Letter to a joiner

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i thought id give you a wee update on oz here since my last email was all too brief.
there are a lot of boy racing driving round about where i am staying - my new bike is fantastically light - i want one at home if i can't get this one home with me - i paid about 100 quid for it which isn't cheap i guess but boy it goes like the clappers - had it up to 40 mph on a hill - it came with a cycle computer and helmet and other bits too - i reckon i can get up to 50 on it once i get the higher gears accessable - the cars don't seem to know how to pass a cyclist here either(why i am going so fast so they don't overtake me) but there are plenty of cycle lanes and quiet parallel roads to use instead - i heard on the radio that in one city in oz one in thirty random motorists stopped were over the drink drive limit. The driving is bad if what i ahve seen is representative - incl a head on crash on a quiet suburban road - a motorcyclist getting cut across and lots of honking of horns. So much for the laid back ozzy style.
The malls are focal points for the women to go to during the day. There are ones spotted about all over the city. Most of the stuff in them isn't all that great but prices are quite high. It is nice to see an Ozzzy way of doing christmas with the decorations taking on an ozzy style - and some of the malls decorations are lovely - big christmas tree with angels circling above - and I saw the Santa in the mall too - he was a bit skinny and I thought a big massive burly guy with a real white beard passing by would have been better for the job if he had been a bit friendlier looking. It was a bit of a regular thing to see my cousins picture taken with Santa at my Grannies when i was growing up.
the painting started in earnest today - cool day only about 24 but still got a bit red on my arm - only slightly - but its quite an impressive watch strap tide mark -the painting , it should be straigt forward and there is some joinery work to do too - plywood just doesn't seem to be that popular here - but the hardboard that was used in the porch has sagged and buckled - silly and predictable!
i bought a fishing rod - a ten foot spinning rod - best times to go are sunrise and sunset as the fish come in to feed then - plan is to take it with me on my multiday walks and see if i can't supplement my dry food diet. I bought some dried food the other day, they do a very spicy pee from China I think - there is a lot of food in the shops from China - got some strange berries too that i'd never seen before from there - i might try and do some drop sconne baking on the trail - i don't want to walk really hard - though on one of the tracks the distances seem tiny - ten miles many days, though of course they use kilometres here - shame the exchange rate didn't stay as static as the conversion between miles and kilomotres
the beeches are pretty amazing - the whole of the coast is just beech really apart from the odd rock here and there - lots of kite-surfers and wind-sufers - i had my zoom lens on one yesterday as he was powering back to shore and just as he was getting closer i ran out of memory - there will be other opportunities i am sure
the beer and wine are pretty good here too - i got given $100 when my bags were not on my flight - so i bought some wine and beer with half of it - the warm air is good to drink it in too enhancing the flavour perhaps
its strange having had a Saturday and the football games in Scotland won't be kicking off for another 3 hours almost - takes the agony out of it though when you wake up in the morning to check the scores
i did a tiny bit of snorkelling yesterday - saw one fish - quite a nice one - the water was a tad cold - required a bit of heavy breathing but after the initial shock was quite pleasant - bit different to my snorkelling on isaly last summer when my head was freezing up as i moved slowly through the water
the kite surfing looks terrific too - its suppsed to be quite easy to learn - but it ain't cheap - i'd like to do a dive too - in fact it would be good to take the next course up from the basic one - but you need to get another medical done i think. Its not all that expensive relatively and you get a few dives out of it too.
So the cloning process meets with a temporary glitch - i look forward to comparing the festool plunge saw to the dewalt - i have a feeling that there isnt a great deal of difference in them - it can't be a trademark design by festool but when i compard them in the shop they seemed the same.
My friend matt tends his garden a lot - its like an oasis amongst brown gardens - his runner beans were lovely tonight with chili and there is a steady supply of strawberrys. He's also got a pumpkin on the way - a triumph of his fertilising the pumpkin as there aren't enough bees around here - there are about 50 seeds in it that all need some male input - i think it will grow quite fast.
My friends two kids are real characters - zoe graduated from kindergartem this week and was given a portfolio of her work and a report, which she did very well in. Some of the names of the class were funny like Mango and Tiahsha. Hughie is 2 and a lovely wee cheeky boy.
Folks are quite ignorant of the way the different accents and places fit in to the british isles - i keep getting asked if i am english - and someone had the cheek to ask when did england take over scotland - i should have said england has a scottish prime minister,its more the other way round.
keep fending off the cops please - they will eventually give up i hope!

What you going to do with your time off? Let me know what its like to have an mri scan! I don't think I know of anyone who has undergone one. I hope it heals up well if it is a break - was it left or right hand?

Enough from me!

Have a great Christmas and happy new year.

S

Ozzy Christmas Day Temp of 38 looms

Arrived safely at Perth after an overdose on airport stress. Tight connections and missing luggage as a result but in the end it worked out all right.I even made $100 in beer and wine profit.
The summer temps are starting to pump up the mercury here - sadly Scotland tuggs back at me with the remnants of a chest infection so I had to go see a Doctor. Its been on me for ages but what is it about men - we just soldier on without complaining!
I bought a great wee bike - very old but in its prime it would have been an expensive bike - its been well looked after. Very light and perfect for the great cycling here. However i have become the bike repair man with my hosts bike needing a new tube as well as mine as it popped off as i tried to pump it up.
Down By The Sea was amazing yesterday. Australia is very different outdoors to a walk up a subzero hill in Scotland! I'm struggling to say how great it is to be at the beach here. Its very hot, 33 yesterday and bright and the water is warm. And its gorgeous. What more could you ask for.
I met Mr Apocalypse on the beach - Dave bemoaning the poorer attitude and parochial outlook on the west compared to his native east coast. His real points were all about sinking cities as they suck up the water beneath, rising sea levels driving mass exodus from Indonesia to Australia. However I did manage to outdo him at a few points.
Well i better go i don't want to spend my holiday blogging dood.
I was highly amused btw at the doctors receptionists advice about antibiotics; she stops taking them as soon as she starts feeling better. I wonder if the east coast receptionists are as clever.

Man v Fly

I love to have a nice fresh bed to sleep in, so I always leave my windows wide open to let in plenty of fresh air - one of the fringe benefits of living on the third floor. It would be an invitation to burglers at any other lower height. It does mean that the odd fly can get in though (it can't be quite as fresh as I think).

To get rid of them isn't a problem, usually they are drawn to the window so I open it wide but they still get trapped in the corner so I have to open it untill its almsot done a 360 turn. I don't really like killing any life because even a wee fly is a miracle of life but having said that I do enjoy it when its a frotsy night and I know their metabolism is about to freeze up.

I do consider myself an excellant fly swatter too. The trick is to slowly come up on them and then a flick of the wrist is enought to despatch them or at least stun them. A stun is usually preferable to a squash of course! I don't want to get too gory as I am drinking a cup of tea.
Last night though I met my greatest adversory of the fly variety.

It was a big whopper that seemed to be particularly disgusting and annoying. I think he was in my kitchen when I had come in from work. I hope they don't like butter as the lid was off. I chased him a bit firstly in my living room with a newspaper to no avail. At bedtime he was really starting to annoy me and I particularly didn't want him in my room as I read, let alone sleep. But he seemed to be able to buzz around and then disappear as my eye lost him. I was starting to get really annoyed, but I had a certain admiration of him (or her). The only glee I could muster was the probable fact that he'd be dead long before me! But even that I couldn't be certain of. His sanity was going to last longer than mine at that present rate. So I was back in bed giving up a little when I couldn't find him then out again even more determined, yet still he was able to land without me seeing him which is usually a flies fatal mistake. But this one made the kamakaze error of crossing in front of me and wallop, I got him mid-air with a rolled up copy of the Christian Aid News still in its clear wrapper. I found him on the ground unable to get airborne, so I opened up the wrapper of said publicaiton and wrapped him gently in it - and the rest is history.

