WEE LI-AM AND THE WHITIE NESS AND THE TRUE STORY

 The blog this month is split into two parts. The first part uses the photos taken by Liam to tell an heroic tale of derring do. The second part uses my photos to tell the real story of the day. So, let us begin with Wee Li-Am and the Whitie Ness.

Our hero, Wee Li-Am was fresh from his vocal gymnastics on the gogglebox with Jom Tone Deef, Pal o' mine Faith and Wicked Rilson. His new mission was to track a herd of unruly dinosaurs that were thought to be rampaging on the beaches of the Furry Mouth and destroying the Whitie Ness. Well, rampaging was probably a bit strong, 'cos they were all very old, certainly centuries older then Wee Li-am.

It didn't take long to track them down. They were easy to spot in the sausage links car park. They were the only people wrapped up against the cold. Everyone else was in shirt sleeves, flying kites and jumping in the water. The old dinosaurs were huddled together and carrying bags full of unknown stuff.

He might have been spotted by one of the them that he recognised as Jimmy the Jack! Luckily for him, Jimmy the Jack was colour blind as well as being deaf. He was never going to find Wee Li-Am, the master of disguise.

He could even sneak up to big Banana Nana's big Banana feet, without her seeing him, but he had to be careful not to annoy Bob Bow and Arrow. He was a very dangerous dinosaur and he was notoriously grumpy.

Luckily there was plenty of space for a wee guy to hide out in. The dinosaurs were just not good at seeing stuff, so he would be OK. 

He knew he was on the right track when he noticed the memorial to the real old heroes who had used Nairn Beaches to practice for the D-Day landings, way back even before the Dinosaurs were born. 

This was a lot more peaceful than during the war.

There was nobody on the beach. He would have to be careful not to be too obvious or the Dinosaurs would see him. He knew they could not catch him - they were far too slow.

Looking out to sea, Wee Li-am spotted the Phoenix II, which operates wildlife tours from Nairn Harbour. The business had been going since 1997 and was taken over in 2019 by North 58 Sea Adventures, who operate all along the Moray Coast.......Oh No! By some insidious means Bob Bow and Arrow had found a way to project his weird thinking into Wee Li-am's brain. He was turning into the most nerdy Grandad in the world. He had to fight it and remain a superhero and not some kind of odd Dinosaur.

Luckily, there were some Rose Hips about. He knew all these old dinosaurs would have dodgy knees and hips and if he could substitute these hips for those hips, it might just make all the difference. It was worth a try.

With a little bit of thought and magic, there was a blinding flash of light. This was not any old flash of light but the fabled Whitie Ness... 

....everything became blurred....

...the flashing subsided....

....and the gateway to a parallel universe became suddenly apparent!

Blinking in the Whitie Ness, Wee Li-am staggered into this new normal that everyone had been talking about.It looked pretty odd to Wee Li-am. The Dinosaurs were fading away, almost like vampires in the sunlight - the Whitie Ness was the key to defeating them!

In fact, in no time at all, they became a shell of their former selves.

The sea became calmer as the as the Whitie Ness washed over the beach, cleansing the world.

Wee Li-am knew he had come through this magic event unharmed because he still had his shadow. Without a shadow, he would be nobody. And he knew he wasn't nobody. He was the somebody who had defeated the Dinosaurs.

Happy with that knowledge, he walked off into the sun, like all great heroes!

THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

The real story was recorded by myself. It is nothing like as fantastical as Liam's tale. Liam has wanted to go on a Dinosaur walk for ages. He missed the previous walk due to a sports injury, well, he hurt his leg jumping off the swing in our garden. Quite what he expects a Dinosaur walk to be like is anyone's guess. If he was hoping for real dinosaurs, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Anyway, he was dropped off at the house of Bob Bow and Arrow  and Nana Banana  about 10.15. We know that he gave everyone on the walk a nickname, All of you will find out your names if you read on. What these names say about you or about Liam, is open to conjecture.

