Category: Countryside & Environment
A longer winter break
6th January 2010 We have had the cold winter mixture of snow and ice for so long now that it almost is no longer newsworthy. It was there before I set off on a winter airborne crossing of the Irish Sea and remained to welcome me back on my return. That's not to say that it isn't causing disruption, with travel being a casualty from time to time. It also explains why I was out on Christmas Day and the day after (Boxing Day to some, St. Stephen's Day to others) breaking ice to clear tracks so that those with older bones than mine didn't go breaking them. There was a useful thaw thereafter that allowed things to dry up before the next round of frosts and I took my chance on an afternoon stroll around by Springfield Castle in the winter sun. Traffic, thankfully, was light on the roads that conveyed me much of the way and most of the ice had gone. In fact, I found more of that on the back avenue of Springfield Castle than anywhere else, including the front avenue. The latter allowed me to escape from a sizeable bunch who were engaged in pucking sliotars (hitting hurling balls with hurling sticks to the uninitiated) along the road from Broadford to Dromcollogher. Apart from that collective, places were otherwise quiet with only the occasional soul encountered along the way. It was a useful escape from worrying about the effects of slips on those who really could do without a knock.
The only other trot of note was an afternoon jaunt around by Kilmeedy on an increasingly foggy New Year's Day. Though I gained some height, the lack of visibility meant that wide-ranging views were out of the question so I contented myself with decent progress along largely ice-free and dry roads with little or no traffic on them. It was, but an unremarkable few hours out in the cold air apart from the sight of a pair of swans in the River Deel near Belville. Even so, it was a good way to let the mind loose to lose any stresses and strains that had been collecting.
Apart from those bursts of road walking, the countryside journeying was largely virtual with some books capturing my attention. The first of these was found around my parents' house and caught my eye. Tales of canal boating do not normally attract my interest, but Gerald Potterton's In the Wake of Giants kept me occupied for a few hours with its mix of modern-day anecdotes and historical interjections. Ostensibly, it is a tale of someone fulfilling an interest in journeying along the Grand Canal and the River Barrow with its numerous canal cuttings for the avoidance of weirs. Naturally, this took me around by locales that wouldn't have crept too high up my list of places to visit and told me a little about them too, adding to my knowledge of the "Old Country". The tale may have stuttered to life like a marinised old Ford diesel engine that is used as a power unit for a canal boat, but the narrative soon got going in its own inimitable manner and went to show that there can be more to tillage farmers than meets the eye.
The second occupier of any free moments was a volume that I picked up a while back and lay on my reading list before I got around to it. Joseph Murphy's At the Edge does fit in rather better on a blog full of walking trip reports than a tome on canal boating and it has its own soul too. The backbone of the thing is a walk along the coasts of Ireland and Scotland from Kerry to Lewis made by someone who feels that he has lost a little something of his Irish heritage. Along the way, he gets to pondering Gaelic culture and the differences between Ireland become apparent with the emptiness of Scotland contrasting with an Ireland peopled with obliging folk; interlopers who fail to engage with their Scottish surroundings stick out like sore thumbs later on in the narrative. While I may have developed a beady eye with all my online scribblings, there were times when perceived typographical errors intruded on any sense of reverie (I know that I'm only human, so please let me know privately about any failings of my own making). Clearly, a spot of improvement on the proofreading side is needed on the part of the publishers and the author. Even with intrusions, the explorations of exile and connectedness drew me in as the journey continued; I suppose that my being an Irishman living and working in England had something to do with this, though my affinity for the places visited along the way may have helped too.
Just as there are Irishmen in England, there are Englishmen in Ireland and Tim Robinson has been one of the latter since 1972. On the return trip to Cheshire, I felt the need for a book and his Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage became my accompaniment as I left the branch of Easons on Dublin's O' Connell Street. It's an intense piece of writing that needs to be savoured away from the vacant prattling of drunken folk on trains. Quite how he can make so much of coastal explorations with only the occasional diversion inland is surprising. Until a few years ago, it was out of print but Faber & Faber brought out a new edition with a forward by Robert Macfarlane. There is a companion volume called Stones of Aran: Labyrinth that also was out of print until the New York Review of Books addressed that situation last year. More recently, he wrote a counterpart pair on Connemara with titles such as Connemara: Listening to the Wind and Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness, both published by Penguin Ireland. The latter of these is in my possession and remains unfinished but it very typically was on the wrong side of the Irish Sea when it would have been continued. Of course, that's a human failing with my not thinking that I'd not be reading that much while ensconced in West Limerick. It's also an unusual one for me, but carriage of paper items is sure to add weight that can prove expensive if indiscipline is allowed to reign. In that light, the extra purchase can be seen as a comparative bargain.
With all this reading about a country to which I haven't done justice in walking terms, you might think that 2010 is set to be a year when Ireland might see more of me. That, however, is not mine to see. The start of any year usually is like beginning with a blank slate, but 2010 seems more wide open than other years. While grand designs are not my style, I am more inclined to avoid them this year than I otherwise might do. It will be a case of meeting the future one day at a time and seeing where things take me from here.