I feel a little sad today at his passing - he was a worthy adversory and will be sadly missed.

Its all about the light

The weather forecasters kept saying that today was the best day of the week and with no work lined up why not go for a hillwalk. I did try to climb this one before together with Ben Vorlich but the weather forced me back at the first summit.

It wasn't wall to wall sunshine today and as I drove up I feared another boring gray day but it turned out great as a yellow sun showed lots of variety all afternoon as the clouds came and went and it sank lower in the sky bathing tracts of land. I suppose a subtelty is meant to be subtle but oxymoronically (!) it can make a bigger impression if you are open to it. I am thinking about the way the light can in a fairly subtle way be totally beautiful such as when on one side of me I had the white snows while above the light orange sky was sumptious.

I was caught unawares by the wildness of the area I walked through. I kept thinking how amazing it is to find it so near Glasgow and with the only footprints belonging to deer. I had expected the usual overgrazing and a boggy fairly featureless landscape. It got better as I climbed too when the chasm below Ben Vorlich was revelaed which would have looked good in a Lord of the Rings scene. In the distance the winter snows and mists were giving the west coast mountains an untamed and wild mantle (that makes me want to visit them soon).

A bit of wildlife was enjoyed too - the barking of a deer is the stuff of dinasuars Jurassic era. There is no way any sound could ever be more primordial. Some non-mallard ducks on the river and a diver of some kind on a reservoir promised some possible future fishing casts. A raven isn't that special but out in the wilds it takes on an added resonance, just as the sound of a thin ribbon stream rushing downwards is so lovely as I pass over it walking home and hear its rushing drift into the silence.

So that's my fourth Munro of the year (hills over 3000 feet high), I aim to do ten a year so I will have to get cracking if I am to reach that this year. Watch this space.

Stuc a'Chroin - good hill, but great approach from the south than the slightly shorter but far far steeper northerly approach.

Gig and misc

Leonard Cohen gave a great performance on his second night on Thursday here in Glasgow. Famous for his songs Hallelujah, Suzanne and Famous Blue Raincoat, I felt like a young 'un amongst the liberal hippies allowed out for the night. The sound quality at gigs is truly rotten to use a genuinely true generalisation; bucking the trend though a blind man would have queried if it was a CD player he had come to hear. I think it was a copy of a copy of a copy of The Songs Of Leonard Cohen on a 'normal' tape that was my introduction to him and it remains my favourite album of all time easily overcoming that hissy start (ironically it may even have helped). That debut album of his has tones of real misery around it and I find it hard to reconcile it with the audience. I suppose he mellowed a lot with his later output. The band of ten were a fine collection too; the Hammond organ player giving that edgy mellowness that maple syrup would if it were to sing, and the backing singers giving a simmering compliment to Cohen's deep 'golden voice'. His songs passed so quickly and despite his years he went on for about 3 hours minus his tea-break in the middle (or whatever Canadians use to whet their tonsils). Like Tom McRae he has a sense of humour that is needed for songs that to many people sound depressing (I don't hear them that way though) He dedicated a song to what he heard was a hard drinking city including the line 'I fought against the bottle, but I had to do it drunk'. You had to be there! Overall a quite memorable night and a one-off that just about justified the hefty ticket cost.

I wonder who is the most bemused? A Brit in the USA or an American in Britain. Like how many Americans have heard of Pinky and Perky. But watching one of the numerous exports from the land of Uncle Sam one learns to guesstimate ones way over these references.

I noticed this banger season how the recession had even bit into that bit of fun for the young urchins of Glasgow. One of the good aspects of the recession. Could it be that people are ready to be more frugal and realise that the spend spend spend lifestyle isn't hitting the spot. Back to the streets of Glasgow it is quite amazing how little of the big rubbish is left for the large item uplift on Thursday mornings. Because Partick is a first-time buyers area I suspect old sofas end up here for their final sojourn because every week there would amazingly be at least one if not two or three left out for landfill. Its one of those fascinating statistics that will never be known sadly.

I heard a great song this morning on the Rock Radio - the new James Bond Theme it turned out on looking up the set list on the Internet. I was quite surprised as it sounded a bit like an obscure singer-songwriter (with a rocky edge) getting his CD dusted off. Aside from my recent ascent to one of the sets of 007 my first single was For Your Eyes Only by Sheena Easton, still a song I have plenty time for a listen and one of the more under-rated artists and deserving of an Abba like revival. Well maybe not but worth taking a bit more seriously. Oh well sometimes I am a bit bemused at my own self!

Recent trip to Switzerland

It's not often that you walk into a completely different sort of environment. That's sort of what happens when you leave the flat part of Switzerland and head up the glacial valleys of the Alps. My destination was in the German speaking part to a chalet over 500 years old in Lauterbrennan. I think the anticipation of something new is one of the great parts of travelling, because you can read the travel literature and even look up the photos on google maps but the first sight of somewhere is always memorable.

After such a build-up all I actually got to see after getting off the train and walking up the main street was a view of the valley walls and a big waterfall, and lots and lots of mist. And also the snows that had fallen early. I had a sense of something but vague. The day after taking the train up the valley wall things only got worse. After church (we went to an English church, just in case folks were missing home after 24 hours) we stumbled across a big marquee with an assortment of traditional and semi-traditional bands from nearby villages were taking turns in the spotlight. Great entertainment as the mist was now threatening to come in through the door. It was all in honour of the first new uniforms in 30 years for the local band.

Monday was a nice walk down by the lake in the valley below. Standing on a bridge right over a torrent in a waterfall was a thrill sport in itself. Mist still clung to the mountains though.

Tuesday things weren't much better but we took to two forms of mechanical transport to get into the clouds. Things were bleak and I wanted to head back down but Mike and I pressed on. After a couple of hours things started happening as we rounded a bend on the mountain track. Snow on the ground and then the cliffs above us glistened in the bright late summer sun and the remote valley below too; all came together in view and I knew I was in a big place.

Looking back I am not sorry about the slow parting of the clouds over the first few days as it gave a greater appreciation of it all.

It is said that the Americans don't get irony. Whether that is true or not, the Swiss don't get vulgarity. Who in their right mind would stick a big round space ship on the top of a 10,000 foot peak, or dig a tunnel through the Eiger in order to get a train up it. We have our own version in Scotland, and those that complain about our ski centres and funicular railway (I may from time to time be one of those people) should visit the Schilthorn summit centre and take the twin elevators to the revolving restaurant in order for them to bless the day they were born in Scotland. I had spurned the cable car (on the way up anyway) to climb up 1600 metres to the star of James Bond baddies and explosions and it was bad. I'm too much a purist for my own sanity.

Before I get all smug though. we too in Scotland have over exploited our mountains turning them into barren fields for whatever is remotely profitable, sheep,deer and game birds to the exclusion of a healthy eco-system including birds of prey. I don't like walking in the summer in many of the hills where sheep grazing has taken away the wildness and beauty and replaced it with the homogeneity of supermarket strawberries. Brought home to me on a recent trip to Glen Lyon where a large section of hillside had been fenced off and instead of a washed-out impression of green the hill-side had the hue of true green. I hope the EU does bring in their tagging of sheep that makes it uneconomical to breed them on our hills. If we could turn our hills into one big massive national game park the tourism and improved environment would be so much better. Instead be bulldoze and scar the mountains with straight drainage channels with the barbarism of 18th century greed.

