Old Buffalo Bill and Casey Jones...

...would never have the gall* - but this young oak tree certainly does.  I was out with Mum and Dad after lunch to explore the nature reserve nestled between the old railway lines of the North British's former branches to Peebles to the south and Dolphinton to the west, a little way south of Leadburn junction.

A little research tells me that these round, red balls that are loosely attached to the leaves are the galls formed by the Red Pea Gall Wasp.  The fertilized eggs develop inside the galls and the young adults will usually emerge by about October.

The morning was spent nipping into town to collect an eBay purchase, then lunch with Mum and Dad at mine, then out in the car to the tip to, well, tip my old mattress into the general waste.  It feels like such a waste, really, but I'd slept the heck out of it for over ten years and it was worn out.  A round of pizzas for tea once we returned from our walk in the extremely bracing wind, and the first half of Dark Side of the Moon afterwards to see how the Celestions performed.

* "to risk their fate on the interstate on the Big Wheel Cannonball", as the song goes