There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
Emily Dickinson
Hiya, remember me? My name is Bruce and I am 18 months old. Today I am telling you about what I think may be the best place in the world. The place called Yellowcraigs.
This weekend the Tom-human is away visiting the other human that they call The Mule, although he does not walk on four legs. After Tom-human and Kate-human, my next favourite humans are called Mel and Gordon. It is they that know of this place Yellowcraigs.
It is curious what humans find interesting about a place. Kate, for example, just kept staring at these twisty sticks.
But these sticks are of the growing kind, and hence no fun at all.
Gordon knows many things. He knows about how Yellowcraigs was once a rainforest, covered in lava-spewing volcanos! He knows about this island, whose name is Fidra.
He also knows much about the growing things.
This spiky thing is “Sea Buckthorn”
And this blue-ish purple-ish thing is “Viper’s Bugloss”
But the best thing about Gordon is that he likes BALL.
Gordon, please throw BALL.
While we were engaged in the pressing business of BALL, Mel and Kate marvelled at this swimming human.
There was much talk of “brr” and “chilly” and “a stronger woman than I” but I did not see what was so remarkable about it. For I will swim in the water whatever the weather! Who braved that frozen bog-pool at Eshaness last January? Bruce, that’s who. And can that swimming human find an important pebble in a pile of seaweed?
Or leap and seek out elusive BALL through the long grass?
I think not.
I am increasingly enjoying photographing wild plants and flowers – and spent quite a bit of time doing this while on holiday in Ireland. I particularly like the matt grey-green tones of coastal plants like sea holly (above) or frosted orache (below)
I also love the humble sheeps-bit, whose purplish-blues and pinks are really quite spectacular.
Perhaps the colours of Ireland’s flora will translate themselves into knitting at some point. . . .
sea bindweed
northern marsh orchid
biting stonecrop
Am I a sea carrot? Suggestions gratefully received.
Errigal dominates the landscape of North-West Donegal. Everywhere you look, it is there. In the photo above, it is the fuzzy triangle at centre right, while, in the one below (taken from Horn Head), you can see its distinctive scree slopes catching the evening sun.
I was reminded of the Hebrides in many parts of Donegal, and Errigal is a mountain very similar to the Paps of Jura — a shapely quartzite cone rising dramatically out of the surrounding bog. It is a fabulous looking mountain, appearing around every vista as if to say “climb me,” and so this is what we did.
I should mention that I had managed to forget the battery of the camera I like to use, and that this walk is not-altogether-successfully documented with a wee camcorder. These three seconds of shaky footage taken from a moving van give you a reasonable sense of Errigal’s dramatic appearance as we approached it from the West.
There are a number of different ways up the mountain from the R251, all of which involve a good half hour of picking one’s way over squidgy bog before beginning the ascent proper. Here, at this point, are Tom, Bruce and a whole lot of scree.
At 2464 feet, Errigal is not a tall mountain, but it posed serious difficulties for me. The ascent involves scrambling up a scar in the scree, and herein lay the problem. Quartzite is sheer and slippery, and quite apart from the physical effort of climbing up it, I had to think about the placement of my weak leg and foot with every step – this was completely exhausting.
The other two mountains I have climbed since my stroke have been ‘easy’ in that they didn’t involve a lead-in walk, and their ascents were steady, on clearly marked paths. On Errigal, after some tiring and tricky bog-stomping, I faced ground that was steep and uneven and slippery. I was becoming very weary by the time I approached the upper slopes.
The summit of Errigal is really rather fun – there are two points separated by a wide ‘ridge’ that is simple to cross – and the views really are fantastic. But I think you can see in this next clip that I am totally bloody knackered.