They do seem to have reached a better balance between their grazing needs and nature in Switzerland even though their restaurants (and hotels) would be better at ground level. Someone else said that the restaurants are odd because of how the food is of secondary importance. There is still plenty wildness left in their mountains such as the thunder-like boom of the avalanche formed as the tip of a glacier breaks off over a cliff. Or a herd of Chamois deer bound nonchalantly out of sight round a distant top. I am more than happy to stick to the wilds of Scotland though especially as autumn and winter approach and the sheep are rounded up.

Don't know if I've been missed

Its been a while since I wrote. I'm feeling good just now, working very hard and enjoying it. One of the down sides to being self-empolyed is you really do have to make hay while the sun shines. Not that the sun has been shining as much as it might have been for the farmers to get their hay in, all the plants are half flattenned in the gardens with all the rain we've had. Tuesday had a great weather moment with my sun coming out and giving my arm a uv bite while a thunderstorm was going on above me.
I feel a little guilty tonight. I had a friend helping me out with my joinery work yesterday and his back muscles didn't seem to be too impressed with their new job as my labourer, so I gathered as the groans got louder and louder. Anyhow I feel a bit had as I asked him back today (I gave him a lie in) but he was just the same. I feel like a slave driver despite telling him he could go home at any point. He really gave it his heart and soul but even mentally he was struggling today as the pain must have been really taking its toll. Anyway he has a wife and 3 kids to feed so I was doing him a favour. Andy I salute you.
I checked on my boat today. She needs a little bit of tlc. There are quite a few skuffs and scrapes which are starting to spoil her looks. I just don't want them to get worse than that.
Did I mention that I bought a windsurf board. So far its been good, I still am a beginner, getting time out on it is easier said than done, but I'm glad I got my own board instead of relying on a course at an RYA school somewhere.
I have to end on a bit of a grumble I am afraid - why are there so many adverts for feminine products on the tv? I don't care if its un-pc to say so, but it is what all the guys are thinking. Goodness me how are all the teenage boys coping with it?? Sitting watching a bit of family viewing with their mother and sister in and some feminie hygeine toiletry comes on the screen. Enough already.
More work this weekend as of course everyone wants everything done by the middle of last week or before they actually bought their new house - I will just have to ask for overtime rates, whatever I decide them to be.

Back from Islay

I visited the island of Islay in 1999 when I used my bike to get about and stayed at a youth hostel for a long weekend. I don't recall it that well, my memories of it weren't all that great I have to admit, but I did revisit it last week with my two friends and their families.

Of course when on holiday the weather has such a big part to play, and Islay certainly is no exception. You can go with great plans but they can all come to little if you can't get out of the door. We were quite at the mercy of the elements in our slightly too flimsy tents, as it turned out to the hefty winds we encountered. Even erecting our tents was like trying to fly a massive kite two feet off the ground! The tents lasted a few days until eventually the wind raised its game even higher and a move was necessary as poles were snapped.

I'm watching Billy Connolly doing a tour of Ireland just now. I'm not a big huge fan but I can watch his tours easily unlike most of the other things on and he is an intelligent commentator on things and I've not noticed any phopas and ignorant generalisations. The thing that Billy gets though is the spirituality of the wilds. In my experience of companions through the Highlands it is quite a rare thing for someone to appreciate the specialness of laying a hand on a wall of a prehistoric house. He does concentrate on the human side of it. There is a reverence required when out in the wilds of Scotland, probably anywhere in the world when out in the sticks, but I am biased and I think that there is more in the mist enveloping a remote beach than in the clouds over a mountain in the English Lake District or the wilds of Yosemite.

I still seem to be a target for tics. Jokingly over dinner I said I'd need to do a search that evening for them as I rolled up a sleeve and there was one slurping my blood as I jested. Goes to show you how discerning of rich blood they are though. But its nay fair - they seem to be able to mess with ones mind and make things not quite right without one realising. Wee buggers. Or make your muscles edgy and just not right. I had more tic bites than midge bits for goodness sake.

It was an experience to be around the 'modern' kid for 24-7 for seven days (though of course I wasn't). I do have to take my hat off to parents, especially of larger families, they are gluttons for punishment. The photo is of two of them as we set out to hunt for mackerel, they both managed to catch soon after, Craig was pretty excited as four decent sized fish all started pulling at once having second thoughts about biting a shiny hook. Emma got a couple too. That's Charles in the background.

They need joiners/handymen around this time of year there (apparently) which is tempting. It would be easy to come out with excuses so I'll have a think about it. It might be quite good for a month or six weeks. The old rural/city conundrum I struggle with.

But Islay is a wild place; the wilds with a few wee shops and plenty of sea views. I would like to go back sometime and take in Jura and Colonsay which the weather held back from me this time. Maybe I should go in the winter when the tics are less hungry lying in the ground, horrible beasties!

Not always pretty in pink

The laugh of yesterday came as I drove into the Clyde Tunnel when I spied in the opposite side a pink haired girl in a pink open topped beetle car sitting with a red face as the man tried to get his tow-truck attached to her car. A picture would have told the thousand word tale rather well. At least she knew the daftness of it all as we shared a grin.
The other girl in pink I met this week, I don't know if she'll ever catch up with her daftness. She was babysitting me as I worked on the front door of her sisters house (floor 5 of 15) with two cats in it; one gregarious the other wouldn't say boo to a mouse. So she came up to me while I was unloading after collecting a certain bit of something at ground level telling me that one of the cats had got away, it would have been tricky for the adventurous one to get through multiple doors in a quiet building but it was the timid ginger one (Sebastion, who it turned out is actually a girl). She refused my reality check! (forget empathising first) She had already checked every one of the 15 floors and asked all the workmen at ground level. I think it was the big saucers of indoor sunglasses that had tipped me off, or was it the pink jogging trouser getup? She was in hysterics and fear at what her sister would say. This went on for ages with the implication it was my fault for working on her front door. She wanted her sister to come home to look for it and the boyfriend couldn't be contacted, so Mum got all the hysterics. It was all over when we looked under a nest of tables, Sebastion sitting scared as ever, probably hadn't moved an inch all morning.
Now it was the way she resolved never to get in this predicament again that impressed me the most. Not something like 'I will not panic so quickly again' or 'Cats can hide' or 'I will be a little teeny weeny more thoughtful about reality' - no - she was never going to help her sister again.
The power of pink? I have a wee rule of thumb, men who wear pink shirts are without exception to be treated with great caution. In my grumpy old state this is a rule that I have tried to find the exception to but have given up trying.
So yes indeed the power of wearing a certain colour can be quite overpowering for some people. Its not the clothes that make the man or woman, its their colour.

Glasgow to Edinburgh by bike

Kenny and me cycled through to Edinburgh today from Glasgow via the towpath at the side of the canal that links the two big cities of Scotland. We had previosly attempted it but got stopped by intensely heavy showers that were so bad the oil on my chain set was completly washed off. It was amazingly six years since we had done this. The weather was much kinder with sunshine helping us along.

The canal is quite an interesting place if you were to analyse some of the persons on it. It is to a fair extent a very friendly place. However without too much thought there did seem to be three or four sorts of persons using it. I think we must have passed at least 50 guys out with their floats or spinners in the water trying to catch the Perch and whatever other fish lurk in the still depths of the canal waters. These men do not communicate with cyclists. Its as if the two are a mirage to the other living out lives that are in parallel universes but somehow merge together on the canal and the other appear as ghosts to be treated as wisps of a different sort of existance but not fully comprehended. There is also the sort of person that is generally walking but didn't have much to do with either the fisherlads or cyclists and was somewhat intimidated by both.

