Borders to repair a hole\u00a0in its roof (Scottish thatchers are few and far between, so travelling long distances is not unusual here).<\/p>\n As I set to work, I\u2019m met with the dreaded sight of wasps rising out of the thatch \u2013 I\u2019ve uncovered a byke. A calm approach can prevent the slide towards mutual destruction, so I suppress the urge to swat them with my thatching leggett \u2013 a sort of large comb. After some half-hearted dive-bombing, the wasps lose interest, returning to their business as I attend to mine, gently teasing some new reed into position by their nest. I tighten the thatch on to the battens with \u201cscrew wires\u201d \u2013 wood screws with two long wire attachments. The tool I use was originally designed to fasten potato sacks, one of many mongrel borrowings you find in thatching.<\/p>\n <\/span>Thatched roofs often attract wasps.<\/span> Photograph: Tom Allan<\/p>\n With the thatch secure, I clamber down the ladder for a cup of tea. The homeowners, Pam and Mark, tell me that it\u2019s been a bad wasp year (or a good one, depending on your perspective) \u2013 they\u2019ve already had three bykes removed. Wildlife is never far away here: a heron nested in a neighbouring pine tree this spring and a pine marten has been a regular visitor to the garden. A few years ago, Pam found a bedraggled kitten sheltering from a summer deluge under the deep eaves of the thatch. It turned out to be a Scottish wildcat (a domestic cat hybrid, as most remaining wildcats are).<\/p>\n I finish my tea and prepare a length of chicken wire to cover the patch of new reed. This is a normal precaution against bird damage, but it should also help deter the beaks, teeth and claws of\u00a0this\u00a0glen\u2019s\u00a0other wildlife.<\/p>\n Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian\u2019s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I drive north through Angus, birch and rowan begin to replace ash and oak, and by the time I reach the foot of the glen, the purple-streaked tops of the Cairngorms have come into view. Glenisla is the last lowland valley before the mountains begin, and it\u2019s home to a rare sight on either<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[6967,1973,3973,10521,485,10523,2942,10520,10522],"class_list":{"0":"post-17427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-affairs","9":"tag-country","10":"tag-diary","11":"tag-highlands","12":"tag-rare","13":"tag-roof","14":"tag-rural","15":"tag-sighting","16":"tag-thatched"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}