I had a brilliant trip to Malham Cove last weekend. It was hot and sunny, there was ice cream and walking, and a picnic, and more walking, and a gorge to climb and explore, and more walking, and a pub dinner (with chocolate mousse) and then even more walking. We went back to the Cove to experience it at dusk without all the tourists. Just us and the rabbits and a massive spooky cliff face.
I was up north at the weekend, with a sledge, a small dog, some friends and a pile logs to burn.
I drove back to Leeds from Edinburgh today. The hills were so beautiful in the evening light.
Earlier in the week I stopped off at Moffat and tried to use the loo. The public toilets had a sign on them that said "Mon to Fri, opening times 9:00am to 3:57pm"
For fans of my Edinburgh flat, there was a big nibbly machine nibbling away at the brewery. That's a good job. Right up there alongside snowplow driver.
There was also a building taking shape by the canal. It looks remarkably like a big canal boat, on dry land.
I have only just got round to looking at my photos from Glencoe, and even though it was weeks ago and I know that we have all moved on, you haven't been asking anyway, I thought they were worth sharing because, in the right weather, Scotland is just stunning.
Two weeks ago I was holed up in a cosy house in the Scottish mountains with a bunch of artists, one film producer, a youth worker (although her heart isn't really in it), and a funny baby. It was a wonderful weekend of log fires, scrabble, chat, short walks with lots of stops, whisky and cake. So much cake. We ran out of logs at one point and seriously thought of burning lumps of cake in the grate.
It takes a long time to walk anywhere if you hang out with artists. They keep pausing, either to sketch, or to 'inhabit' the landscape. We stumbled across a collection of ruined dwellings during one walk; you couldn't tear them away from moping around in the rubble. The other interesting thing about artists is that they all drive Peugeot 206s. The compulsory small dents on the front-left wing must be either a design feature, or a blind spot!
... are not actually blue. Well, the sky is, but by that criteria pretty much everything in Australia could be called blue, during the daytime at least. Then you'd end up with 'The Blue Beach', 'The Blue Park' and 'The Blue Outdoor Fruit Market'. Maybe the mountains are sad? Even then 'The Miserable Mountains' would sound better. So the naming of the Blue Mountains shall remain a mystery. What was amazing about them, ironically, was how green they were. Scottish mountains are grey and lumpy, when they are not covered in snow. These mountains were covered in trees as far as the eye could see, and presumably further since they cover an area the size of Wales.* (Whenever I'm surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see I think, for some reason, of the cartoon book 'Asterix in Corsica'.)
The clever thing (which never happens in Scotland) is that you start off at the top and get all the distracting views out of the way at the start of the walk, then stomp down into the gloomy forest for the day before an exhilaratingly climb out of the valley to finish off with amazing views again. It's like a negative image of British hill walking; instead of collecting Munro summits there's probably a keen Aussie climbing culture which ticks off valleys and canyons.
* I couldn't tell you for sure if the forest was the size of Wales**, but it seems about right in my imagination, and that's the standard unit of area comparison used by British people. I imagine Australians measure area in 'Tasmanias' but I haven't got a handle on how big Tasmania is yet, so we'll stick with Wales for now.
** Wales is just over 50 times the size of the Isle of Wright. I don't know what that is terms of Olympic-sized swimming pools.
I found a snow monster on Cruach Ardrain today. Grrrrr.
Back in January I spent a few days in the Lake District with my friends Penny and Andy, who run an outdoor center there. Penny and I tried to see how far we could get up Skidaw with a buggy containing her son.
Not very far actually. We abandoned the buggy and carried him for a bit, but went back after worrying what people would think if they found his empty pushchair on the mountainside.
The poor kid is the proud owner of the world's worst baby-grow outfit. A clash of Hippy and Inca civilistations, its basically a big square with a hole at the top and another at each corner. You could fit four babies in it. And loads of other stuff, like nappies and cots and pets.
It also turns out that Penny is the owner of the world's most boring book: "Bicarbonate of Soda, a very versatile natural substance." In hardback. Available from Amazon.
Well, you've seen the cow photo. It's probably time to tell you more about my weekend in Skye. Three days in a remote cottage with six friends, loads of cake, whisky, scrabble and a Wii. I don't consider myself a great word-game player, but I got a career-first 50 point bonus for getting all my scrabble letters out; 'tenants' on a triple word score tagged onto 'taxis'. (Can anyone tell me if I should have added the 50 points before or after I calculated the triple?) We had some rare sun on Sunday, and the usual horizontal rain on Monday, but the low winter light gave every view a saturated calendar look that turned everyone into a professional photographer. The photo below is of Eigg, an island I'd very much like to visit (just imagine walking up that sweeping ridge!).
The cottage was remote enough for Anna to wonder aloud at breakfast if we were near a lighthouse. It turned out to be the blinking text-message light of a mobile phone left on in her bedroom.
My gentle Sunday walk turned into farce as I got lost and led everyone through a bog. Not everyone's footwear was entirely adequate for the terrain, and I was lucky not to be lynched. We were meant to be by the sea; we ended up on top of a hill. I ran up the next peak to get my bearings. Looking back, I took a photo. If you zoom in you can see that everyone is giving me the finger.
Despite this mutiny I had a good time. More photos here.
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