If you have no experience of neurological disability, the motor deficits caused by stroke can be quite difficult to explain. It is really, really tricky for me to walk on uneven ground – not because my leg is physically damaged in any way but because it does not know what to do. The foot has no stability, and, when I get tired, my brain simply stops sending the right messages – I become unable to point or lift my toes – essential actions for walking. This is the stage I was at by the time I reached the top of Errigal, and I was not looking forward to getting back down again. There is no footage of the descent because it was horrible. There was falling over and arse-sliding. There was getting to my feet, and falling over, and sliding on my arse again. I cursed my leg and brain and my stupid body for having had a stroke. I cursed the mountain. I threw my sticks at the scree and shouted at it. Getting back to the van was a drawn-out and deeply unpleasant affair, and, if I am honest, my attitude did not help matters.
The problem is that I often still think like someone who has not has a stroke: someone who would skip up and down a mountain like Errigal in a goat-like fashion and – here is the rub – take pride in that skipping. I used to be a physically capable person, and, though I didn’t ever consciously think about it, I really enjoyed that capability. I loved being quick and nimble in the hills; I loved exhausting myself. Now I am all too easily exhausted, and am frequently appalled and even embarrassed by my body’s refusal to do what I want it to. I hate being slow and ungainly, and I also hate being seen to be slow and ungainly. It is at moments like this that I really wish I had the HELLO, I’VE HAD A STROKE T-shirt. I think to myself: if they knew what had happened, they wouldn’t look at me as if I was a slow, silly girly, the unwilling partner that a clearly-fitter bloke was dragging up a mountain. They wouldn’t, as they saw me struggle, sympathetically turn to Tom and mutter “you might want to watch out at the top, the ridge can be a bit tricky.” At such moments I want to tell these numpties to FOOK RIGHT OFF and that I’VE HAD A STROKE BUT I CAN STILL HANDLE A BLOODY RIDGE WALK!!
I, of course, used to be one of those numpties. Without thinking about it, the physically fit often sneer at those who are less capable, and I will be honest and say that there was certainly a significant element of this in my pre-stroke character. In the context of being out in the mountains, my particular sneering was composed of two-thirds hideous prejudice, and one-third (misplaced) feminism: if you are a serious hill walker, you often encounter women who are clearly being dragged around the landscape by their men, and one thing I knew was that I was not one of those women. Why was I so bloody judgmental? And in my present circumstances, does it really matter what people think at all?
Of course it doesn’t matter – I absolutely know it doesn’t matter – I know that I am tackling mountains in my own time and at my own pace; that it is amazing that I can do so at all; and that folk can think what they like or go hang . . . and yet it is true that the point at which I became most angry and frustrated on Errigal was when we were passed by an elderly couple who were finding the descent a total breeze. Clearly, I still want to be the scree-dashing, nimble person – and in some ways that is very important since it is precisely this desire that makes me work hard at recovery and attempt to get up mountains in the first place. But things get tricky when the impulse to succeed comes up against not just an uncooperative body, but the most stupid and unpleasant aspects of one’s own psyche. I will be honest and say that, though I got up and down it in the end, Errigal very nearly did for me. As well as encountering my physical limitations, I think I met the limits of my own hubris in Donegal.
Hiya. I am Bruce. When the humans go away, I get to live in this box with them.
Living in the box means that I can go exploring. This is good.
But they still don’t let me at the delicious smoky things. This is bad.
I eat meats, so why can I not eat these meats?
And why may I not sniff at the behinds of my three new friends?
Humans are unaccountable and strange. Here, for example, they told me proudly that I was “Ireland’s most northerly dog.”
. . .and here that I had to sit very still because I was on “giantscauseway”
Humans, you are stupid. Who cares what a place is called? What matters is how it smells and whether or not there are dead crabs to be found there.
When a place is lacking in dead crabs, it usually has a stick.
Watersticks are particularly good.
I’ve recently discovered a fun new game . . .
. . . DUNE JUMPING!
I’m not sure why they find me so amusing . . .
. . . but I think that the beach might be my favourite place of all.
Outside the lighthouse, the ground rises steadily and steeply. Bressay Sound reveals its spectacular arch.
We are climbing up toward the cliffs. Every ledge has its own maalie (fulmar). We are prepared for spitting, but they don’t seem to mind us. Sitting there at the edge, everything is quiet except for the soft whoooosh of their wings as they ride the thermals.
