Deep country

I think I'm now in what they call the heart of Scotland. First stage, I travelled from Fort Augustus (the Pfifferlinger site) down to Onich, on Loch Linnhe near Fort William. The loch is so huge it looks like the sea, and because it's a sealoch it's tidal. Didn't have brilliant weather there, but did go inland to have a look at Kinlochleven, which is a walkers' mecca - and got lost there. I suppose it may be because my walking route guide was published in 1992, and things may have changed a bit since then, but I ended up crashing into a wet dead-end in the bracken and coming back the way I'd come. I did get some nice views, but it was a bit dismal. One of those days where you stock up with newspapers and take the van home for a cup of tea and a nice read, followed by Co-Op Prawn Arabbiata. There are proper walkers' campsites at Kinlochleven and practically nothing else except the biggest outdoor shop you ever saw in your life (in comparison to the other buildings, it looks a bit like Battersea Power Station - probably an old hydro pumping station). But I have bought enough outdoors for now, and the only other remarkable thing (to me), with my fungus obsession, was a rash of pfifferlinger. I didn't pick any because I already have a fridge full.







After a couple of days, and stilll heading South, I crossed the Ballachulish Bridge and headed down to Killin in Perthshire, which is very near my old stamping ground in Stirlingshire. I've been to Killin a few times but never stayed there. It has a spectacular waterfall running through the middle of it - the Falls of Dochart - and, again in dodgy weather, I set out for about a 6 mile walk from the campsite. Up a long, long, private road, all uphill, but then turning back against myself at the top of the hill there's a lovely walk along the valley (deer, trees, fungi, heather, little streams, etc) until you intersect with what the locals call 'The Killin Bypass' which is a tarmacked Sustrans long-distance cycleway. You can walk along it but listen out for mountainbikes approaching from behind you at speed. This walk felt like a very long one - pleasurable, but I was more than ready for home when I got back to the village. So when I found that, at the previous sandwich-stop, I'd left Bonnie's lead behind *again*, I wasn't about to head back and get it. So I threaded my waterproof through Bon's collar and she trotted obediently through the village to the petshop. But while I was buying a new lead she shot into the back and stole ALL the resident Tibetan Terrier's supper. I only found this out because an enraged lady came out. I offered to pay and she refused, seeing the funny side, really, but she was only completely mollified when I produced - guess what - a bag of chanterelles and gave her some in exchange for her dog's 'Country Selection' or whatever it was. She luckily didn't notice that, while the chanterelles transaction was taking place, I called Bonnie again and she reappeared from the section of the shop where they keep dog chews and crates of dog treats and biscuits on the floor. Her ears were flat. Which means badness. I whisked her away on the new lead tout de suite, and hoped she hadn't left too many crumbs. Hey, free supper in exchange for a few ounces of free mushrooms. I could get into this bartering thing.




Apart from my new obsession with fungi (which I think deserves a separate post, with portrait photos of many good specimens - bet you can't wait) I've just been enjoying intermittent sunshine and drizzle, dazzling green moss, wonderful woodlands, purple hillsides, cascading waterfalls, and whatever else this area had to offer. So after three nights in Killin, and two good walks, I headed off to right next to Stirling, via the most beautiful drive I think I've done all summer. That includes the Hebrides! It's the route from Killin to Crieff via Aberfeldy, and then on through Glen Almond to Braco. FanTAStic. The hills are much more dramatic than I remembered, and the grey-green of the leaves and the purple of the heather, together with the watercolour effect of damp air, made it breathtaking. And this is where I used to live (1993-2000). I must be nuts. I stopped off just before Aberfeldy to walk up a thing called Drummond Hill, a small hill with a view over Loch Tay. This was about 3 miles there and back, and the view was definitely worth it.





There was a lovely bench at the top of the walk which was a memorial in oak to someone who had obviously loved the view. Carved on it was 'KA + JD'. I just have to find out who KA is, now, and I'm sorted.

Now the photos of this are a bit special, to me anyway, because I didn't mention a wee additional purchase in Inverness (flat ears, badness). The Canon Powershot G9. Now, the camera Iain lent me has been a trouper, but it's SLOW to switch on and there's not much to fiddle with. Slowness isn't usually a problem when you're taking a picture of a coast or a mountain or a mushroom, but I really like the zippiness of the G9, its fantastic zoom, its auto-focusing thingummies, its huge, well-lit screen, and most of all the very satisfying click it makes when you take a picture. There are a zillion other functions it has which I haven't even started to explore, but it should keep me happy for ages. Once I bought it it took me nearly a fortnight to get it out of the box. Probably something about not wearing all your new clothes at once and going at it bull at a gate.



I had to include this last signpost - an example of someone starting a business getting over the obvious disadvantages of their location - or perhaps not?

White van in front of...

Many of my photos - many more than I've shown here - consist of my van standing in front of something. I feel obliged to reveal that this is genetic. I grew up touring Europe every summer with my parents and either one or two sisters, and we had a white Bedford Autosleeper motor caravan, WEL 911J (One of my talents is remembering car registrations: when prompted, I can recite the number of every vehicle my family ever had). Most of my father's photographs featured the van standing in front of something - an Alp, say, or a cathedral, or the Mairie in whatever French village we happened to be in, eating cheese and tomatoes and French bread for lunch. He always said it was to 'give it scale', but I think he was just in love with the van. And most of the pictures he took were somewhat staged: we all had to have our hair cut because he didn't like the photographs of us on the ferry to France with our hair blowing in our faces, saying we 'looked like a family of mushrooms'. And whenever he took a photo of the camp, he'd say to my Mum, 'Dustpan and brush, Joan'. Meaning that she had to clear away small annoying everyday items that would ruin the shot.

