I’d draped the newly finished Slip Stitch Socks on the picnic table while on holiday in the Cairngorms in September, as I wanted to take a few photos of them. We soon had a couple of interested visitors.
A few red squirrels were regular visitors, so we gave them nicknames. The two squirrels in this series of photos are Baby Girl and Tufty.
Baby Girl arrived for a snack. “Mmm… what’s this?”
“Is it alive?” she wondered.
“Curious and curiouser”, she thought as she timidly approached.
“Seems safe enough. Looks warm. Might make a cosy nest for the winter.” she thought.
“Nope, definitely not peanuts.”
Just below, Tufty was quietly nibbling peanuts and contemplating the new addition to his picnic table.
“Who is up there?” he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Whoa, Tufty, I’m just looking at these. Who owns these hand-knit socks?”
A magpie caws raucously, and both squirrels flee.
I take a few snapshots of the finished socks. I knitted the socks with a slip stitch pattern using Regia Snowflake Colour 7707.
Tufty arrives back to inspect his new socks.
Everything seemed okay on the table, so he turned his attention to his grumbling tummy.
He picks up a peanut and begins nibbling it. At this point, Baby Girl cautiously reappears.
She points at the socks. “Tufty, are you sure you want both of them? There seems to be more than one.”
“Time to go!” The expression on Tufty’s face gives Baby Girl her answer, and she quickly retreats.
“No, no, no, you can’t! Go away, Baby Girl.”
We loved seeing the red squirrels on holiday in the Cairngorms. The lodge we stayed in was built in a Scots Pine forest, and we were lucky enough to see the squirrels scampering through the trees often. We left out peanuts and hazelnuts for them in the mornings and late afternoon and waited by the windows to take photographs.