The waters seemed to be alive with lots of small fish and plenty of insect life, much of it trying to get into my mouth. One young woman was seen to be uncoothly spitting as she approached me on her bike, but she made it clear for everyone to know that she was extruding an unfortunate bug. There was a long stretch where some blue damselflies were in abundant numbers, I had thought that these were uncommon.

About £84.5 million had been spent rejuvinating the canal route. It has been done well and today it was being used a lot. The Falkirk Wheel is unique in the world and a world class tourist attraction. I saw it carrying barges today up about 115 feet from one canal to another, hugely impressive and all done with the power of a washing machine motor thanks to the physics of Archimedes Principal of displacement. Its funny how there are so few facilities on the canal route. Possibly 3 cafes/pubs for its entire length. I did manage to get a free dram by a man very well versed on his whiskys from Belguim as he gave out promotinal samples at the centre for the Wheel, I wished I could have talked to him longer and sampled all his wares.

It has 3 or 5 viaducts where the canal is on a bridge. A particularly surprising experience was the tunnel that went on for about 300 yards. It was dimly lit with a poor surface at the side with water dripping down, very much like a cave with some limestone deposits of the odd slatactite. I was really glad to get back out into the sunlight. Genuinely quite spooky and unsettling.

I mention this next instant because I don't want to always gloss over things. We approached a bridge with a female of mid twenties perhaps who appeared to be not wearing much. As we passed we realised that she was actually sitting naked covering herself up with a very upset look on her face with an intimidating guy opposite her. I'm really disappointed in myself that we didn't stop to see if she was OK. The shock and bizarreness of it all and the nakedness too was a bit much to take in. In a small way for myself I did get a chance to redeem myself a little when coming out of the subway near home a girl was seeing to another girl sitting who looked like she had passed out but she had been sick and just needed something to mop up the vomit which someone else nearby was getting. However I'm still annoyed I didn't do something for that woman.

So onto Edinburgh. For all the praises Glasgow gets for its growth into a city of culture, the capital of Scotland is a very cosmopolitan and European city. We weren't very impressed with the 'beaty' music from the tents at one of the greens but the architecture around the canal and the pedestrian and cycle routes were wonderful. Kenny was a bit more tired than myself so we just caught the next train back (free to take your bike) in time to see the football.

All in all a good wee adventure.

Let's get ready to grumble

One of those things that annoys me is people overclothed. I'm out riding around the streets a lot during the day for my work and cycling too.

You see it a lot in Scotland. People don't have a clue how warm it is outside so they just pile on a few layers and then a winter coat. But when they cross that threshold do they go back inside and change? Of course not.

Maybe its the Scottish weather too, with our 4 seasons in half an hour, better to be too warm than shivering with pnemonia I suppose. It does annoy me though when you see someone happily wearing a t-shirt passing a dark coat clad walking ball of insulation. Aren't they uncomfortable. And they are always done up, never with the zip or duffle coat buttons undone.

Another thing that gets up my goat are cyclists doing either of two things and frequently both at the same time.

First is when their seat is too low and their knees are sticking out and they are having to put a massive amount of effort to move forward. Equally annoying is when they put the gears into such an easy stroke that they are going like the clappers with their legs while inching forward up some hill. Its an insult to Grannys to call it the Granny gear. Most grannys have more sense.

The glass of wine I am drinking I am conviced has continued to ferment in the bottle. I'm all spoken out and ready for bed.

Sadly I won't get a picture of that library around the throne in the previous post as he has sacked me. He phoned me to say how he hadn't seen me working on the job for a while and then admitted he was just taking it out on me then texted to say send the bill. This might sound a bit off the tone of what's gone before however I get this feeling occasionally lately about how a lot of men have missed out on having a good Dad. I got that feeling a lot from this guy. There aren't many cures for that one, in all honesty I can agree with U2, and say I too still haven't found what I'm looking for, well not entirely anyway, a bit but more to come I hope and really do pray.

There's even a dedicated book series

Get your wits about you and get ready for another chinwag from/with me.
I'd like to say after my last post I am writing while listening to the Pink Floyd album 'Animals' which has got the production style that I do like, much more stripped back to the songs unlike 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
I'd like to discuss the issue of reading on the loo. My inspiration comes from a customers' house I was in recently who has turned his throne into a mini-library. (I will try to get a photo to illustrate my point this week). He seemed to have quite an interest in history.
His habits are at one end of the extreme. I think my friend JW lies at the other as I clearly recall his disgust at the habit. He is quite a particlar person, for instance I wouldn't object to re-using my tea cup for a second time or thrice but this wasn't in his lexacon of good habits. Neither too was squashing the rubbish down to let some more in the top! The fact that I have noticed that probably says more about me than him I will quite happily admit.
Another friend thought it would be cool to wallpaper his loo with pages from a book, I forget which one. I think he got rid of it when doing up his bathroom but I'm not 100% certain as he had varnished over them and it was a problem wall with condensation, it might still be there.
In some ways it is like listening to music while driving. What I mean is that there are natural moments in a day where we are alone and can catch up on our thoughts and feelings on some things, like while driving alone or on the loo. So if we fill these moments with distractions perhaps we need to try to 'be still' a little more. I do think my life would be improved with a little bit more time to be quiet and listen to myself. But perhaps reading is one of those things that is good for the soul and more enjoyable done in quiet.
Having said that I also think that it can be a fantastic chance to get some relatively good reading done before ones attention span has faded (making certain assumptions here).
My own practices recently have been to have a couple of easy reading books - which I like to keep off the floor on the edge of the radiator for hygeine reasons.
This is a massive topic but isn't for polite conversation.
I wonder if we'll ever get an e-book built into a loo, that would be my kind of gadget.

Sailing again but no wind

It was a treat to be out on the water again today. I left my sheets flapping in the wind to dry on the line as I left the house but an hour or so later at Loch Lomond the wind had just died. And the rain had started. It was so calm I was able to lie out on the edge of the deck - maybe its the waterbed effect (which is maybe the calming effect of being in the womb??) but I love to do it.
Yesterday was spent tracking down a new bed. I was at one point all set to get the rolls royce equivalent but I tried one last shop and came to realise that my foam mattress needs a firm base - it had a sprung one, so one sheet of plywood later it feels much firmer and comfier.
I was watching a Making Of of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd this week. I do like most of Pink Floyds music but I've been particularly indifferent to what is one of the most significant albums of all time. Listening to the songs played on the guitar and stripped right back I realised what amazing songs they are. I think that songs come through all sorts of filters before they really reach the listener. There is something in the atmosphere of the production that I find very difficult to get past. I need to find an unplugged version of it!
A new artist that I have found is Karine Polwart. She's Scottish and of about the same age as myself - have a look at this bit from her website about her honest appraisal of her musical roots http://www.karinepolwart.com/about/verywee.php and you can have a listen at http://www.myspace.com/karinepolwart if your fancy is tickled.
Another week at the saw and nailgun beckons. Its one of those that I will be glad to have put behind me as I feel under a bit of pressure after one job has been added and added to and others are backing up.

A welcome return

Its been a few weeks since I last wrote. Work has picked up and is keeping me busy. There is a little less going around so I'm happy to be busy, I wish I could be in two places at once though, I'm sure some of my customers think I'm sitting around waiting for them to call me.

I scanned in a photograph of my first trip to the Cuillins in Skye. They comprise the longest contunous ridge of rock in Scotland and are quite a challenge to climb some of them including the famous Inaccesable Pinacle for which some rock climbing is handy and at least some absailing experience.