I have had cause to reflect on how the leaf does not fall far from the tree. The current photograph of me at the top of the page, for example, reveals I have exactly my father's mouth and chin, which is odd, because the lop-sided mobility of my upper lip when I'm talking is exactly my maternal grandfather's. But I have been noticing, on and off, that more and more similarities are emerging. My father had an amusingly formal turn of phrase. So this morning, on giving Bonnie three gravy bones and two Markies for breakfast, I heard myself saying 'I think you'll find these of interest'. Other common phrases are 'Is that not to your liking?' and 'Are you attempting to indicate something?' In keeping with my father's passion for education, I sometimes set her a short multiple-choice test: 'How many dogs are allowed on the sofa? Is it (a) one or (b) zero?'

I also can't eat my dinner with the cupboard doors still open in the van (Pa) or the pepper and salt within reach (ditto). Whether I'm going to use it or not, I always have to have a table napkin (at home, this has extended to actual linen, rather than a piece of kitchen roll). I have dispensed with the side plates while I'm on holiday, but have a swell of satisfaction when the washing up is done and the cloth is folded over the tap (Ma). I also, you may have noticed, personify both animals and inanimate objects to an absurd degree (also Ma). I like my van, for example, because I think of it as a wee tryer, especially up hills, and as a faithful companion. When my laptop bleeps at me I ask it what it wants. I even described those impostor mushrooms the other day as hanging about under pine trees, like some sort of gang who are plotting to mug unwary passers-by. My liking for vehicles, which my eldest sister has also inherited (she's a lorry-driver) comes from Pa - he had a particular affection for trains and buses, and I never find myself annoyed at the noise from a train. I also buy too much food and keep my cupboards full, love a bulk-buy, and am particularly partial to pickles. I think all of these things have something of the semitic. (You see? That last phrase was completely Pa.)

I have noticed, too, in this blog, I find myself saying that something I like is 'perfectly acceptable' or 'perfectly tolerable', both of which were almost top marks, coming from my Dad. I think I also have his sense of language. Ma is a grammarian, but Pa was a great lover of puns and word-play, especially international ones. He excelled in the Germanic, possibly because of his early exposure to Yiddish. I once called Bonnie 'Muschkin', in front of him, and he says 'WHAT did you call her?' So I repeated it, and he said 'That's EXACTLY the right name.' A combination of cuddliness in the first syllable and smallness in the second. Even when his dementia had set in properly, and he couldn't really form coherent thoughts into sentences, he'd start off 'I would have thought...' or 'It is indubitably the case...' which led you to expect something sensible, but the sentences often tailed off right there. Any psycholinguists reading this will be glad to know that the phrasal lexicon is alive and well. What disappears is the ability to put it together with anything freshly-minted.

When I find myself wandering round the garden (or campsite) looking at the plants, with an elderly dog plodding along behind me and a cigarette in my hand, that's Grandad - my Mum's father. I have already commented that I have his upper lip, but I also have his ears. And, like me, he was never happier than when pottering in a garden, his Senior Service cigarette held in a cupped hand: I never learned to smoke backwards like he did (I have tried it, but it seems impossible without burning yourself), but then I was never in the trenches.

So when I spent last night happily listening to two consecutive hours of Ian McKellen reading 'Little Dorrit' on Radio 7's Listen Again, I probably owe that to my Dad's extensive collection of Dickens. My CD collection is full of things like Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood: 'Call me Dolores like they do in the stories', was one of my Dad's favourite lines. There is everything of James Thurber's. There are loads of sayings that I don't know the origin of: 'Lloyd George knew my father' was one (anyone?) and we have had a debate about 'Steady the buffs', which is what he'd say when you were rushing at something - it could be something to do with trains, but it may also be military: The Buffs were also a regiment. And why would anyone call a wastebin a 'gash can'? Army? Other common sayings, in the form of advice, were 'Keep your powder dry', and 'Don't rock the boat.' My head tells me this all the time, but I mostly try to ignore it. Ma's favourites were 'Don't go at it bull at a gate' and injunctions not to wear all the new clothes you'd got at once. She also liked (a similar sentiment) 'Reculer pour mieux sauter' (Pull back to make a better jump) and I also remember that she once said to me 'Un train peut en cacher un autre' which is a sign on the French railways - meaning that one train can hide another one. Very useful when driving the van, thinking in terms of large vehicles in general. But with all this caution, Ma was also quite a brave woman: going out to France across the recently-cleared Channel in 1946 (cleared of mines, that is), she somewhere along the line acquired a brooch that said, in Old French, 'Wherever the sea goes, there go the Bretons.' I think, somewhere in her soul, lies the spirit of adventure.

Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed DNA to the project that is me. It's the second anniversary of the day Pa died tomorrow, and I'm happily remembering him. I don't think he's in any other world, or floating about anywhere: he's in my head, which is all that matters. And so far, he thinks this trip is not at all bad. Genetically, of course, I can do nothing but agree.

From the Fringe

I have more or less decided (again) not to bother with the Edinburgh Festival (busy, urban, nowhere to put van, dog, etc) so am pleased to read in today's Scotsman the top ten funniest jokes in the Fringe.

Zoe Lyons from Brighton tops the list with 'I can't believe Amy Winehouse self-harms. She's so irritating, she must be able to get someone to do it for her.' When asked whether she felt making fun of the affliction of self-harming was a good idea, Zoe told The Scotsman (apparently without irony) 'It's just a joke, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it.'