If you think of the landscape of Shetland as bare, then you just haven’t looked properly. The heathland around the cliffside is a glorious haze of colour.
Poking out among the grasses are exquisite, tiny jewels.
Spring Squill
Tormentil
Butterwort
Lousewort
Bird’s-foot Trefoil
Bog Cotton
Heath Milkwort
Heath Spotted Orchid
Turning inland, the land becomes more peaty. Marauding bonxies (great skuas) patrol the moor.
We keep well away from the lochan which, from the numbers circling above, we assume to be their nest site. But these birds aren’t keen on two-legged intruders, even at a distance.
. . . this is their landscape . . .
. . .and they aren’t afraid to remind you . .
. . . time to duck again!
Rounding back toward the headland, Lerwick looks like a toytown in the distance.
The road verges are pink with campion. . .
. . . and the gates of the lighthouse reflect the hazy evening sun.
We make pizza for supper.
We have been out and about in Border country. This part of the world is rolling and green and utterly lovely at this time of year. The fields are full of lambs and calves; the hard edges of the roadside are softened with the haze of new growth; the hedgerows are white with hawthorn and cow parsley. “It really looks like England,” said Tom, as we drove South. “Probably the hedgerows,” I replied. However much Wordsworth tried to gloss them as natural – “little lines / Of sportive wood run wild” – hedgerows are, of course, one of the obvious signs of private property and enclosure. This landscape is completely parcelled up inside their pretty green walls. Pretty stone walls abound down here, too.
We had crossed the border to have a walk around the Borders’ definitive wall – the one belonging to the Emperor Hadrian.
It has been quite a while since I’ve done any low-level walking in England, and I found it interesting. The land is fertile and well-drained; the paths are clear and well-defined. There are stiles and gates enabling you to pass through the criss-crossing walls and hedges. There are wooden waymarkers everywhere — one rarely has to consult the map. There are wary sheep and dubious cows. One’s dog must walk to heel at all times. I am not saying that the Highlands are in any sense any more wild or natural or anything – Scottish landscapes are, of course, equally carefully managed and controlled. It is just different, and those differences feel quite striking.
The most interesting walls we saw yesterday were those at the Roman fort of Vindolanda. When researching a feature a while ago, I had read about a child’s sock that had turned up at the Vindolanda excavations – an ancient, envelope-shaped bootee of woven wool. It had been pulled from the ground intact, and is probably the oldest complete woolly sock in existence in Britain. I really wanted to see it.
If you haven’t been to Vindolanda, I would definitely recommend it. The site’s finds are marvelous, and are presented extremely well in the recently-refurbished museum. Being a snotty historical type, I was less sure about the 1970s reconstructions of a wooden gatehouse and section of wall, but the museum collections really blew me away. No photography allowed, so I can’t show you any of these wonderful objects, which I found moving in their ordinariness and what they suggested about daily life in a garrison town on the edge of Empire. The textiles were the highlight for me: the sock was incredible, and certainly well-worth the wait, and there was also an intriguing insect-proof wig, and an amazing and very beautiful collection of shoes (Vindolanda probably has the best-preserved collection of Roman leather in the world). References to textiles abound, too, in Vindolanda’s famous writing tablets, with one correspondent sending the no-doubt grateful recipient “socks from Sattua, two pairs of sandals and two pairs of underpants.”
After all those walls, we crossed back over the border to take advantage of Scotland’s more liberal ideas of public access with a spot of wild camping.
There is nothing quite like a copper beech on a soft Summer evening
even the bracken looked nice
and you can’t argue when your chosen spot comes complete with its own swimming pool.