A bit of drama last week when the trailer for my boat started to sound a bit funny while driving it; one of the wheels had nearly fallen off. It was Bank Holiday weekend so everywhere was closed. We somehow managed to get the trailer onto the roof of my van and left the boat in a field behind a hedge. So 3 days later it was still there in one piece, and only had some cowlicks on it for its little holiday - that was licks not pats. We needed a new trailer though but the old one wasn't entirely in conformity to the toe-ball on the toe-bar. I'm quite pleased as I always felt uneasy with it especially as I'd still love to take it up to Torridon for a week of hill-walking and more restful sailing.

I'll try and be a bit more regular with my 'column' in the future.

Peace Out dudes!

Wee happy moments

At the Glasgow Film Theatre I saw Happy Go Lucky this week, about a primary school teacher in London and her bouncy personality interacting with a mixture of gernerally less flamboyant souls. I found it a very good quirky film which though nothing really happened in it, I was never sure what was going to happen next. I loved her Flamenco dance teacher who popped up in a couple of scenes who was full of sassy vigour her dance embodied. She denounced English for what they do to the spanish oranges by making them into marmalade. But I had a great moment this morning opening a new jar with the strain of the first turn and then the big popping thud. It was quite unexpected pleasure. Even better than the smell of a freshly opened bag of coffee or the sniff of the top of a Ribena bottle after its plastic has been popped.


Another special moment came cycling with my headphones on listening to the Cocteau Twins album Treasure. Music, at the end of the day, is better with something, like in the soundtrack to a film or in my case the sight of the sun setting. Every time I turned to see that lovely orange glow the music did something inside me that was as near to a perfect moment as can be found.

I haven't dreamt of it for a while but it is amazing how when I am flying I can think of it as normal. Our minds are so capable of wandering away from reallity like in a film or a book and becoming engaged in it. I do dream a lot and sometimes something random from one will come back but I know its from a dream. I worry though about whether the time will come when I'm just no longer sure whether I dreamt it or not!

I was carrying a tricky load on my roofrack today and ended up leaving a drill on the roof. Someone did beep a horn at one point but everything seemed fine. However it was still there 5 miles later, it shows you what a good driver I am, and lucky too!!

Anywho, work has been busy these last three weeks. I'm starting to feel a bit tired. I fancy buying a caravan so I have somewhere I can go and relax at weekends. Possibly a bit of bravado on my part.

Peace out dudes for now.

Lake District In the Sun!

The Lake District is so handy to get to from Glasgow - only 2 and a bit hours - and there are well equipped hostels everywhere so you can walk out the door to a choice of walks. I met up with my friend Rachel there for a weekend of walking.

The first walking day was Saturday - it started off dry. The mountains had lots of snow on them and they looked impreesive with lots of character, rising up over the valleys. We could make out a couple of famous ridges on Scarfell as we climbed a much smaller hill called Place Fell across the valley (or dale). It was a steep pull up, and it got very windy as my sitting matt took off the instant I stood up sadly not to be found (by me). Views from the top were all right, a bit overcast. Judging by the football highlights currently showing on the telly from Satuday afternoon England was entirely wet and Patterdale will rarely be the dryest there. The drying room was to be very full that evening. We had about 3 miles to walk back by the lake and they did drag by as the rain penetrated even into waterproof boots.

The rain carried on that night and even the next morning. We set off nevertheless to attempt a relatively low-level circular route not too far from Keswick. The weather was kind as it started to dry up while driving there and it generally improved throughtout the day until it was sunny! I love the way the big glacial bouler was left on its side.

On Monday we went high! Great Gable via Green Gable was our challenge. The weather was great with blue skies and only a little white clouds and we set off only wearing a base layer. The mountain height was 801 metres , not that far short of a Scottish Munro height and it was to be as easily as hard a climb as many of them. We were feeling fitter than on Saturday and though the going was a bit of a scramble it was just within our limits. A lovely hanging valley was lovely to walk by in the sun as we continued to gain height. Next a drop to windy pass and a real scramble to get back up to the height we were at and then to the summit which over a mix of wet snow and bare rock was a slippery walk and the air was a windy cold by now. At the top the views really were excellant. We were centrally placed in the Lake District and could see out to the sea on one side and most of the major mountains were visible. A was memorial set in the rock was unusual and I don't think you would find anything similar in Scotland. Wild places should be be kept that way (which is why I like to take a stone out of every cairn I pass). An old couple were impressed with the path we went down by (giving us a circular route) the last time they were there it was scree but nowadays it is a fantastic stone walkway, probably something to do with the war memorial. The weather was now a bit dull, but we were lucky as the best weather of the entire weekend we'd had was at the highest point.

As for hostel life..... great facilities. Hostels used to be a sub-culture - these days a quiet corner can be runied by the loudest Geordie family on the planet playing cards. As for the chap who had the tickly throat in the bunk above me and kept me awake all night - he inspired me to remember a word from my childhood that is a Scots word - gipe (hard g).

All in all a great weekend.

Looks like rain

One of the most completely annoying irritanting and useless developments is the scrolling text on tv. Its true. Maybe everyone involved in TV gets used to reading autocues by somehow training a part of their brain to cope with the dizzying vertigo that afflicts me whenever I try. I really am desperate to read them but they just go so slow - I try to look once, wait a couple of seconds and look again but I can't keep up with it. Maybe woman who can do it with their now famous multi-tasking superpowers. I would like to see an experiment that tested whether or not they do possess such quantum thought processes.

Talking of scientific experiments I was amazed at the way people can be manipulated as demonstrated on Horizon (science TV programme). Interviewers could be made to give a positive assessment of someone simply by casually giving them a warm glass to hold for a moment while travelling in a lift to the interview - and vice-verca with a cold receptacle (not sure if it was a tea mug or not) delivering a consistent negative impact. What are we all about?

One of my customers today was clearly very ill yet she is still going to go into work tomorrow and do her shift then a sleep-over probably followed by another shift. Something wrong is afoot with our priorities. Is it trying for one upmanship. Or are some folk frightened of being accused of not doing their bit. It is a national paranoia that is probably linkied with the sicknote culture, but they are two sides of the same coin.

Commercial interests seem to be the new god. When something happens to make the news it is filtered through a 'what will it do for the econonmy' seive to see if there is a spin that can be added to it that will make us wonder if it makes us a little comfier economically or send us rushing to our bank to withdraw our money (which was 100% guranteed by the government anyway in many cases in the recent banking 'crises' we had). I suppose economies have always to some extent been based on some sort of mutual trust and expectation but it seems to be the more we are worried about the economy then the more likely even a little jitter will do just what we were frightened of in the first place. The worries are almost self-fulfilling.

A little serious today I suppose.

I'm off to the Lake Disrict for some walking in the rain tomorrow - I wonder if I can get some wipers fitted to my glasses in time.

Peace out.....

Its the little things in a day that make it sweet

A fairly dull day can still have some interesting moments.

At the petrol station I was distracted from the actual price of the fill-up when the counter stopped dead on £50.00 at first go.

I was eating my breakfast and listening to a Fairport Convention cd - it was a bit like an aural impossiblity I was hearing. Which now that I think about it, it could be theoretically possible since just like a drawing on two-dimensional paper is a representation of a three-dimensional object (and can be an impossibility if you try to do actually make it as in picture here) so is stereo sound through two speakers a representation of a three-dimensional space with sounds coming from all sorts of directions. The music I was hearing seemed quite certainly to be coming from inside my head! Or maybe more the back of it. Yikes I'm going mad. One of the ways high-end stereos get analsyed for how good they are is the soundstage which is something to do with being able to percive the positioning of the different sources of the music like the drummer being at the rear back for example. Not sure where that puts my stereo though.