The walk started at the Links car park in Nairn, where Liam saw Jimmy the Jack. A starting point we have used a few times. Indeed, we have done this walk, or a variant of it, twice before -  in July 2009 and July 2017.

This time we went for August, you know, the month where it should be hot and sunny. Well, it didn't start that way - it was quite cool, not to say Baltic, when we set off.

It wasn't long until we were promenading along the promenade, with Liam following Nana Banana  and Happy Hugh.

Soon, Nana Banana  was pointing out things of interest to Liam.

This was the stone commemorating the training on the beaches of soldiers, who would later fight on the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day landings in the Second World War.

Of course, there were lots of things to see out to sea.

Was it a seal?

No!

It was a big dug.

Liam had already absorbed a bit of geeky boat knowledge from Bow and Arrow Bob. I could ask you questions to see if you were paying attention, but Nana Banana  says it would be unfair to wake you up.

Of course, when it comes to geekiness about boats, it is hard to beat Bow and Arrow Bob. This is the Antares, a German registered Chemical Tanker. The really geeky among you will also know that Antares is the fifteenth brightest star in the sky and it lies in the constellation of Scorpius.

This is the Paul B Loyd Jr semi submersible rig, registered in Vanuatu! You will, I am sure, be aware that Paul B Loyd is an American oilman, married with 5 children and living in Houston, Texas. The company he was CEO of was sold in 2000 for over $5 billion, so he is probably worth a bob or two.

This is just somebody having some fun on a jetski.

More promenading, and Liam finds himself surrounded by Jacque Jam, Susan Sausage, Liz Lamb and Pam Ham. Clearly young boys spend a lot of time thinking about where the next meal might be coming from.

A couple of Oystercatchers on the beach. You find Oystercatchers almost everywhere in the world, exceptions being the Polar Regions. They don't all eat oysters, but they do tend to eat shellfish or worms and insects. They were named Oystercatchers by an American ornithologist, having previously been known as Sea Pie. 

This could be one of the smallest houses in Nairn. Nobody seems to live in it, though.

This is not one of the smallest houses in Nairn. It is being built for local Highland businessman Alan Savage, who, like Paul B Loyd Jr probably has a bob or two. The house is not finished yet, but it looks suitably grand, although it does have quite a close relationship with the local sewage pumping station.

Just to be sure that we are not neglecting Liam's education, we quiz him on these three flags. He got the Union Jack pretty easily, but did not recognise the European flag. I'm hoping this doesn't make him Boris Brexiteer. Not unsurprisingly, he did not get the Nairn Golf Club flag. Obviously, that is not a country, but some might say it is another world.

Along the side of the golf course, were these large rose hips. These belong to Rosa Rugosa, which is actually native to eastern Asia. It is commonly found in locations like this as it is highly tolerant of salt spray. You can eat the hips as they are the largest and sweetest of the rose hips. They are best after the first frost. They can also be made into jam.

We crossed over the golf course, which had a sign with the best advice I've seen for some time. It was getting a bit warmer and people were taking off their jackets, except for  Smart Sandra, who was almost always cold.

Liam, being that much younger, was oblivious to the danger of golfers and lagged behind a little. Of course, this might be because he knew Bow and Arrow Bob did not have his golf clubs with him, so he was pretty safe. He should have asked Robin the robin about the wisdom of that.

Liam leads the way with Jacque Jam, Nana Banana  and Jimmy the Jack following closely on.

We move inland away from the coast and next to some golden fields.

Oats. A grain with all sorts of wonderful properties, particularly in relation to reducing cholesterol and heart disease. They can be used to make porridge, or beer and are fed to cattle and horses as well as people. They are thought to be one of the oldest cereals in the world. Oats are best suited to colder and wetter climates than grains like wheat. They are right at home in the Highlands. More weirdly oats are both the plant and the grains. Other cereals don't have that. You don't get Wheat and Wheats or Barley and Barleys. That's interesting, isn't it?

Of course, the cultivation of oats is heavily mechanised, like most farming nowadays. That means you get tricky, photogenic tractor tracks through the field of oats.