After our Schiehallion walk, we travelled on to Inveraray yesterday, so that Tom could take part in the Jail Break (which is a hill race, in case you were concerned). Have you ever been to Inveraray? It is a sort of eighteenth-century equivalent of Milton Keynes or Livingston – a Georgian new town whose “improvements” include a carefully laid out main street and waterside front (which maximised the picturesque potential of the town’s natural situation at the head of Loch Fyne), good access to the loch’s lucrative and famous fisheries, and a woollen mill (no evidence of which can unfortunately be found in the present-day “mill”, which is of the cashmere-sweater-vending variety). Inveraray’s pretty “new” town has been an attraction in its own right since the closing decades of the Eighteenth Century — and, despite the busloads of tourist-buddies, and the relentless tartan tat, I am very fond of its location, and of the neat restraint of its whitewashed Georgian buildings — a restraint emphatically not matched by the architecture the eighteenth-century Dukes of Argyll chose for their seat, which they built on the site of the ‘old’ town.
As Samuel Johnson put it when visiting in 1773: “what I admire here is the total defiance of expense.”
As its name would suggest, the race began at Inveraray Jail (now a popular visitor attraction). The chap in uniform behind the runners is the inscrutable ‘jailer’. He blew a klaxon, and started proceedings.
The runners dashed through the town centre and headed toward Dun-na-Cuaiche, a densely-wooded hill above the castle, which is topped by a monument commemorating seventeen prominent members of Clan Campbell, who were executed in 1685 for the part they played in Monmouth’s Rebellion.
At a much more leisurely pace, Bruce and I meandered through the castle grounds toward the finish line.
GO TOM!
The escaped inmate flew toward the finish line. . .
. . .in a very respectable sixth place. Then, after a couple of photographs in the rain. . .
. . . he disappeared in search of suitable refreshment.
Just in case you were in any doubt at all, it was an excellent weekend.
On Saturday, we climbed Schiehallion – another munro. Rising out of the surrounding landscape like a great, squat cone, Schiehallion resembles a child’s drawing – it looks exactly like what a mountain should look like. Easily accessible from the shores of Loch Tay, it is extremely popular with walkers, whose pounding feet, over the past thirty years, have created some serious erosion. Since 1999, the mountain has been in the hands of the wonderful John Muir Trust – who have realigned the path sustainably, allowing the eroded scar to heal. This path is clear and very well-maintained all the way up to the boulder fields that surround the summit, and I would recommend Schiehallion to anyone as an ‘easy’ or a first munro. Schiehallion is famous for many reasons – it is the place where Neville Maskelyne calculated the weight of the earth, and Charles Hutton invented contour lines. On a fine day, it is also a lovely-looking mountain, whose gaelic name translates as ‘Fairy Hill of the Caledonians’. I wish I had some photographs that suggested how shapely and pleasing Schiehallion is, but on Saturday the cloud was low and the weather was foul. This is about as much as you are going to see, unfortunately.
On the lower slopes, blaeberries were beginning to appear, and, among the heather, we saw many pretty violets.
A little further up, we hit the cloud.
Bruce kept checking to see that the gang were all together.
The wind picked up, the cloud grew thicker . . .
. . .and by the time we hit the upper summit slopes, visibility was very poor.
Picking my way over those slippery lumps of quartzite was not easy and, just after taking this photo, the storm that had been threatening all morning decided to break. The wind howled and whirled, and the rain lashed down. It was pretty wild. We had to hurry up, push on, and get back down off the mountain. Here I come!
You can probably see how my left arm is refusing to do much by this point, and that the plantarflexion of my left foot is poor. Also, having foolishly forgotten my merino tights, I am wearing a pair of stripey pyjamas under my shorts, and I fear that this may add to the day-release-from-the-puzzle-factory effect of this clip (my choice of legwear was the focus of amused remarks from fellow walkers). But, 1) I am successfully descending 2) I am not tired and 3) I am very happy.
On the way down, the weather cleared up a little, and there was time to pause and photograph the interesting lichen I’d been spotting.
Specialists may correct me, but, from my books, I’d say this was porpidia macrocarpa, and that the wonderful lines and colours – which to me suggest maps, or the script of an ancient hand – is the effect of the lichen extracting iron from the rock. On Schiehallion’s upper slopes, the presence of iron makes the quartzite very pink – so much so that some of the boulders seemed to me to resemble giant slabs of ham . . .
