We Need to Talk

We really do, there are some things you need to know. Here they are. Taking drugs is sooo fucking stupid. Binge drinking and this so call nekking is really bloody stupid. Driving like an arse is bloody ridiculous. Polluting the planet is utterly bloody bonkers. Smoking is bloody ridiculous. Food waste, there's just no need. Indiscriminate breeding, you have to stop it. Religious extremism, oh grow up, god doesn't care if you grow a beard or don't eat pork. I imagine he does care if you mutilate your children's genitals. Abusing health care professionals is just not on. Quit the gluttony. If you can't manage any of this, just please stop chucking your fucking rubbish out of your car window.

Please excuse the sweary post. I'm angry.

A Moment of Loss

I pick up her scarf from the back of the bedroom chair. Press it to my face and the tears seep into the silk, the scent of it into my pores. The swooping pit of loss overwhelms me once more. Just another day when my thoughts turn to the time I must spend alone.

The crunching of gravel brings me back, a car door opens and shuts. The kitchen door opens and shuts. She is home. I have not lost her today.

England...

England, I have visited you this last week. Land of my birth, home of many of my relatives and friends. I have to say, I was shocked. Where do I start? How about the grass verges? They were deep in discarded rubbish, a patch of woodland planted two generations ago by my family was knee deep in trash, including, would you believe, a flat screen TV, still in it's wrappings. The houses encroach ever closer to the farms, cars are everywhere, aggressive looking oiks wander aimlessly clutching fast food, discarding the wrappers. Dog shit, neatly wrapped in bags, adorns every hedgerow like some kind of hellish Christmas decoration. Shopping is the religion, consumption is the god. Hugely corpulent people wander the streets I visited, stuffing greasy looking pastry clad snacks of vaguely animal origin into their maws. There seems to be little self respect, let alone respect for others, there seems to be little responsibility and few morals. It is saddening. This is not the England of my Grandfather, it's not the England of my Father, it's not even my England. I was saddened.

On Boxing Day I went to see the hounds. I saw the traditions, I saw charitable donations, I saw not a scrap of litter, I saw lovely clothes and footwear that was up to the job. Then I had lunch in an old inn. It was superb, the service was excellent and the surroundings pleasant and I realised that my England was still there, still hanging on in quiet decency, still kept alive by those who love the land. I was encouraged.

I don't know what the answer is and of course, it is down to my personal taste that I do  not wish to live cheek-by-jowl with others but I cannot help but think that all of the problems of England are caused by over-population. I don't mean by any particular racial or religious group, by any nationality or sect. Just by people.

Just Musing

With a skittering of snow over the low ground, and rather more higher up it was a gorgeous start to the day. The sun shone as I drove up to the pastures to carry on cutting those invasive rushes. I know, shouldn't really be trundling around on the grass in the cold weather but if we get a snowy winter this job won't get done before we have to stop again for those ungrateful corncrakes. So, it's crack on, there's about 200 acres to top so it needs done.

With the topper merrily puffing out an amusing cloud of powdered snow, the tractor cab heater blasting and Jethro Tull on the iPod all was well with the world. Then, as I do, I got to thinking. Here I was, working the very ground that some of the songs I was listening to were about. Ian Anderson, head honcho of Jethro Tull used to own the estate and many of the songs feature landmarks or images found here. From the top of the field I could see his former house, the salmon hatchery he set up and the old fort at Dun Ringill. It all seemed rather, well, right. It's a shame he's not here anymore, I think he was a force to the good.

This of course brought me round to thinking about Highland estates in general and the way they are managed. To cut a long story short, the way I see it is this: The Highland estate is best managed by a wealthy and committed sporting family. They have the money to spend on infrastructure, staffing and local services. They truly love their estates and this is reflected in the amount of wildlife one sees and the care taken of it as a whole.

Sometimes

Sometimes I think it's all in my head. Sometimes I think I imagine this pain, the pain in my hands and my hips, my back and my knees but then along comes a day like today and I know it's real. A day such as this when I've taken my full complement of pain killers and cannot wait for my little blue 'oblivion' pill at bed time. A day when the bath could not be hot enough or long enough to get the cold from my bones or the knots from my muscles. A day when working in the wet and the cold seemed to go on forever, every log I picked up weighed more than the last one and every small knock felt like being hit with a hammer. No, I know it's real.

Positive Things

I've changed doctors. Should have done it a long time ago. She listened, she thought creatively, she gave me time, she asked me the right questions. She has taken action, bloods next week, huge raft of tests. Then meetings with specialists dependent on the results. She gave me a super blue pill to take at night. I slept like a log. Like I haven't slept for years. She has also given me homework, things to make me look at what's going on in my life. At last, I feel I'm making progress.

