SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO

It was a gey dreich day when we drove through from Inverness to Muir of Ord for the October walk. We met at Agnes's house (some of it belongs to Richie too). Almost immediately, everyone went to the adjoining house belonging to Katie and Ben because they had some wee puppies to ooh and aw over!

They looked like they had just come out of a toilet paper advert. So, let me tell you about the Andrex puppies.

Andrex was first made in, and took its name from, the St Andrew's Mill in Walthamstow. It was made in 1942 and was derived from a design for a gentleman's disposable handkerchief sold exclusively by Harrods.

The Andrex puppy arrived in 1972. The original advert featured a little girl trailing the roll of toilet paper, but regulators thought that would encourage waste and so a playful puppy was used. The ad must have worked, because it gained a Royal Warrant in 1978 and, if you ever go to the toilet in any of the Royal households, it will be Andrex that you use!

Should I resort to toilet humour for the rest of the blog? Or, would that be taking the piss?

Now, we did go along the edge of Clash Wood and I suggested to some on the walk that Clash songs might make a good theme. This was not universally praised as an idea, so it went down the pan. By the end of the blog, you'll be wishing I had stuck with that idea!

However, cute, clean and soft the puppies were, we had to drag ourselves away and get out into the pishing rain. (That would be your answer to the question above).

A few steps away from the house, Agnes pointed out a bird's nest, which was exposed in the hedge, but it had somehow managed to cling on.

We headed off down the hill and then around the U bend. Maureen may have had something unsavoury stuck to the sole of her boot.

This is the sign for the farm where Agnes lives. I suspect it is a borrowed Gaelic name. Bal, or baile is the common word for a town or village. It would also be a more archaic name for a farm or farmstead. Almost all Scottish towns with bal at the start take their name from the Baile town meaning.

Vullich, I think is a straightforward anglicisation of mhullach meaning summit, crest, height or upland. The farm sits atop a hill, so farm of the hill would seem appropriate. Interestingly, the farm is shown as Balavulich on the OS map, which would sound phonetically more like the Gaelic Baile a' Mhullach. 

To the east of the farm entrance is this feature, It may just be field clearance of stones or it may be the site of a building. Since Historic Environment Scotland changed their system of public access to records I cannot look it up easily, which is a pain in the thing you use Andrex to wipe!

In the field next door, there were some sheep and some crows. One of the sheep had a crow on its head. It was quite far away and the photo is not great, but it was a bit unusual. I assume the crow was after insects in the sheep's wool.

Although wool was used in the past for wiping after the toilet, I suspect the crow was not doing that. Wool actually came to the toilet quite late in the day. The ancient Greeks actually used stone or pieces of ceramic. Ouch! 

The ceramic was often engraved with the names of people hated by the community! The use of stone and ceramic did not last until today, mainly because it was not very effective and the sharp edges caused disease and irritation.

Without wishing to turn this into a big job, there were lots of different things used after stones. The one that caught my fancy, so to speak, was rope. Yep, sailors in the good old days used rope with a frayed end. There were no toilets on board, so you squatted over the side of the boat. It was used by everybody and the rope with the frayed edge hung into the water. After use, the rope was thrown into the sea and then dragged behind the boat along until the next  time. This is the origin of the phrase tow rag!

We were walking along the road towards the Glen Ord distillery. Alongside the road runs the canalised Allt Fionnaidh. Allt is a stream or burn Fionnaidh refers to something ancient. The canalised burn is certainly not ancient, but there are ancient hut circles around the place where the burn rises in the hills to the west. The burn is the source of the water for Glen Ord distillery which was founded in 1838. The burn flows through the distillery grounds. A scheme is in place to return the burn to a more natural course, which would allow migratory fish to travel upstream beyond the distillery.

Using drains and canalised water systems is integral to distilleries and, you won't be surprised to know, toilets. What you might be surprised to read is that the history of toilets is often traced to Scotland. The inhabitants of Skara Brae built drains to carry waste from inside their homes to streams. This was 8000 years ago and allowed people to go without going outside! I feel the use of channels to make whisky is an equally useful thing.

From the distillery, we soon found our way onto a wee path. (Yes that counts).