Lower down the list (at 9) is my own favourite, from Tom Stade: 'I like Jesus, but he loves me, so it's awkward.'

Deeply furrowed brow

You'll know by now that I'm a keen reader. So when I spotted 'Deep Furrows', a Mills and Boon book written in 1975, on the campsite bookshelf, you'll understand I jumped at it.

Lorne Fraser is given carte-blanche to redesign the interior of Gleanings, a beautiful old house in the North of England. 'It had come at just the right moment, because she wanted something to take her mind off the heartbreak of a shattered romance' with Nick, who lives for the moment...in New Zealand. 'Nick Calder...how could she forget him?...the handsome racing driver who accepted his trophies of victory with the same easy nonchalance as he had accepted Lorne's heart...'

Undaunted by the distance, she takes her 6-year-old nephew on the long trip to England. 'Soon, she came to love the place as well as the work; in the quiet countryside and the never-ending peaceful bustle of farm life she felt she had come home. Did her feelings have anything to do with the owner, Guy Noble?' For when she arrives at the house, she meets 'long, slender' Guy, with his grey eyes and his 'quick, impatient' movements - and he breaks the news to her that her friend and client, his grandmother, has died while she has been travelling. Luckily, Lorne reflects, her client has left the house to someone who would take care of it: 'Guy's hands would care, she felt instinctively, and wondered for a moment at the satisfaction that gave her.' She is probably susceptible to this kind of thing because both her parents were, unsurprisingly for the genre, killed in a car crash.

When she arrives, she is introduced to Carol, apparently Guy's girlfriend, whose 'pouting, doll-like prettiness' is matched only by her rudeness and dislike for anything to do with farming. Not only that, she can't dress: 'the too-bright hue of the other girl's outfit' confirms 'her garish taste..she arrived downstairs in a dress of a particularly harsh violet...Lorne found herself wincing, as much at the shoddy material which was responsible for cheapening the colour as at the neckline, which offended her sense of fitness, being more suitable to a city night club than a country dinner at home.' 'The other girl', as she is frequently called, smokes (boo!) and paints her nails (we are told in the introductory paragraph that Lorne's own are 'short, and innocent of artificial colouring'), and wears platform shoes for a trip to the stableyard. Of course, she then falls off them in the mud, fluttering her unsuitable white cape in the air as she does so, thereby causing a nearby carthorse to rear and nearly strike Lorne's head with its descending hooves.

This is the first inkling we get that Guy has feelings for Lorne, although he expresses them indirectly (like Mr Rochester) by shouting at the horse. This horse, veteran of many a ploughing competition, is by the way the one responsible for the 'Deep Furrows' of the title, and is offended, but not as offended as the stableman, who then recruits Lorne in a campaign of making Guy think Beauty is the best horse ever.

Days turn into weeks as she works on complete designs and costings for the enormous, rambling house, attends long meals at which Carol picks at her food (Lorne, of course, has a normal, healthy appetite), goes for long walks (Carol stays in the house smoking), and takes her nephew on trips. In fact, one is hard put to know when she does actually work, although Guy is, of course, delighted with what she comes up with.

One day, she goes for a walk with Guy, and is pleased with her own 'flat suede slipons' as suitable footwear. In fact, she's always dressed in 'crisply smart' blouses and sensible shoes. But she realises, as Guy pins some celandines to her dress, that this man 'has an uncomfortable power to disconcert her'. It is around this point that she realises she has got over Nick.

We are almost at the end of the book, while they are watching the aforementioned horse ploughing a field, and Lorne still thinks 'It was a harvest that she would not be at Gleanings to see.' It is obviously not just her nails that are innocent. Has not Guy approved of her ability to wake up in the night on hearing dogs worrying the sheep? Has he not let her drive his Landrover? Has he not produced a 'deep wickerwork erection' to help her catch a wayward group of ducklings? And, finally, has he not been deeply impressed with not only her, but Beauty the horse, in their joint bid to get some drums of diesel across the raging torrent of the farm's ford to keep the generator going that will make sure 200 baby chicks don't die of cold?

Eventually, even Lorne realises he is interested in her. This is because he proposes marriage. 'His grey eyes darkly shadowed under the force of emotion.' Naturally, she is 'unable to force the words through the lump that constricted her throat'. Physically afflicted as they are, they both manage to turn and face Lorne's twin brother and his wife, returned at the same moment to claim their son after their unspecified - and deeply secret - 'government trip' abroad. 'Your sister's agreed to marry me', Guy enlarged.'

Guy's enlargement obviously goes down well with everyone. Carol has conveniently gone off by this point, having secured what she wanted from grandmother's will. The way is clear for future happiness (and a large house, and an offer to adopt the nephew if anything happens to his deeply secret government parents, and Beauty the horse, and Jet the collie, and the brood of robins in the postbox at the end of the drive, and Luke the horseman and Hannah the housekeeper, and Bundle the tame sheep, and a nameless lamb from central casting who head-butted Luke in the back of the knees and caused him to spill the diesel oil that was going into the generator to power the unit that kept the 200 chicks from dying of cold and thereby caused the whole diesel-fuel-ford-horse-landrover-bid-crisis in the first place).

It was a riveting read. I have learned 15 things.