Saw the first bee of the Spring today just after the snow showers. Not sure how wierd that is but it doesn't seem right to me. He must have been hungry after his winter hibernation, or whatever bees do to see out the absence of nectar time. Or maybe he was an egg in a hive. I could google it but maybe later.....

Peace-out.

The windy hills of Glen Luss

I had a wee walk in the hills today overlooking Luss. The weather was sunny with some snow and hail showers in between. The windchill was the worst aspect though - I needed to put on a balaclava at the top facing into the wind.

One of the things I love about hillwalking is the change in conditions between the bottom and top of a hill like today. It wasn't exactly warm at the bottom mind you but at the top it was probably minus 20 with the wind blowing, my face was feeling quite uncomfortable until I put on a 'windstopper' fleece balaclava. I met a family at the top who were definitely not happy with the conditions and seemed a little out of their depth even though they had hillwalking gear on. There were a few tourists with trainers on nearer the foot of the hill. I was quite glad in a way to see them as I wonder what people are thinking when they drive out to Luss and wander about having a look in a tat shop or two, then head home again. It just doesn't sound very fulfilling to me.

There was a little wildlife, the meadow pippits were singing away halfway up the hill in the snow showers. The two mile walk back passed several houses and I think that most of them feed the local birds and there were a lot of them around those houses. I'd like to learn how to recognise their calls, they are so small and flighty they are hard to see, though I did spot a Great Tit. There was lots of frogspawn too, its a shame to see so much of their efforts drying up in bad spots but their strategy must work! Didn't see any primroses in the woods, too early yet.

The picture at the top shows the famous Cobbler mountain (you can just about make out the big overhang) on the left and the Arrochar Alps behind it. I've never climbed to the top of the Cobbler, waiting for a very untouristy day but its on the to do list. The pic below is the big whaleback ridge of the hill I climbed looking back towards Glasgow.

Tea-pot Temptations

I have to say that it was great to be at Celtic Park to see Aberdeen finally...... finally..... fiiiiiiinnnnnalllllly, get a winning result. I've been to so many ritual thrashings, or games where we played pretty good but still got beaten by 5 or 7 goal margins (not sure which is worst). But the hangover of trepadation from those times gently diminished throughtout the match as our opponents cutting edge was dulled by a combination of our efforts and lack of Celtic's usual gallusness. Great game to be at and I really felt a proud Aberdonian 'standing free' with 1800 others.



My latest and greatest tea drinking vessel. The top half is a teapot with a cup in the bottom. Great for an earl grey that you can keep hot with a regular top up. A great tea drinking experience. Not bad for £4 from my usual shop. Still more to show!


On a more serious note I saw this blurb about a book by R T Kendall on forgiveness this week:


The act of Total Forgiveness may be the hardest thing we are ever called to do...'Total forgiveness is as spectacular as any miracle. We are talking about a feat greater than climbing Mount Everest. It means the highest watermark in anyone's spiritual pilgrimage. And yet it is within reach of any of us.' This book, possibly R T Kendall's most important work to date, explains what God calls for as 'total forgiveness'. No sin or action is unforgivable, says R T, and we are called to keep no record of wrongs, to refuse to punish those who have hurt us, to show mercy and to avoid any form of bitterness. A radical message for a divided world.


I was blown away reading that for the first time, still am.



I was in Waterstones yesterday. I have been buying my books online for so long now it was actually a novelty to be in a bookshop. I was browsing the art section but so many of them had cellophane on them which took a little of the hands-on feel of things. Its still a great way to look and see what interests among the books you while having a coffee.

I was captivated a little by the programme Lost before getting fed up of it. I was reading a book about interpreting it. I'm not so sure about my negative judgement of it. Maybe it is a very serious bit of tv worthy of a little more attention than say Desparate Housewives! I also picked up on the Led Zeppelin unauthorised biography Hammer of the Gods, interesting to see how they recorded their first album live in the studio and how delighted they were at the time about how good it sounded. I often prefer the sound of first albums from bands probably none more than Led Zep though I think they did a pretty decent job of never getting too studioy in their efforts. I played it again this morning and it sounds as good as ever though it doesn't seem to be much of a seller on amazon which is a pity.

While working for a friend who used to be a chef I was looking at his college cook book called Practical Cookery. It gives the basic recipe for just about everything but not dumbed down. The latest version is probably a lesson in iteslf in how to improve a textbook without losing the essence. I hardly ever find anything new to make despite having the Jamie Oliver books and the big Delia Smith one too - they just seem to lose me somewhere. I think I need a book that gives more of an overview - for example it explains a little about tofu and how it can take on flavours quite easily. But it covers the whole spectrum of food and every recipe has a nutrient content analysis.

Back in the something

I'm so easily open to 'suggestion' - in Scrubs when Molly/Heather Graham was talking to her food, crazy as that was she was talking to it as FOOD - then tonight eating my yummy Hagan Danz Belguim Chocolate flavour ice-cream, I think it was something to do with how blown away by the taste, I drifted off as I was looking at all the tiny little chocolate bits floating in the liquid bit at the end - thinking how lovely they were and just how many there were - then I came to and realised 'oh how sad I'm going to have to eat you' - and then I did.

This is my newest mug - I think its my biggest and cheeriest ever - and its black and white stripey keeping up that theme too - see earlier posts - check out tk-max for their mugs - talking of tips I want to air a couple. Lately I seem to be dropping stuff or things are getting snagged in other things and one of the worst was pees falling out of the bag taking them out of the freezer, however thanks to J I have solved this issue by using clothes pegs to keep them shut and my life is all the better for it! The other tip is if you need to soak your dishes in the sink, put a tray over the top to keep the heat in and you are less likely to need to run more hot water when you get round to washing them!

Funny how small random things can lead to bigger things. I took a slight wrong turn today, then trying to take the next road through it looked quite narrow so I took the next one. An old chap had fallen in the grass - the upshot of it all being an ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital to be checked out. He was conscious but not really with it, maybe I imagined it but you could sense his shock and lostness. It was kind of nice to be taking care of someone, albeit for only a few moments. It was also one of those classic bloke moments, me and the other tradesman were both thinking 'is this what I've got to look forward to in old age' in a Still Game vein - he said it first though. I hope the old guy is fine. It didn't look like he would be living independently for much longer though.

Finally got over chest infection - almost seven weeks that took. So I'm ready to resume my blog as well as life - as I know it anyway. I've started tutoring again, an hour or two a week anyway.

I watched a crakin film Monday night - Venus - Peter O Tool having an extended flirtation with his friends niece 50 years his junior - full of quirkiness and good humour but with plenty of sadness thrown in - and differing sorts of redemption in the end. A very British film. It could have been the red wine too that made it so good. I could have watched it again straight afterwards.

Better go and do an hour of maths.

Interesting Pic

I came across this picture after previously dismissing it. On a second look though I liked the colours and it has an intensity from somewhere. To break the mystery of it (?!), it's a shot I took at sunrise at the start of February from my bedroom window. My flash went off unintentionally which explains the glare at top right (and probably means it won't win too many competitions).
It is the new harbour development, as shown from further away in the shots from previous post just above the helicopter.
On a totally different note, it was good to see the new Australian Prime Minister apologising to the 'lost generation' where aboriginal children (but of mixed race) were forcibly separated from their families and comunities since the very first days of the European occupation. Something similar happened in Canada too. It annoys me how self-righteous we are in the west when it comes to human rights, especially when it comes to countries that have oil wells in them. We should campaign vigourously for countries from China to Afghanastan and elsewhere to improve the rights of the indivudual but we need to have a more humble attitude too, and consider the gross abuses that continued to take place in our own countries. Its interesting that US has about 2000 people that will never be released from prison for crimes committed when they were under 18. Briatin has in total about 35 people in total who are in for their entire lives. Its only in the last decade that people with learning difficulties have been allowed to live in normal society in Scotland rather than being locked away out of sight.

