Diamonds are a girl's best friend

....... and the girl is called Ivy!

First time out for a Sunday walk with Al and Jean for ages. I was out with Al five weeks ago and Jean two weeks ago but the three of us haven't been out since January. Between bad weather and Al working and Jean on holiday and me with my gammy back it's been eight weeks since we had a day out together.

Today we took a stroll along a stretch of woodland that lies south-east of Clackmannan. Lots of evidence of it once belonging to an old estate as Al delighted in pointing out - in addition to old walls and gateways, the presence of daffodils, snowdrops and especially rhododendrons are also included in this. One area included lots of trees with these diamond-like markings on them. They were quite extraordinary and I don't recall ever having seen markings like these on a tree before. They were very geometrically patterned  - lying pretty much in horizontal and vertical lines (hmm - sensing a wee bit of deja vu with yesterday's photo!) much like some kind of dogstooth check. Soon as we saw them Al was quick off the mark with a madey-up name for this sight, dubbing it the "chevron phenomena". How I would have loved that to be the real name for this but after a Google at home, it would appear that these are characteristic marks of young white poplar trees.