(1) Do not have ordinary-coloured eyes. Have grey, or hazel.
(2) Do not wear nail-varnish. You will never get a husband.
(3) Do not smoke. You will never get a husband.
(4) Be cheerful and practical at all times.
(5) Wear flat shoes. Or you will never get a husband.
(6) Wear plain, well-cut, good-quality clothes. Or (etc.)
(7) Do not do anything with your hair except wash and brush it.
(8) Do not come down to formal breakfast in a cheap negligee. Wear plain, well-cut (etc.)
(9)) Make friends with the servants.
(10) And the horses.
(11) And the sheep.
(12) And the dog.
(13) And the robins in the postbox at the end of the drive.
(14) At times of crisis, be able to rescue things. Or hold things and not drop them.
(15) Want to get married in the first place.

A touch of wind

I've been talking about alternative energy on and off - well, windfarms - and have decided I approve. Although I'm writing this on the day the government announces it won't be subsidising charges for electricity transfer to the places it needs to go - mainly the population centres in England - so the places with the most wind and waves will have to pay most to get their electricity down to the people that need it. This is likely to be a bone of contention between Edinburgh and Westminster.

So, according to today's Scotsman, if you generate electricity in the South East, you'll be paid £8 per kilowatt for it; if you do the same in Skye, you have to pay £23 per kilowatt, and in the Western Isles, £61 per kilowatt. Which may make alternative energy schemes in unpopulated places prohibitively expensive. I don't know what this means for your financial projections if you are halfway through building a windfarm.

I did meet someone who was halfway through building a windfarm, but luckily he's in charge of the site, not the financial model. He took me up to see. It's 8 miles away from a road across very unhospitable terrain - heather, bogs, not even walkable - and so one of the biggest jobs is building a road up there. So the first privilege about the trip was going somewhere in a jeep that you normally wouldn't have been able to get to. Amazing views. And a lot of them live up there in caravans while they're working. I thought you'd like to see these privileged-access photographs.



And then seeing them up close, I got almost the same kind of feeling as I do seeing the Angel of the North. They are so sculptural and elegant. The tallest ones are 83 metres, and I got to see the blades lying on the ground, waiting for the wind to drop so that they can be craned up onto the tower. I can't remember how long they are, but they are enormous, looking like the bones of a huge whale. They're made of carbon fibre so they only weigh 11 tonnes each. And there are tiny holes along the blades so if any water gets in it doesn't slosh around in there for ever.


The way the towers and blades catch the light, especially against a troubled sky, is quite beautiful. And as the blades turn, they also make moving stripes up and down each other's towers, which is interesting to watch.

Apparently all the turbines are controlled from a central point in Europe, where people look at screens to bring them on and off-line. When we went up there, one of them was swinging in the breeze (apparently, it should have been 'locked off', according to my guide) but he was confident the chaps in the control room would spot it before long and put the brakes on.

If you want to hire the crane, by the way, it's £12,000 a day.

Despite living around a construction site for the past two years, the local population of deer don't seem a bit worried.

I also met an engineer who is a bit of an amateur photographer (although these are my pictures: I'm sure his are better), as well as a senior engineer, so he's collected a library of images from all the sites (in oil, gas, etc as well as windfarms) he's been on in lots of different countries. If anyone in branding needs engineering photographs from someone who knows what he's looking at as well as how to work on site...

Pfifferlinger and blaeberries

After the night not getting shot by gamekeepers, I thought I had better be sensible and book a campsite. Still not quite sure where to go, I thought it would be an idea to go to a road intersection where I could either go east and south to Perth and Edinburgh, or west again into the wilds, depending on my decision (and the weather reports: there's flooding in Central Scotland and Fife). So I consulted the Campsite Book and - conscious to choose a small one, bearing in mind the packed and noisy nature of the larger sites I'd seen - I picked Invermoriston, a place near Fort Augustus at the bottom of Loch Ness. This is one of the Certified Locations (not big sites) of the Caravan Club, and they only take five vans. And the woman I spoke to sounded really nice, and said 'We'll see you later, Judy' and I felt looked after straight away - which was good after my slightly scary night in the woods (I kept hearing noises, and had to go out with a torch twice to see if there was a Strange Man).

It was another lovely drive to get there, but by the time I got to Fort Augustus there was smoke coming out of my brakes - possibly because I'd gone up one side of some steep hills and come down the other. But I found the site easily: it was really the extended front lawn of a farmhouse, surrounded by trees and on the crossing of the River Moriston at a little stone bridge.



Reception committee was Amanda, running about in wellies and a kagul in the rain, trying to get two trailer caravans and me sorted out. When it all quietened down, she invited me and Bonnie on a communal dogwalk with a neighbour the next morning, ten o'clock sharp. In the picture are Sue and Amanda, with Buster the English Bull Terrier, Ellie the Boxer, Penny the darker-coloured Boxer, Max the Lhasa Apso, and Bon. Bon was a bit nonplussed to be with so many dogs, I think, but there wasn't any trouble. She just ignored them, despite ten-month-old Ellie's many boisterous attempts to start a game.



After that walk, all the dogs and people went home and Amanda, me and Bonnie walked about 10 miles to and from a dam further up the river, talking all the way - we have rather similar histories and tastes, it turns out. Amanda doesn't live there all the time, but her dog, Penny, is 13 and has cancer, so she's brought her back up to her Mum's from the borders as there are stairs to climb at Amanda's flat and Penny's better off in the countryside. So Amanda's up and down all the time visiting. The walk was mostly along a track, and then it got trickier and went onto deer-trails: we saw a couple, and Bon was thrilled and gave chase, but she actually came back when we called her. I'm not sure it's obedience so much as knowing when you're beaten.


