FLAMING JUNE, FLAMING LOCKDOWN

Once again, we are denied a group walk because of something tiny. July looks like a possibility, though. So, for June we will have another trip down memory lane to look at previous June walks.

This turned out to be a bit more fraught than I thought it would be. This will all become clearer as you read on.

Our very first June walk was in 2006 when we went from Grantown to Nethybridge. The weather was warm, but a little damp. Ideal for midges and so it proved to be. I seem to remember that it was more than sandwiches that got eaten at lunch time.

Here are some young ladies stepping out in their obviously pre-lockdown haircuts. This was at the start of the walk, while it was dry and midge free.

From that fine start, my plan to show some exciting happenings from other Junes went completely off the rails. There was no June walk in 2007. The reason given in the July blog was that it had been piddling rain as is normal for a Highland summer and we had all chickened out. Surely, it would be better next year.

No.

There was no walk in June 2008, either. The reason given was holidays and other commitments. Therefore no photo again. Surely, it would be better next year.

Sort of.

There was a walk in June 2009.

There are no photos, though. My computer says I have no clearance to access these particular photos. It is my computer. They are my photos.It is my electricity. What's the effing problem? Why can't the effing machine just do what I want? How can this even be possible?

If it wasn't for lockdown and the effing virus, I wouldn't have had to do this at all. I can feel my tits exploding.

Moving on serenely to 2010, we went to Kilmuir.

It was a lovely day - perfect for sitting on tombstones - as you do.

You can also see the start of a well-known dinosaur idiosyncrasy - the inability of all of them to look at the camera at the same time. I think it may be a herd immunity kind of thing. There have to be those who look out for danger to protect the greater good! 

Closer to home for 2011 - Craig Phadrig.

You will be thinking, I've gone completely off the rails now, because this is not Craig Phadrig. However, we walked down to the canal sea lock before walking up to Craig Phadrig. A little bit of social distancing on show here, otherwise known as a male fear of getting too close to other males. Another nice sunny day, though.

2012 saw us come inland to Eilean Aigas I have thought long and hard about how to describe this photo. I have decided that discretion is definitely the better part of valour, so I am going to say nothing, although I do admire the bravery of Maureen and Pam.

2013 saw the first of two June visits to Evanton and Black Rock Gorge. Our first trip from Evanton via the shore of the Firth was undertaken in really nice weather. Mac and Janet foresaw the advent of social distancing and it would seem I foresaw the downfall of Harvey Weinstein. Jacque grabbed my hand and put it there m'lud.

Now, 2014 was completely different.  Due to a combination of incompetence and who knows what else, only Mac and Janet took part in the June walk that year. This resulted in the shortest blog in history, so it is reproduced in full today.

Another nice day, by the way.

SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 2014

D'YOU KNOW NO-ONE WAS THERE?

This may turn out to be one of the shortest blogs ever. On the appointed day in June, nobody apart from Mac and Janet could go on the walk. They had turned down all sorts of foreign holidays and exciting days out just to find us all a walk but we all had something else to do!

So they went for a walk by themselves, breaking years of tradition. They walked along the River Beauly on a nice sunny day. 

There was only one photo sent to me and it is probably beyond my meagre powers of invention to make up something about this walk based on that. So, I won't try albeit there is probably something in there about old ruins, sunny dispositions down by the riverside, how church attendances are falling - that sort of thing.

It is a walk that we have done before and it would be all the better for a nice sunny day. I am told they enjoyed it immensely despite (or because of) the lack of other dinosaurs.

In a bid to remedy our stupidity, we paid a visit to the new University of the Highlands and Islands campus in 2015. It didn't actually work, but we did have a nice walk and good cakes at Simpson's. How many of us have done that during lockdown - well, except for the good bit of a cake at Simpson's?

From Scotland's newest university we went quite close to Scotland's oldest Royal Burgh in 2016. Tain was granted a charter in 1066. I'm sure something else happened then, but we need to Hastings off to our walk venue of the nearby Morangie Forest.

Another fine day, it would seem - and a bridge photo, to boot.

In 2017 we walked from the Suidhe viewpoint to Whitebridge. Suidhe means a seat or to sit down in Gaelic. Nobody was going to do that on a day like this one, otherwise they might be frozen on the spot. There wasn't a fabulous view either.

Next stop Craig Dunain. The asylum shut in 2000, so we were safe enough in 2018.

It was a reasonable day, but cool when we sat down under a tree for lunch.

The latest June walk that we have done was a return to Evanton and Black Rock Gorge. It was warm, but boy, did we see some hefty rain showers. 

It is interesting to see the juxtaposition of Evanton and Black in these current times. I did not know it at the time, but Evanton was founded and built on the back of the slave trade. 3 of the main streets are named after slave plantations - Camden, Livera and Hermitage and, between them, they held over 450 slaves. These slaves were wholly owned by their masters. Everything they had, they had at the whim of their masters and even their children became the slaves of the owners, able to be bought and sold on a whim. They were chattel slaves - in effect possessions and not people. Many slaves were given local names like Alness - a 6 year old boy owned in 1818, Fyrish a 36 year old man, and Fanny Foulis born in 1809. They did not even have the dignity of naming their own children. There is still even a town called Fyrish in Guyana.

Alexander Fraser built much of Evanton with his compensation when slavery was abolished. He also put some of this money into the building of the Northern Infirmary in Inverness.

Think again, if you think Black Lives Matter doesn't really affect the Highlands.

Here we are on a bridge at the Black Rock Gorge - perhaps we can all build some more bridges once we come out of lockdown.

How innocent we were in 2006 and how much we have learned up to date. Hopefully, we will continue to learn and enjoy more on our walks in the future.

With some luck this will be the last of the virus blogs.

Stay safe.