Perhaps I was just getting hungry. . . but hold on a minute, could the powers of the Fairy Hill of the Caledonians possibly transform that quartzite side of ham into . . .
. . . a magical pork pie?
We had a magic day out on Schiehallion, anyway.
We spent this weekend in Rochdale, where my parents live, and where I grew up. I wanted to walk to a special place – somewhere I’ve been meaning to introduce to Tom for a very long time. It is always lovely to have a walk with my Dad.
The Roch valley, crisscrossed with canals and railways, dotted with mills and factories, is the landscape of my childhood. Shaped by the industrial revolution, and decimated by Thatcher, the mills and factories are now mostly demolished, though some have found new life as distribution centres. Behind my parents’ home runs the Rochdale canal.
I used to play around these towpaths when I was a kid. Not all of the paths were accessible then, as parts of the old waterway had been in-filled and diverted. There were stagnant pools, and shopping trolleys. But there were also foxes and wildflowers. On one legendary occasion, a brave pal went swimming in the canal behind our house, and came out covered in leeches. About a decade ago, the canal was extensively restored, and is once again fully-navigable, by boat or by foot. There are new loch-gates and walkways. . .
It was wonderful to see the canal looking in such good nick, but this wasn’t the point of the journey.
I wanted to climb up from the valley to the beech woods behind Tandle Hill. These woods, planted in the early Nineteenth Century, and now managed by Oldham Council, are where I first discovered my love of walking. They were a beautiful space in which to potter about, and were far enough from home to feel like a real adventure. As one got older, one’s circle widened: you could walk right through the woods, and follow the lanes all the way across to Royton. You could take a tent and camp up there (although you weren’t supposed to).
I remember feeling, as a teenager, that these woods had a cathedral-like majesty, with their grand columns of mature beech forming leaf-lined aisles. They still look like that to me today.
They are at their best in the Autumn, of course, when the hollow behind the hill becomes a shadowy symphony of bronze and gold. But I like it here at any season. My Dad (who keeps a wonderful garden) waxed lyrical about leaf mould. And there was plenty for Bruce to do.
I had always loved Tandle Hill. Then I went away to university and got interested in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. I didn’t know, until then, that Tandle Hill was where the radical weavers of Middleton and Rochdale famously assembled.
(view from Tandle Hill, North, toward Rochdale)
In the words of Samuel Bamford:
“When dusk came, and we could no longer see to work, we jumped from our looms and rushed to the sweet cool air of the fields, or the waste lands, or the green lane sides. We mustered, we fell into rank, we faced, marched, halted, faced about, countermarched, halted again, dressed, and wheeled in quick succession and without confusion; or, in the grey of a fine Sunday morn, we would saunter through the mists, fragrant with the night odour of flowers and new hay, and, ascending Tandle Hill, salute the broad sun, as he climbed from behind the high moors of Saddleworth”*
Looking out from Tandle Hill, Bamford saw the promise of political reform on the Southern horizon
(view South, toward Manchester)
“And, lo! what a world is before me spread,
From the fringed dell to the mountain head!
From the spangled turf, whereon I stand,
To the bend of heaven and the verge of land!
Like an ocean cradle deep it lies;
To the right, to the left, dark hills arise,
And Blackstone-Edge, in his sunless pride,
Doth York from Lancaster divide;
Whilst, on to the south if away we bear,
Oh! what shall bar our progress there?
Nought, save the blending of earth and sky,
Dim, and afar as eternity!”**
Three months after writing these verses, Bamford, and six thousand other working men and women from Middleton and Rochdale, marched South to Manchester, and Peterloo
We had a great walk: just under six miles, 200 metres of ascent, and an awful lot of memories for me. It was chilly and uneven underfoot, but my leg held out reasonably well.
*Bamford, Passages in the life of a radical (1843)
**Bamford, “View from Tandle Hill, May, 1819″ (in Homely Rhymes, 1864 edn)
P.S indeed, yes, that is the most amazing scarf! I intend to tell you about it later.