Unenticing weather
21st November 2009 The least sign of dampness or greyness shouldn't be enough to put anyone off spending a day exploring hill country, but there are conditions that can cause one to challenge the sense of any such scheme. A day-long soaking or hefty showers coming in on top of one another are on that list, but the recent record-breaking deluges only can be sure to send you indoors. As those who have had it happen to them will tell you, that's all very fine, so long as the nasty conditions stay outside and don't come in after you or put out your heating or lighting. Anyone who has come a cropper in the flooding that has visited too many places has my sympathy (seeing photos showing Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake nearly becoming one really captures the scale of things for me).
It was all so different last Sunday when I grabbed the chance of an outing in bright sunshine. My destination may not have been the countryside, but I got to see plenty of that out through the train windows as I wound my way over to Chester and back again. Any gaping at what lay outside has planted some ideas in my brain for future outings that are relatively near to hand. An amble about Delamere Forest is one such possibility, as is a stroll along the banks of the River Dane near Northwich. Aside from this pondering, I came away with photos (the main motivation on the day) even with Chester being under cloudier skies that only release the sun late on during my visit. A late train allowed me to potter around Stockport to explore its more pleasing parts (yes, they do exist!) and make more of them than I was to make of Chester's much more esteemed architecture.
Last Sunday's trip may have been urban in the main, yet it did break any descent into the rut of indoor winter hibernation. An escape into some fine countryside would make an ideal next step, but it would be better if the threat of deluges was lifted, but there's little sign of that now (it's raining well as I write this). However, just as good spells of weather have to end, the bad episodes can't last forever either, even if we remember them all the more clearly. I'll be awaiting that chance of an escapade.
Travel details:
Return train trip from Macclesfield to Chester with a change in Stockport.
In times of plummeting mercury
12th November 2009 It had to come as it often does at the start of November. Temperatures fell on a Sunday night after a fairly pleasant day that saw me fail to get out into the open air as I would have liked. What followed it was a day that mixed fine crisp winter sun and typical November misty murkiness. Some may say that it's still autumn, but the weather feels like winter even if trees retain the last leaves after some stormy interludes. A lunchtime walk had me surveying what's left of the golden shreds after the Indian summer that came to us in September and October.
Apart from the chill in the air, November brought us some unsettled weather too and that seems set to continue; we may be in the midst of a lull at the moment but something more dramatic lies ahead of us if forecasters are right, and they are far from infallible. Thus, it is somewhat timely that The New York Times has brought us an article concerned with the avoidance of hibernation. The activity at the heart of it may be running, but the same malady afflicts those who explore the outdoors world so it's interesting to read another take on the subject, especially given November's habit of bringing grey murky weather with it.
It is tempting to retreat to virtual explorations on one's PC when it looks not so alluring out of doors. Nevertheless, that can have its place too and might even result in putting you out over your activation energy barrier to enjoy what abounds at this time of year. In recent weeks, I have been sprucing up old members of my online photo gallery. The ones of Skye are as good as done until I get to add to that collection from a day's walking over Ben Tianavaig last year. Lochaber has come next for a spot of improvement and Argyll hasn't escaped either with an old print taken by the shores of Loch Etive seeing an attempt to better it with a new scan and subsequent Photoshop work; there's a knack in keeping things realistic, a line on the wrong side of which I don't want to find myself.
The trouble with all this tinkering with old photos and is that it consumes spare time like it's going out of fashion, so a short session can gobble time that was set aside for other things. That's what happened to me on Sunday but it has its benefits too. Looking at those old photos reminds you of places where you haven't been for a while. For instance, I now think of that photo of Loch Etive as a less than sharp specimen and wonder about a return visit. In the past, I have played with the idea of a two-day walk from Taynuilt to Glen Coe or vice versa with an overnight stopover at a bothy. Nothing has come of it so far, but the idea of revisiting Loch Etive and passing along Glen Etive for the first time makes the notion attractive. If the weather was to play ball, then it would be even better.
While on the subject of a wandering mindset, there are places in Lochaber to revisit. Loch Treig and the Grey Corries fit in here and there's what's around Corrour too; the idea of disembarking from a Sleeper to walk to Fort William has come to mind from time to time. More civilised spots like Loch Lochy and Loch Arkaig also beckon. Mind you, a spot of bicycle hire might be an idea for the latter pair because progress along the Caledonian Canal as it rounds Meall Bhanabhie can seem so slow as to be infuriating. Still, this is a nice part of the world that should be traffic free and the distances involved make bicycle travel look the more useful. For long-distance travel on foot, there's the Great Glen Way of which I have sampled only a little and it would take me by Loch Lochy on its way to parts that have yet to host my footfall.