The next day, Amanda and her Mum Catherine took me mushrooming - they showed me how to find chanterelles, which they call 'Pfifferlinger' because a German visitor at their B and B showed them how to find and cook them (theyr'e 'girolles' in French, so I don't know how they got such a French-sounding name in English). They like to snuggle in the moss around birch trees, and once you've got your eye in you find loads. To show me what they were like to eat, Catherine cooked me scrambled eggs on toast with pfifferlinger, and then I started doing them myself in garlic and butter in the van. We also found ceps and boletus, but I'm not so sure about identifying them and I don't like them as much: they have a spongy underside you have to take off before you cook them, and I'm not as sure I won't mix them up with something else. Chanterelles are egg-yellow, candle-wax yellow, and not prone to burrowing bugs so there are no nasty surprises, and they keep a long time in the fridge. The ideal mushroom, really, and quite easy to identify. Especially if you remember they like birch trees, because I think there's a lookalike that hangs about under pines. Impostor.


Amanda also took me into Fort Augustus to get the van's brakes looked at and get gas for their midge-destroying machines (it's a very midgy site, unfortunately) and Robert at West End Garage booked it in for Saturday to have a look. We then went for coffee at a place Amanda used to work (excellent cheese scones!) and for a nice wander around Fort Augustus. It's a town defined by the Caledonian Canal, a flight of locks and a swing-bridge that lets boats out at the end into Loch Ness - very pretty.

Friday was rainy and I slept most of the day, but got up in the afternoon when it had cleared to do some weeding in their vegetable garden (which I'd promised to do) and managed to clear quite a lot of chickweed from around the lettuces and cauliflowers. Also picked some sweet peas for the house and for the van - there as a big cloud of them growing round the lettuces and and was lovely weeding with my nose in their scent. I really enjoyed it, despite the ferocious midges: I wore my midge-hood, which makes the world look like everything's under netting, but does keep them off. And went over from Avon stuff to the more serious Deet-based repellent. Every time you pull up a weed, a cloud of midges appears. Bonnie wandered about the garden (Amanda has told me that midges bother a dog most on its bum and ears, so Bonnie is now Avon-dog-so-soft in both those places. I wonder if Avon would like to know that), and I was visited by the hens, who wanted to scratch over my weeded patches for worms, and their peacock, who likes to eat chickweed (he's vegetarian). There used to be two peahens and some guinea-fowl, too, but they disappeared overnight around December 22nd. I don't think it would take much pipe-smoking on the part of Sherlock Holmes to work out what happened to them. So the peacock's all on his own now, which is a bit sad.

Saturday, I took the van the 8 miles back to Fort Augustus to the garage and left it, left Bonnie at the farmhouse with Catherine and the other dogs, and went off in Amanda's mini cooper (scarily fast for me, used to 45mph) to Inverness. We acted like towny people and I got some bits and pieces and we had a nice lunch at Pizza Express. By the time we came back, though, we'd had enough of the town (although I had bought a very nice hat to keep my midge-net off my face). Robert said my brakes were fine, but the back wheels were full of muck, probably because I'd taken the van scrambling to find a woodland campsite that night.

Amanda and I spent Sunday picking more chanterelles and this time blaeberries (or blueberries, or bilberries) which grow here on low bushes in the clearings among the trees. The berries aren't as big as commercially-cultivated ones but very sweet, and they dye your fingers purple while you pick them. Bonnie loved this day best, I think, because the chanterelle walk was more active and then she could lie in the heather while we did the slower work of picking blaeberries.


I started with the plan to stay for one night, and eventually, I think, stayed for six, I was having such a nice time. By the time I left, Amanda and I were firm friends, and Catherine says I can come back anytime and she'll put me on the side drive if she's full. She's also done my washing for me, and presented me with a jar of home-made raspberry jam - and by Monday she'd made three or four jars of blaeberry jelly out of Sunday's berries, and gave me one of those, too. It's delicious: slightly less sweet than raspberries or strawberries, and tangy. Great on a scone. Bon has made herself at home in their house and I haven't finished the weeding, and there's a dry-stone wall to repair. And I'd also like Catherine to teach me to look after bees....so....

This week, I 'ave been mostly reading...

I was just reorganising my entertainment cupboard (books, DVDs, tin whistle that I haven't learned to play yet) and need to put some books away. So I thought I'd summarise what I've been reading and watching - thought a few reviews might be of interest.

Ruth Rendell, The Keys to the Street.
Woman donates bone marrow to stranger and then starts relationship with him. Some murders also take place. An enjoyable read - won't change your life, but will pass the time.

Alexander McCall Smith, Morality for Beautiful Girls.
Another in the No1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. He is building a role for Mma Makutsi, formerly Mma Ramotswe's typist, which is quite nice, and there are some reflections on how less beautiful women make their way in the world. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni has depression, which is nicely portrayed but resolved rather easily. Pleasant and undemanding as usual.

Thor Heyerdahl, The Kon-Tiki Expedition.
A bunch of Norwegians and Swedes build a balsa raft to see if people could have got to Peru from Easter Island. On the way, they have some interesting encounters with marine creatures. I've read this many times, but always enjoy it. The illustrated version is better (Heyerdahl's own pen drawings) but I've lost my copy. Recommended.

Lesley Riddoch, Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides
Some interesting observations on the people, places and politics of the Hebrides but a bit personally self-indulgent at times in its reporting of the journey and its logistics.

Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
A lovely book - in which a woman visiting her sick mother-in-law in an old folk's home befriends an old lady with a store of tales to tell about her past life. I am very influenced by the brilliant film, which I'd love to see again - it's a bit more confusing on the page with how the flashbacks work, but a great read nevertheless.