The wee path took us to where the bears go, yes, the woods. They were very nice beech woods, but we didn't see any bears.

What we did see, I cannot possibly describe. Suffice it to say that I was with a gaggle of women and they had a few thoughts on the size, shape and configuration of what I thought might be a representation of one of these migratory fish mentioned before - although it does seem to be heading downstream rather than up.

The ladies thought that it was time for a sweetie.

Some of the sweets were Percy Pigs, but there was no porcelain to point Percy at.

Meanwhile I carried on being a fun guy.

We were now on the land which formed the estate around Highfield House. Whether this was something to do with that, I cannot tell, but it is quite old and looks to have been a substantial building at one time.

Similarly, this is an older building that has had a number of additions made to it. The round headed window might hint at something ecclesiastical, but nothing else really does.

Highfield House was built in 1710 for John Mackenzie, 2nd of Highfield. It was later bought by George Gillanders, factor to the Seaforth Mackenzies. The house was destroyed by fire in 1875 and everything was lost, including a unique collection of walking sticks. A new house was built and for part of the First World War it was used for the Highfield War Hospital Supply and Sphagnum Moss depot! Sphagnum moss was used for field dressings.

Cecil Asquith as Chancellor of the Exchequer leased the house in 1907 until he became Prime Minister the next year. The second house burnt down completely in 1950 and nothing now remains. What part, if any, this building played in the estate, I do not know.

It was still peeing down when we stopped for our lunch. Nobody felt like sitting or squatting in the wet, so we stood and munched our sandwiches under the dripping trees.

We had not encountered many obstacles on our journey so far. This gate was the first, and we needed to be quick and nimble to get our legs over without incident.

We were back on a publicly convenient road, with the rain still tinkling down through the trees.

We soon  came to Urray Church, which dates from 1780, although it replaced a much older building a little further away. Having said that, it is said that this church used some of the masonry from the Mediaeval church it replaced. There is a fragment of fourteenth century cross in the churchyard here. 

There are also 7 Commonwealth war graves here, all but one dating from the Second World War. The one that caught my eye was Lance Corporal Norman Cecil Middleton, who died in August 1942. What was odd about this record is that it wasn't his real name. He is listed as ALIAS and there is a note to say his name was Leon Mendelson and he served in the Canadian Forestry Corps.

Did he serve under an alias because he was Jewish and that might have been an issue if he was serving in Europe? Who knows, but I've never seen that before.

The weather was not improving.

Clash Woods, should I stay or should I go. 

We sort of went along the edge.

There were lots of pumpkins in the woods. Apparently it is a thing for people to do this, thinking it will help feed animals, in particular, hedgehogs.

This is not a good idea. Pumpkins give hedgehogs the skits. Now, diarrhoea can be caused by increased secretion of fluids into the gut due to food intolerances or infections. Typically, you don't want to be far from a toilet if you have it. Not only that, you don't want your toilets to be intimately related to your drinking water,

That's what happened in early industrial Britain when up to 100 people used one toilet. The sewage system, such as it was became overwhelmed and drinking water supplies downstream became heavily contaminated and tens of thousands of people died due to diseases like cholera. In 1848 the government decreed that every new house had to have a Water-Closet (WC) or an ash pit privy. However, the hot summer of 1858 led to the construction of a sewage system in London and fell markedly when this was completed in 1865. It was at that time that toilets were being made that really are not that different from those we have today.

There was lots going on in the forest and there was a huge pile of logs beside the track.

Leaving our logs behind we were soon heading back towards Agnes's house and she promised that Richie had lit the fire.

He was true to his word and he was burning some of his logs in the wood burner. I didn't take photos of anyone warming their bums in front of the fire - meffing, or so Jimmy tells us.

Here we are enjoying scones and muffins prepared by Agnes's fair hand.

Very good they were too.

Many thanks are due to everyone who braved the rain and to Agnes and Richie for their hospitality and especially Agnes for her organisation of the walk.

Anyone who has made it this far through the blog deserves a big crap from me.

AND NOW WITH TREBLE SOFT - LOCH KINELLAN

 September. 