Continuing the theme of exploring pastures new, there's around Mallaig too with some introductory possibilities from Morar to gain a sense of what lies about there; it is remote country too, replete with possibilities around Loch Morar and Loch Arkaig for the more adventurous. It's been a few years since I ventured around by these parts while en route from Skye to Oban and the only stops were Mallaig and Glenfinnan. With the options already described and others like Knoydart and the Small Isles within reach, it is perhaps small wonder that the summer excursion that eventually took me to Aviemore could have taken to towards Mallaig instead. In the end, I decided that it was better to try for a time when the weather would have been more suitable for showing off the landscape at its best. Nevertheless, it is good to have such a scheme in mind, for the sake of avoiding indecision if noting else.
Having skirted around it, I suppose that Skye well deserves a longer mention. That walk from Elgol to Sligachan may not get repeated after seeing my surroundings bathed in the sort of light that would have been in order for a week based in Mallaig. However, there are other paths to follow and other parts to savour. Glen Brittle is but one of these and a spot of cycling might be in order given that's how I got about on my first visit to the island. It's never any harm to see new sides to an old favourite.
With all of these, what really hits me is how well peering at old photos can act as a muse as well as being an uplifting distraction from any greyness that is about. It is tempting to say that shortening days curtail the possibilities but I am minded to convert the delights of afar into experiencing what lies on my doorstep. Making use of the latter may set me up for heading further afield yet. In a way, it's amazing what indoor inspiration can achieve so long as you don't spend all of your time lost in the reverie and fail to get out at all. After all, November isn't always murky and December's bright moments should not be missed either.
How far west?
10th November 2009 One thing that is easy to forget is that the British mainland is not aligned along the Greenwich meridian but at an angle to it. One of the effects of that state of affairs is that Edinburgh and Manchester are nearly lined up in a straight north-south line, even if shadowing the coast and finding a line of least resistance through any hill country means that your route gains an elbow and that certainly is the case if you travel by train. Travel on the East Coast Mainline also veers away from what might be termed direct with the result that the journey time between Newcastle and Edinburgh is of the order of 90 minutes.
The cause of this being brought to my attention was my pondering a short getaway that arrests any decline into end of year torpor or, better still, punctuates it so much that it is stopped in its tracks. During these episodes of plotting, eyes are cast over maps and that's when it came home to me that I was next to immediately north of Donegal in Éire when I was on South Uist last year. What really made this plain were the similarities in the predicted weather for Wicklow and Mallaig for the coming weekend when I last looked on Metcheck. However, you do need a longitudinal west/east split to make this kind of thing plain, especially to make it dawn on you for the first time. Of course, a split can be north/south or any other combination too as the weather enjoyed on my trip to the Western Isles was to prove.
As regards my plotting, that is a work in progress so things are in a fluid state. The good thing about that is that I wouldn't be ruling out the possibility of a short Scottish escapade if it makes me an offer. After all, when you fancy rupturing a continuity that feels like a rut, taking yourself somewhere else for a little while is just the thing. If the everyday clutter can be left behind you and there is a chance of a fresh start, it works even better. For me, this is what the long break around Christmas and New Year does every year but once a year can never be enough. In fact, it is for that very reason that I want to disembark for while from the juggernaut that could land me on the doorstep of that much hyped season before I know it. Letting life carry you along is too easy so clearing some space and time to force a restart as well as allowing those batteries to be recharged only can be a good thing.
Signs of autumn
26th July 2009 July has been a quiet month for me on the hill wandering front. Between having other things that need to done and not being enticed by the current mix of damper weather, getting out of doors has tended to be a largely bicycle-borne affair. Thoughts of enduring endless power soakings have helped to turn my mind to other things but the opportunity offered yesterday by a dry sunny interlude from the water was too good to miss. Ambitions of heading to Cumbria for a trot from Grasmere through the fells to Borrowdale had been entering my mind. However, circumstances were such that the idea needed to be parked for another time and I opted for a more local stroll instead. That took me from Kidsgrove in Staffordshire to Wheelock in Staffordshire by a round the houses sort of route that I'll describe in another posting.
Suffice it to say for now that the sights of well berry-laden rowan trees (or mountain ash if you prefer) along with ripening corn in the fields is a reminder that autumn is at hand. The colours of the leaves may not be changing for a while yet but the fruits are ripening and blackberries are already there to be had along with other fruits that I cannot name because my knowledge of botany isn't what it might be. Seeing nature's larder becoming stocked to the level that I have seen it is a reminder of a country saying whose verity is hard to verify: masses of fruit on trees and bushes is a harbinger of there being a cold winter ahead. The logic behind this is that nature provides in plenty to tide birds and such like over a period of want. To my mind, it belongs in the same category as the forty days of rain following St. Swithin's day with there being some truth in that from a meteorological standpoint. Apparently, the weather can get locked into a pattern around this time of year, be it dry and sunny or, as we are having it, wet and rainy. To whose wishing their life away, the latter outcome is a distinct disappointment but others among us will realise that there is more to the year than the months of July and August. Of course, that's little comfort to those wandering to save the year's harvest even if a mixture of sunshine and showers does help with the ripening of corn; bringing in wet grain doesn't pay as well. We all can only hope for a drier interlude while making what we will of what we get.