Annie Proulx, The Shipping News.
Completely in keeping for someone on a journey to the Islands, this one is about Quoyle, an unsuccessful widower who makes a new life in Newfoundland by working on the local newspaper. Lovely language, plot much more luminous and intricate than the film. The film gets the atmosphere right but not the story. I've now read this a dozen times but it never palls.

Tom Steel, The Life and Death of St Kilda.
Written about the island of Hirta (its official name) and the story leading to its evacuation in 1930. Made me realise some things about the islands now - for example, the tension between a monetary life and a bartering, communal one - that still have resonances today. Also that the demise of the St Kilda community was not only because they had to contend with the elements, but also because they were stubbornly opposed to change.

E. M. Forster, Collected Short Stories.
Same Forster as usual. Woman walks into room with hat askew and proceeds to use wrong knife for hors d'oeuvres. Nothing is ever the same again. A native servant is blamed. Irritating and dull.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Comfortingly formulaic. Watson enters room. Holmes lights his pipe. They go somewhere in a carriage and solve a murder. Absorbing.

Christina Hall, Tales from an Island.
Biography of woman growing up in South Uist. Interesting but a bit precious, pedantic and uncritical, and can't resist taking potshots at another author on the same subject. If you haven't read the other author, this just seems like infighting.

Finlay J MacDonald, Crowdie and Cream.
Another tale of growing up in the Hebrides. Much warmer and funnier than C. Hall, and he's better at keeping the child's perspective rather than looking at it all as an adult. Which is easier to follow and creates more empathy. Enjoyed this one, whereas C. Hall was more of a job. Start with this if you want to learn about Hebridean life.

Roger Hutchinson, The Soap Man
Story of how Lord Leverhulme tried, and eventually failed, to model Lewis and then Harris along the industrial lines of Port Sunlight. Interesting and absorbing, and gave a good understanding of islands history and values, past and present.

Peter Hill, Stargazing.
A student in the 70s takes up a part time job as a relief man on the lighthouses. The last insight into the lifestyle, told through the eyes of a beginner, before lighthouses were automated. Funny and sympathetic, and very compelling depictions of the characters and habits of the lighthousemen. Also very evocative of the 70s. Recommended.

DVDs

I didn't bring any DVDs with me, and have made it a rule not to spend more than £5 on them. So there are some odd titles.

A Very Long Engagement
With Audrey Tautou, a completely lovely film about a girl who won't believe that her lover has been killed in the trenches of World War I and sets out to find him. Enchanting.

The Constant Gardener
With Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Very good film about political girl who falls in love with diplomat and goes with him to Africa, where she carries on her under-cover research into companies using Africans to test drugs. Dramatic and realistic.
A good watch.

Beverley Hills Cop II
Seen this before, but Eddie Murphy is always a laugh. This one ends in a massacre, which of course is all done terribly lightheartedly.

The Last Emperor
Loved this at the cinema but on my laptop in the van it seemed slow, mystifying, freaky, and upsetting by turns. I'm afraid I stopped before the end.

Lord of the Rings II and III
Great even on a tiny screen. Have seen before, of course, and am now a bit annoyed by the irritating auxiliary hobbits, but loved it even so. Especially that elf one.

How Green was my Valley
1940s black and white film (not green) with English persons trying hilariously for Welsh accents. A story of the demise of a mining town. A nice one for a wet afternoon.

Hot Fuzz
Simon Pegg, a top-performing Met officer, is put down in a little village with strange goings-on. Great film and very funny. Would also recommend Shaun of the Dead, which has Pegg and his comedic partner Nick Frost in almost exactly the same relationship. While Frost is always comic, Pegg is actually a pretty good actor in a serious role. I think I'll watch this one again tonight.

Thelma and Louise
Two women go away for the weekend and end up on a charge of murder. Fun road movie, with some nice moments between the two main characters (Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis). Brief appearance by Brad Pitt, which is always nice to see.

Erin Brockovich
Always loved this film, in which Julia Roberts plays the single mother who starts to look into what a chemical giant has been putting into the water in a local community. Great film, feisty character who has some great lines.

The Shawshank Redemption
Tim Robbins gets sent to jail for murder and makes his way towards freedom through a close friendship with Morgan Freeman's character. Another heartwarming one, and you admire TR's character's brains (fortunately, while they're still in his head).

It's a Wonderful Life
Great old black and white film about a man unhappy with this lot. A mildly amusing angel comes and shows him what life would have been like for his community if he had never been born. Heartwarming - another one for a wet afternoon.

Cracker - the Movie
A feature-length movie in which Robbie Coltrane annoys his family, possibly for the last time, by skilfully solving the killings of some posh Americans. Absorbing, but only as much as the telly.

The immortal Spey

Not sure what to do when I left Lesley and Luke - I had no other mission. So I needed to go to a campsite and look at maps and have a bit of a think, and went about half an hour down the road to Aberlour. To a Camping and Caravan Club (this is not my lot, this is the Other Lot) site with a VERY LOUD WARDEN. I'd booked on the phone, and he'd said, WORRAM SAYIN IS, IT'S THAT WET, WE'LL AVE TO PUT YOU ONT ROAD. I wasn't sure what to make of this (imagining being parked on the A82, with log lorries whistling by) but he meant on the road in the campsite, because below where I was parked it was too wet to put vans on the grass - you'd never get them out again. So I parked ONT ROAD, and spent a pleasant two days doing walks from the site. He did come over for another conversation - they'd had a van like mine. WHAT YOU AVE TO WATCH IS, THERE'S AN EARTH WIRE INT ENGINE THAT YOU AVE TO KEEP CLEAN, OTHERWISE, COME ONE MORNIN, YOU'LL THINK YER BATTERY'S FLAT, WHEN IT INT. He was proud of his own van for which he'd paid more than mine (pause for a bit of smugness) but pronounced mine A GOOD LITTLE BUS. Although YOU AVE TO KEEP YER REVS DOWN, AN IT AINT NO GOOD IN FIFTH, BUT IT DOES ALRIGHT IN THIRD AND FOURTH. AND YEV NO NEED TO GOO CHASIN ABAHT, AVE YER?