Something from a few years ago...

I asked my neighbour's son ‘so, have you been to the top?’ indicating the hill behind our houses.

‘Yeah’ he answered with all the certainty of a 14 year old, ‘but there was nothing up there’. I didn't answer, the conversation not worth pursuing.

The first few hundred feet are heart breaking, lung stretching toil. Your mind can think of little but the heave of your chest and flexing of your ankles…and then it becomes a little steeper. The grass gives way to a jumble of rocks interspersed with tortured, stunted birch trees. Small streams cut through, making steps in the rock, although steep, the going here is slightly easier, just watch for the loose rocks, their coating of algae making them all the more treacherous.

With surprising suddenness you are though and on to a more level patch, although level is a relative term up here. A small flat area with a patch of dead bracken, red gold in the early light provides a place to take a breather. The dog however is still keen so you press on. As you turn a woodcock flushes from beneath your feet, the only sound the sharp flit of its wings as it falls over the edge of the hill into the safety of the birches. Before long another ridge rears before you, not so steep but covered in rank, knee deep heather and tussocks of moor grass. From a distance the high lifting gait you adopt must appear comical, but there is no one to see you. Another hundred feet sees you to the top of this bank, as soon as you hit the crest, there is the heartbreaking sight of yet another ridge blocking your way. This one is unassailable without some climbing, not being in the mood for this you stroll along the foot of the ridge until it starts to comes down to meet you. Here at the foot of the ridge the vegetation is more sparse, huge rocks emerge like the backs of fossilised whales, complete with a crusting of lichen barnacles.

Some call this landscape colourless; to you it’s a blazing cacophony of shades and hues. Every tone of brown, grey, green, yellow and red is here. From a lichen so improbably lime green to a pure white lump of quartz. From the black, black peaty pools to the violet hues of the moor grass in the distance…and that’s before the sun has come out to gild the tops of the nearby mountains with a rich, regal orange glow.

You are nearing the place where the ridge has dropped to meet your level, you can take a step up and then walk back along the top, parallel to the path you just walked but higher. Another five minutes walk up the steady incline of this hogs-back ridge and you come to a perfect view point. You can see most of the loch from here, all the way to the open sea some five miles away to the south. A creel boat is carving the water, getting out to his grounds before the weather turns. Look north and you may see the post bus in the distance making its way around the head of the loch just a small red smudge against the huge conical hills beyond the road. Look to the west and try not to feel daunted by the sheer cliffs rising behind you, their outcrops of icicles looking like something form another world. Above the cliffs you can just see the peaks of the mountains beyond, a dusting of snow contrasting sharply with the elephant grey of the ancient weathered rock.

As you stand and stare an odd ‘cronk’ sounds from the distance, a pair of ravens are dancing, the sky their ballroom. Their intricate moves cement the bonds of the pair, another clutch of eggs will follow come the longer days. A shape moves into view beyond them, massive, dwarfing the ravens. A little shiver of anticipation runs through you. Is it a golden? No. The wing shape is not quite right, the neck too short, the build too massive. Yes! It is! Your first Sea Eagle. You watch its perfect mastery of the air for fully five minutes until it dwindles to speck in the distance. Just that sighting makes it worth the climb.

The dog is becoming impatient so you walk on, day dreaming a little, perhaps about the ancient Gaels whose land this was, perhaps saying a quiet word of greeting as you pass a small circle of jumbled stones, all that remains of one of their hill shelters. You cannot help but marvel at their hardiness, no Goretex or fleece then, no central heating or hot water. A commotion ahead stops you dead…a red deer hind with last years calf at foot has been dosing behind a rock. They gallop off, hooves beating a tattoo on the peaty soil, pausing to look back before they cross a ridge and vanish into the vastness of the hill. The dog stays at heel, he knows not to chase them.

Coffee is calling so you turn for home, descending quickly, much more quickly than the walk up. As you go down, the sounds of the sea begin to reach you, half a dozen oystercatchers bicker over ownership of a small section of beach, an outboard motor whirrs. The ground becomes a little less steep, less heathery. You think back to the autumn when this area was covered with the perfect white flowers of grass of parnasus. Each a beautiful little wedding bell.

The dog noses a wisp of snipe into the air as we pass the rushy field, their sharp ‘scaarp’ giving them away.

You've only been out for half an hour but you feel some justification in scoffing down that last blackcurrant muffin when you get back into the warmth of the kitchen.

No, there is nothing up there, at least, nothing that matters to that adolescent boy. But for you, there is a world up there.