As Keats said, a time of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Well, actually, he said that about Autumn, rather than September, but, I feel I can use a bit of poetic license. Frankly, I intend to, because we were not on this particular walk. We were taking part in our own walk around some of Ottawa at roughly the same time as this walk finished. Dave and Sandra were in Lisbon. Charlie and Sue were unable to go. The remainder of the Dinosaurs met up in Strathpeffer.

Here, there were....

.....later flowers for the bees, 

until they think warm days will never cease. 

They could see all around....

....the moss'd cottage-trees.

Soon, they were on their way, passing a sculpture of a gun dog with a pheasant, about which I could find nothing!

They made their way up the hill out of the village like gathering swallows twitter(ing) in the skies.

Keats described Autumn as a close bosom-friend of the maturing sun, conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.

I didn't get given a photo of of a thatched cottage covered in vines, but I'm sure you can conjure one up in your mind.

How often have you found yourself 

sound asleep, 

Drowsed with the fume of poppies. 

Or, in this case entranced by Pilosella aurantiaca, more commonly known as Fox and Cubs. The orange flowers are said to look like a fox's ear and a cub's paw. I'm not so sure, myself, but they are attractive, if very invasive plants.

A deceptively real red-breast whistles from a garden croft.

Keats didn't mention gin, but he did suggest that some people might be found 

by a cyder-press, with patient look, 

thou watched the last oozings hours by hours. 

I feel as if I know that feeling.

Here, we see Hugh fixing Agnes's hair, soft lifted by the winnowing wind.

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day was the closest I could find in Keats' poem to the rain that came pissing down! It sounds much nicer, too.

Much more apt for this next photo might be 

....as the light wind lives or dies, 

And full grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn.

I'm sure they could hear the lambs as they walked by the bourn.

What do you mean, you don't know what a bourn is? Why, 'tis but a small stream, especially one that flows intermittently or seasonally. You can't tell me there isn't a wee burn running down that hillside.

Here are those full-grown lambs....or were they?

The walk took them close to the golf course and foot-golf course. Foot golf is played with a football and feet, rather than a golf ball and clubs. I don't think Keats was referring to golf when he wrote 

.....thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.

I kind of get what he means, though.

Here they are, heads down

on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Maureen, Where are they? There would be no need for gloves if it really was spring.

Looking across Loch Kinellan towards the Lochluichart windfarm. 

Keats didn't mention mushrooms, magic or otherwise. He did mention how you might be drows'd with the fume of poppies.

He also mentioned how the sun conspired to fill all fruit with ripeness to the core. I expect he wasn't thinking of berries that had passed through something's digestive tract.

It was lunch time and autumn had seen fit To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel.

Or, perhaps, it had just nipped in to M&S for a sandwich.

Some of them seem to have made the wrong choice and seem more like a wailful choir than people who think warm days will never cease. I leave it to you to decide who falls into which camp.

They had stopped at the memorial to those killed in the Korean War.

It is a pretty spot here and the trees bend with apples.

At the shallows of the loch, we find Jimmy who like the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind live or dies.

In fact, it wasn't the river and he wasn't among the sallows, but the bullrushes.

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook,

he emerges with a bullrush for Maureen.

The maturing sun is bright, bright to set budding more

And still more, later flowers for the bees

Until they think warm days will never cease

For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Of course, Keats was talking about the abundance of summer leaving the bees with overflowing hives, nothing to do with the walkers sweating in the warmth of the sun.

Keats didn't mention goats!

Nor does he mention pylons, but then again, they weren't about when he was writing 200 years ago. The only sombre note in the poem is the last line

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

This line hints at the approaching winter, with swallows ready themselves for flying south.

The round house might have prompted Keats to exclaim

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor. 

The round house, with its vertical boarding and sloping roof ironically referencing windmills, but those used for grinding corn rather than producing power.

Back in Strathpeffer, we find Pam

by a cyder-press (or a café), with patient look.

They all look like close-bosomed friends ready 

to load and bless with fruit

their plates and cups.

I have to say thanks to everyone who gave me such rich photos to allow me not to think of them (the songs of spring), thou (autumn) hast music too.

If only I had the powers to fully interpret that music as well as Keats.

Well done to Hugh and Pam for organising such a seasonal walk.