Glasgow Waterfront

I had a leisurely bike ride home by the Clyde on Saturday. Warm and sunny for a mid-February day.

A barge crane was beside the new but broken 'squinty' bridge. There was a high proportion of foreign languages being spoken by tourists out for a stroll from the hotel and SECC.

Here are two shots looking west down the Clyde taken 6 years apart. I had hoped that the loss of the old Granary building and the new development in its place would be more obvious - if you look at the cranes in the distance and what is opposite you can get a little of the effect - my bedroom window view is taken up entirely by that space.

Botanic Gardens

No new posts for a while as I've been a bit under the weather, which as it happens isn't too far from being appropriate with the wind and rain and snow that's been the story of most of January.

I had a job last week in a great flat but looking out the window was this view.

I thought I would put up a picture of some of my work from the same house.

I started with a small recess and a door. Now there is space to store ladders, a vacum cleaner and a bit of shelving. I expect that it will be there for many years to come. It would be interesting to come back in 50 years time and see!

Quite a satisfying job.

India in Contrast

I saw bits of two programmes on telly tonight both filmed in India.

They were both beautiful but in very different ways.

The first one was Unreported World about the gruesome murder of members of the lower caste system by those in 'higher' castes like the warriors as they rebel against the caste system that regards them as untouchables. OK depressing? No. It wasn't done that way, the child of the lower caste being interviewed about being shut in a dark toilet cubicle for daring to ask to go to the toilet, wasn't depressing. And when they were accused of being rat-eaters as a put down by teachers in class it was followed by a rat-hunter digging out rats and his children cooking and eating them on a makeshift fire, horrible as that was to see it also wasn't put forth in that way. They came across in a very dignified, peaceful and determined manner which was amazing to see.

The other was in Natural World showing tigers in the most splendid surroundings. I'd heard the story about why animals are striped because it breaks up their outline - which it probably does - but as the tigers were moving through the grasses it was like a strobe effect which just looked like the grasses moving in the wind - becoming harder to see. Anyway there has only ever been one filmed tiger kill, and they finally managed to get a second on film in the programme. They are incredibly rare for all the usual reasons like loss of habitat, poachers etc. The environment seems different to Africa, less harsh and more sensual.

So in hugely different ways they were both about living life in a beautiful way in India

Tats

This may come as a wee bit of a shock to those of you who know me a wee bit. I am really drawn to tatoos. I don't have any, and to be honest the idea of getting something that you are stuck with for life is a bit of a stupid thing to do. I had a friend who got a big massive one that as far as I can recall was a copy of an obscure 80's metal band Tigertailz album artwork. One part of me thinks what a really dumb thing to do, when he is 60 what will he say to his grandkids. There is another part of me that isn't so full of condemnation.
I saw a girl totally covered in tats at QM Union in Glasgow, and thought, I like that!
Apparantly the name comes from the old way of applying them with an ivory thing - it made a 'tatoo' sound when you hit it, the first hit was tat, the oo was it hitting skin.
There is a bit of a spiritual element to them I think. Possibly less so when it is Tigertailz or the grim reaper. I do like the Maori ones, the part of me that is really drawn to indigenous peoples likes it. I think tats are an extension of drawing as a child.
So that's me got that off my chest!! (which if it was a tatoo wouldn't have been so easy). I've no intention of getting one.

Assortment of entombments

My favourite walk from Glasgow is in the Kilpartick hills to the north of Glasgow. After a few fields in the Cochno Estate owned by Glasgow University (where if you are in luck you can see the cows with plugs in their sides the vets use to sample their stomach contents) some steep open moorland takes you up to the wilds of Jaw Reservoir. It used to be stocked with trout but that no longer seems to be the case with no fishermen ever there these days.

I've started to begin my walk in a narrow strip of woodland and have in the past followed its crooked shape for quite a long way round the fields, which though the ground is relatively clear the best path isn't always obvious. I could hardly believe my eyes today when I came across a small graveyard. with only 3 burials in it in the woods on a slightly elevated point. It must have been built in the time when Glasgow was no more than a village and other places long since swallowed up by the urban expansion like Rutherglen were distinct burghs. I took some pictures and gleaned this information (but I missed photographing the first wife's details, oops).

Anne Henrietta Bruce (infant daughter of Anne) died 22/10/1876

Claud Hamilton Hamilton (St Barns, Cochna and Dunmore) 10/04/1823 - 20/08/1900

Henrieta Anne Bruce 28/06/1850 - 27/01/1911 (married to Claud)

Interesting that Claud married Anne, 27 years his younger, though she was only a widow for about ten years. I wonder if he anticipated a large family?

I think it is quite unusual to find a private graveyard. I'd be interested to know what the law has been on it. The only other remotely located grave I've seen is a mausoleum on the uninhabited, wild and isolated western side of the island of Rum.

There were a few trees down from the recent storms. The Rhododendrons had suffered too. One pine tree near the graves had seeded over bedrock so its roots were just below the surface. Its amazing that it had grown to a really mature size without previously succumbing to a gale.

A pair of buzzards are always up in the air calling out over the fields when I am there - one of them flew low down and perched on a distant branch - I could see it through my binoculars on a bough, making its large size obvious and impressive. I tried to get a bit nearer but it was off before I could get near.

I make an effort (small one usually!) when out walking to take any litter away. One time someone left a big white Marks and Spencer's towel lying on the ground. Its a bit beyond me how anyone out appreciating the hills can leave litter and consider themselves sane. One time on TV the danger to wildlife of leaving bottles was explained; that small things crawl in and can't get back out the slippery sides, then predators try to get in to scavenge and get trapped themselves. I've never actually seen this but in one of the cans I picked up there was a small shrew, dead of course. An added danger with the ring pulls is the bit left in the can, can let an animal squeeze past on the way in but not on the way out. I was glad to have liberated the shrew from its metal entombment, glad too at it being extra worthwhile taking away bottles/cans. Angry at whoever had left the can there. They are tiny creatures shrews, to fit through a ring-pull.

I was only out for a stroll since I had to drive nearby for an estimate. Plus it being my first day of feeling better after being fluey. I passed three ladies aged about 50-ish dressed up to the 9's for a hill walk. Gore-tex 9's that is. They could have coped with a minus 30 windchill!

Once up at Jaw Reservoir it felt literally like I was recharging my batteries. As if energy was flowing into me. Feeling like that will always make me wonder about why I don't live nearer the country. One day soon I might just have to buy a house in Aviemore to get away to. But this walk for example is only 7 miles drive from Partick.

The car park I use is not the best place to leave my van. I saw the police last time I was there. Today at the start a lone car with a lady in it was sitting talking on her phone, leaving soon after I got there. On my return a similar thing happened with a young guy in a BMW, left as soon as I got there.

I'm writing this now a few days later - I googled Claud Hamilton Hamilton and got a website called thePeerage.com it says of him:

Claud Hamilton Hamilton, 12th of Barns1
M, #23028, d. 30 August 1900Last Edited=24 May 2007
Claud Hamilton Hamilton, 12th of Barns married, secondly, Hon. Henrietta Anne Bruce, daughter of Robert Bruce and Jane Dalrymple Hamilton Fergusson, on 26 November 1874.1 He died on 30 August 1900.1 Claud Hamilton Hamilton, 12th of Barns lived at Dunmore Park, Stirling, Stirlingshire, Scotland.1 He lived at Cochno, Dunbartonshire, Scotland.1 He was also known as 12th of Barns. He lived at Barns, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. He held the office of Justice of the Peace (J.P.).1 He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.).1

Which confirms the loss of his first wife (and child). There is a slight discrepancy in the exact day of his death but it could just be a typing error with 20 becoming 30.