Absolutely not. I have no desire to go CHASIN ABAHT, and I was very nicely snuggled among the distilleries - Macallan, Glenlivet, and all the big famous names are along there (well, all the Speyside famous names, as well as a mysterious Diageo 'Dark grains' plant). I didn't do a distillery tour because I used to live right next to a Perthshire distillery, and I've been to Islay often enough, so I get the idea already). Speyside is a place I've never been before, but I was surprised by its beauty. The Spey itself is broad, and shallow, rippling over rocks, with trees bowing down to it either side, and every so often an angler standing in the water (trout, and salmon in season). The distilleries are all old buildings, many with distinctive ornate square towers on the top, and all of them with a plume of steam escaping out among the glens. The scenery is steeply sloping, lots of woods, but the hills are purple with heather. And every time you go round a corner there's a new vista. The morning I left I went ten minutes up the road to Archiestown, and wandered about there - it was looking very pretty, and seemed to be holding its breath, it was so hushed. I then discovered that it was the morning of the judging of the Best Kept Village competition, and wherever you looked there were people unobtrusively doing last minute snipping and tidying.



I went into a junk shop that unaccountably did cups of coffee and had a million books for sale, and browsed for ages - came out with quite a pile, and had a long conversation with the owners, who were trying to sell up. Huge house, shop, and workshop, in a very pretty village, and no buyers. They seemed quite cheerful, and the woman confided in me that they were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they didn't think the Creator would let this mess go on for much longer, what with governments and everything, before He intervened. So that's alright then. As I left with my rapidly-cooling cup of coffee, she tucked a magazine into my bag of books that would explain everything.

I did ponder for a while what He might look like, and what He's planning to do. I suppose he would be a cross between Nelson Mandela, President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I am not sure what He would have on the side of His armoured car, as nothing He is called is as snappy as 'UN' and might present design difficulties. JEHOVAH? YAHWEH? THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE? I have just looked Him up on the web - fortunately, He has a website, www.god.com - but it is uninformative on this point. And also rather badly put together, so it appears that He does not employ web designers.

And then where would He start? Darfur? Afghanistan? Chad? Zimbabwe? Iraq? Georgia? The Olympics? (Might as well take advantage of the TV coverage, and appear in the middle of the stadium - two thirds of the world's population are apparently watching already). I even read the magazine for clues. They are powerful in their summary of what's wrong with the world, but vague about what people should do in response, apart from Prepare, which involves mainly reading the bible and Believing. I feel it's possibly more useful to try to do something about the governments and the mess, but perhaps that's just me.


Anyway, these musings took me on a nice walk - I actually walked about 6 miles, and ran some of it, because it seemed to be taking ages, and I needed to find somewhere to camp for the evening. But the drive on from Archiestown was one of the nicest I've done. I went to a place that had a herb nursery in a lovely valley - the photo is taken from inside their greenhouse. Unfortunately the caff was closed (if you wanted herbs, you could put money in a box), but a very nice woman who I met there pointed me down towards Loch Ness and a place called Dores, where there's a pub serving meals (I'd had nothing to eat by this point, not even breakfast, and the walk had been a long one).

Found Dores, where there's a carpark next to the Loch. I spoke to the man who gave up everything to live in a caravan by the Loch and look for the monster. He spends his time sitting on the porch making miniature Nessies out of modelling clay to sell to the tourists. I asked him what he thought Nessie was. 'There's more than one of them', he said. 'And they could be catfish.' This seemed an unsatisfactory conclusion to devote one's life to, but on the other hand he's got a very nice billet, with one of the best views in the world. His taciturnity might be due to constantly being asked the same questions by tourists. Perhaps it's nicer in winter, when all he's got is the Loch and the mist and a few fishermen, and Radio 4 for company.

Anyway, the Dores Inn needs to hire some staff. When I asked is there such a thing as a vegetarian breakfast, the guy there said he didn't think so, but he could ask. He came back saying no. So I said I'd have the ordinary breakfast but without the meat. He said he could ask. He came back saying it will be a while because it's all got to be cooked in a pan. I am left wondering what the alternative was (and I think we should be told, anyway, what food might be when it isn't 'pan-fried'). He charged me full price for it, plus for coffee, even though tea was meant to be included. The place seemed to be full of people waiting for food. Luckily I had the Press and Journal with me to read, but I was really listening to the Germans who were planning their route and complaining about the food, and the French girls who were complaining about the wasps. They said 'Putain' a lot.

I did meet a woman who sounded like she was from the south who was tutting and sighing at the counter, and from her gestures and eyebrows she wanted to include me in it. Can I just ask you one thing, she said to the guy, is there a shopping centre round here? I expected him to say he could ask, but he said no, just Inverness (which is true: you don't come to Speyside to find a shopping centre). She looked heavenwards and said to me that she'd come to Scotland under duress and wasn't an experience she wanted to repeat. I made sympathetic noises and said she could go home and put her feet up in the garden and forget all about it - she'd told me she had more time off work when she got back - but I did privately wonder why someone with intricate grooming and high heels would come to the Highlands. Perhaps they were looking for Bluewater and took a wrong turn.