Down In The Valley DVD

Edward Norton plays Harlan, a would-be cowboy in this art-house film from 2004 where he has a passionate encounter with the underage girl Tobe (short for October!). There are a lot of different strands woven together through what is a relatively simple story. I glimpsed a few reviews suggesting it is about the passing of the wild west or the western film genre and particularly the heroes of those times. Sure enough when Harlan is on the run, he stumbles across filming of a wild west town scene with the cameras out of view - he can't believe his luck at finding a place where he instantly feels welcome and at home in.

Set in concrete urban Los Angeles, repeatedly the commercial jungle sprawl is given the full cinematography treatment which is painful to watch. It reminds me of Bono in live concert footage from the album Rattle and Hum campaigning against apartheid in South Africa when he drives home his point in an all too direct and uncomfortable way to a gloating and captive audience 'I'm not bugging you am I? I don't mean to bug ya'. Freeways that lace the landscape, lane after lane constantly moving like blood in some mechanical artery are given the full panoramic treatment past the point of being a necessary evil to set the scene. Perhaps the director wants us to feel the way that Harlan is feeling.

If it is a lament to the golden age of the wild west it is also an even greater lament to the legacy of that age still present in modern day America, the gun and its proliferation. And it is a lament as minor innocuous conflicts are intermingled with various armaments and even the purest relationship is insanely destroyed by a bullet.

It's also a film about alienation, principally Harlans. Despite having been given a good foster family when in his early teens (?) he seems somehow stuck in his past or previous life, probably in a more rural setting. We are sure he has a good heart but like every good cowboy he is obstinate in following it. In his wild west romanticism it was normal for girls to marry older men but sparks inevitably fly as he is blind to the modern day boundaries - he becomes completely possessive of his new love and her younger brother as things turn sour.

Harlan dislikes cars and loves horses. Contrasts between the two are liberally highlighted. My favourite being a beautiful horse trapped in a garage kicking with its rear legs in a sound remeniscient of gunshots.

Its a well thought out film and watchable a second time. Recommended!

White Bliss

An irresistibly optimistic forecast overcame my sleep urges since combined with recent snow falls meant particulary good prospects. So barely into my REM's I had to get up but it meant that I got to the mountain pass road over Ben Lawyers nice and early at about 8am just as the sun rays were having a bit of an effect.

Road conditions were a bit icy but as I got higher so did the snow, but there wasn't anywhere to turn into and besides my eyes and concentration were glued to just keep going up the way, and in theory down the other side of the pass. That is until I had to halt when I came to a stuck car near to the car park for the mountain centre. Not the worst place to be held up mind you - the views were made up of the January sun coming up, mist in the valley of Loch Tay, mountain scenery a startling brilliant white and a richly golden-coloured dawn. Although the snow was 'only' a foot deep it had thawed and frozen leaving tracks the tyres couldn't get out of.

I helped the two guys get their car into the car park, and they returned the favour - unfortunately my van weighs a lot more than the average family car - when another car appeared, the driver gave us the extra push force we needed to finally got me going and keep me going in the tracks that were carved round the car park - I was now facing down-hill again - but by then more cars came up so we were facing each other on a single track road. We got that sorted with the increasing amount of manpower (moving vehicles like chess pieces) and finally I got away - my day was in serious danger of being a wasted trip - back in the valley the memory of the scenic splendour was being squelched by the dreich gloomy mist and my spirits were a little low, worried now that my intended route was out of my reach due to the road conditions. I decided to try for it anyway by a longer way; there was lots of ice and slushy patches but I did get to the car park, two hours later than planned.

There was a good path in dryer times but walking conditions were very icy , and snow at the sides was giving way underfoot. Then out of the woods it got even harder as in parts feet were sinking in to my thighs in the white stuff. Walking in footprints was the best way to get any sort of rhythm, but it was heads-down stuff, and very tiring. I had a long rest taking pictures, and basking in the sun that wasn't unlike a sunny day at the beach.

I chatted to a teli-mark skier as he waited for his friend. The huge dump of snow of the previous week, the sun and superb visibility (plus it being a Saturday) had made it THE day of the decade to be out on the mountains. Unfortunately his usual skier friend had his parents Golden Wedding Anniversary to attend! A three-line whip I was informed.

I finally reached the top, all the better as it had been like walking in treacle. The views were exceptional, from Glen Coe to Ben Nevis to Cairngorms - Scotland was quite small really, certainly the central mountain area. The tele-mark skiers showed me the skins they use that stick to the underside of the ski and allow them to slide forward but get grip in the opposite direction to stop them sliding backwards - artifitial ones but seal skin was once used. Going organic isn't an opotion these days. Once I got to the top though, I had this desire to get an even better view by taking a hot-air baloon out of my pocket and going wherever the slight wind drifted me.

I had hoped to do a further three Munros, I started off for the second one but my legs were telling me it was really time to go. The skiers were off across more rocky terrain. If they had headed down the gully I was in they would have had amazing skiing, I had to content myself with a nice bum sledge. The depth of the snow made it really easy to descend quickly but in the shadow of the mountain the air was now very cold, as the ground levelled off it became harder again. The snow took my weight for the next part, just as well as it would have been the hardest part of the day.

The climb had taken 5 hours. I made a small detour and went in by Crieff to see Granny for an hour before her tea. There are a lot of Polish people in her home. Her husband had spent several years as a POW in Poland, though with help from local people he eventually managed to escape. Perhaps during those long years the Polish people he'd encountered hadn't been as good as the ones who risked their lives helping him escape, as she called them in the nicest possible tones of course 'buggers'. In those sorts of times maybe wasn't too bad.

That's the weekend almost over. Calves are a bit soar. I'll be keeping a close eye on the forecast waiting for the stormy skies to pass.

Chumscrubber

I watched a great film last night entitled 'The Chumscrubber' - it is a comedy but only as the story unfolds and it starts to become almost farcical does the humour start to become apparent - set in rich suburbia a tragedy at the start allows us to see the responses of a fairly large group of people that we keep an eye on in the run up to the climactic events in a cul-de-sac reminiscent of the Neighbours street. But this soap opera is far more determined to get under the surface of what's happening, or not, in it's inhabitants lives. Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) did a fantastic job in lead role in Hallam Foe (worth a watch not just for the fact it is set in Scotland) and he does the same here too (though this film has taken 2 years to surface in UK). He takes up his character superbly well again, all the harder as he plays a troubled, loner teenager. As each character pursues their own agenda in their own isolated worlds we find some characters finding their redemption and others their comeuppance. The dark humour is what makes it so much fun to watch, satire served in a delicious serving with a great economy of effort.

What weather we had this week - I loved the stormy weather yesterday, I could smell the wild Atlantic sea , just by opening my window - in fact just sniffing where it was getting squuzed in over the seals. In the city the elements are tamed and nature is hard to sense - especially suspended 40 feet above the ground - but even when out and about it probably takes some kind of a refined sense to appreciate the moods and intricacies of a wild place - everywhere I go I think I take in a bit more of 'nature' and add it to what I know, as if I am getting to know someone better and better. Its the wild, almost naked landscapes that often mean the most to me though. The near desolate red landscapes of Australia have stayed with me more than the Blue Mountains have. The wild windswept emptiness of Assynt in the north west of Scotland pulls me back time after time, but somehow there seems nothing left to find in Glen Coe. Having said all that I do love to live and work in the west end of Glasgow. I doubt very much whether I will be here the rest of my life but it is a good way to get my cocktail of urban living and wild getaways.