The rest of the time I enjoyed driving about - stopped at Foyers, which has a famous waterfall that apparently had the Romantic poets all excited. It used to be more dramatic than it is now, because some of the pressure is siphoned off somewhere by the Hydro board for electricity, but it's quite pretty even so. All the way down are parts of a poem - perhaps by Burns, I'm not sure - carved into pieces of slate. The poem was apparently pencilled on the spot, the poet had been so impressed. I'm including a bit of it, but I'm afraid I don't think it's very good.

And to cut a long story short, I drove around looking for somewhere to camp for too long that day, and got tired and grumpy. Now I'm back on the tourist trail - or at least intersecting it briefly - I thought the campsites I saw at Grantown on Spey and around were intolerable: packed vans full of people watching television, or wandering about looking for something to do. So after exploring many side-tracks I found a track on some estate land which led into the woods. It took a bit of off-roading in the van to get up the track, but I felt hidden enough to sleep there. Although slightly worried about gamekeepers: this was August 11th, and the grouse season started on the 12th. I woke to bright sunlight with no sign of anyone pointing a gun at me, and was pleased that YHWH (see, I found Him an abbreviation) had spared me for another day.

Running in the family

There's no easy way to say this, but my brother-in-law's brother has run from Land's End to John O' Groats. That's my sister Annie's husband Martin's brother Rob. Running. About 900 miles. At the rate of about 45-60 miles a day. With no rest days. This is the equivalent of (at least) two marathons a day for 18 days.

Not only this, he was accompanied by the most fantastic extended family entourage and supported by the tightest planning I've ever encountered (and nor had my sister's physiotherapist, who went up to run with them one day and has some experience of these things).

Rob is a member of Hinckley Running Club (Leicestershire) - you can read all about the club, see a sponsorshop link, and read his blog from this link.

So, given that John O'Groats is at the top of Scotland, I rang Rob's wife Niki to find out where they were, and Lesley and I decided it would be fun to go and meet them. There was no question of joining them during the day: I can't run fast enough to keep him company, and it's all finely planned, with Rob's sister Sue and her partner Martin cycling alongside or behind (so THEY did the whole distance too, on bikes) to give him snacks and drinks, keep him right on the route, and presumably to draw attention to him in their hi-viz vests so that traffic avoided him. So we went up to Brora on the north-east coast, 2 days short of the end of the run, to meet them at the campsite where they'd be in the evening. Thing was, we were a day early - I rang Niki to find they were in Dingwall, a day further South - so Lesley and I had a lovely restful day in the blazing sun in Brora. We had a plan to go and look at things - Dunrobin Castle, I recall - but it was so nice we just lay around the van and sunbathed. I did book the gang into the site for the next day, though: the campsite owner was quite surprised that we were being joined by six adults and two children in two motorhomes and a tent.

We saw their vans arrive about four o'clock: Niki driving a big hired camper with Reuben, 12 and Atticus, 14 in it (who, I had claimed, when booking them in, were 9 and 11 - see previous post on getting old), and Niki's mum and dad, Trish and Ian, in another camper. The tent was for Sue and Martin, the cyclists, and everyone had their jobs - Trish cooked for them and the two boys, Ian and the boys put the cyclists' tent up, and Niki did meals for Rob, Sue, Martin and herself (all carefully calorie-controlled), distributed route sheets (worked out in advance by Sue) for the next day, shopped, packed up snacks and lunches and made drinks bottles, did the blog, massaged Rob and collected his data, and booked campsites...all helped by her parents whenever they could. And, if it was raining, she had to go and meet the team for scheduled breaks three times in the day to make sure they had a sheltered place to stop and change clothes if they needed to. So she was pretty worn out by it all, but hugely organised and cheerful. We did offer to help - eg make supper - but it was all so finely tuned that it was better to butt out and just offer a place to sit and a glass of wine or juice to anyone who wanted it.

We waited for the team to come back and greeted them - and were very touched that, at the end of every day, Rob stops just short of the home 100m to hug and kiss his sister and Martin for helping him all day. And then he came in and was pleased to see us and shook Lesley's hand. Although, to be fair, the rest of the evening he had a thousand-yard stare. He said he couldn't sleep well because his legs were keeping going in the night. Niki had left him a bed to himself and was sharing with Reuben, because of all the twitching (perhaps it runs in the family: Annie says Martin does it too: he's a long-distance swimmer).





I was really glad Lesley was there, because she's so sociable and interested in everything she helped boost everyone, even though they were exhausted. Reuben and Atticus were just lovely: Reuben wearing a kilt and shirt they'd found in a second hand shop, and telling us lots of stories, and Atticus, who is deeply cool and is not only a grade A scholar but a bassist in a rock band. We all went to the beach together to give them a break from being cooped up in the van.



Later on, eight of them came over to squeeze into my van and have a cup of tea, and also do the blog, because my internet was working and they didn't have a signal. It was great to see them - what a brilliant family, and working so well together. I've since heard, of course, that they finished in the morning of day 18. Rob said he felt fine and could just carry on, but unfortunately he'd run out of land. I've no idea what he plans to do next - in fact none of them had any plans beyond this trip, which took two years to co-ordinate and arrange - but I have an idea there will be something even bigger coming up. Round the world, perhaps?