Up the side of the oats and next to some woodlands near the golf course, is a long fence. There are little gates at the bottom of the fence. These are not for fairies, but for badgers, to move about easily.

The badger is clearly not happy with the location of the gate, because it has scraped a route under the fence a bit further up the track.

There are lots of plants and flowers along the margins of fields. This is a thistle, but then you all knew that. You think it is the national emblem of Scotland and you might be right. There are a variety of thistles and this one is, I think, Spear Thistle. The Welted Thistle is very similar, but is even more spiky and is thought to be the emblematic thistle, but there is a bit of academic debate about this.

There does seem to be an abundance of brambles this year and those facing south are already beginning to ripen. A sign of crumbles to come.

The brambles are benefiting from the shelter of the ruined steading at Easter Delnies, the walls of which face south, allowing the fruits to get the most of the sun and ripen earlier.

Just behind the steading an ancient cist burial was discovered in the late 1800's and the urn contained within can now be seen in the Nairn museum.

From the steading, Jimmy the Jack and Maureen Mouse turn back down to the coast.

Some of us might be feeling a bit tired, though.

Heading for the sea.

The flowers and wispy seeds of Common Ragwort. This is supposed to be controlled by farmers as it can be deadly to grazing animals - attacking their livers. As the name suggests, though, it is very common.

The cloud was breaking up by now and it was getting quite warm, although the breeze from the sea stopped it getting too hot.

The building on the right is an old ice house, which was associated with a salmon fishery. Locals have long thought it to be built on the site of a Roman camp, but later investigation found no man made features, suggesting that it was just a legend. The cottage is not mentioned in The National Record of the Historic Environment and it may well be related to the fishery.

The broom nearby to the ice house was taller than Liam.

The path led us to the famous Secret Beach, which is becoming less secret every year! It is still pretty impressive and not exactly hoaching with people.

She sells sea shells on the sea shore, but what kind of shell is it. Well, I'm not Tellin, because Jimmy the Jack has a huge collection of sea shells and probably knows them all by name and he will be Tellin me if I am wrong about it being a Tellin.

Here is the old man and the sea.

Liam, Nana Banana  and Dangling Dave stepping out across the sand.

A Moon Jellyfish. These are the most common jellyfish around our coasts. The one above it is a stonefish.

These are not jellyfish, but I don't know what they are. Jimmy the Jack found them, but he didn't take them home!

Heading towards lunch - and not a moment too soon for Liam.

It is hard to beat a view like this from our chosen picnic spot.

Poor Robin the robin, has been cast out of the lunch group.

Here we all are and, as usual, some people do not like to look at the camera. I don't think it is shyness, they were just to busy talking to each other to pay attention to the official recorder of the Dinosaur adventures.

Here are the deviating dinosaurs - Jacque Jam, Jimmy the Jack and Smart Sandra .

Hawkweed - related to dandelions and sunflowers.

The Whiteness Head fishing station, now used as a picnic spot for the Cawdor Family.

Just to the east of the bothy lie the wrecks of the Vertumnus and the Henry. They were ships from Sunderland carrying cargoes of herring from Wick. They were driven ashore here and wrecked in January 1827, but no crew were lost. The Aid was wrecked at Lossiemouth in the same storm, but all hands were lost in that incident.

Vertumnus was, of course, the Roman god of the seasons. I'm guessing he took his eye off the ball during the winter of 1827.

After our picnic on the beach it was time to go back to Nairn. The route would be along the beach, rather than via the farmland that we had come by. However, Nana Banana  had dropped Liam's hoodie, so the three of us had to deviate from the beach route after a while. It was a little windy, so Liam put on Bob Bow and Arrow 's slightly too big fleece to keep warm.

So, back into the wide blue yonder we headed.

On our way back along the beach we got to musing about why some of the sand is smooth and why some is wrinkled. The consensus was that it was to do with the depth of water. I think that is about right. I did look it up and now wish I hadn't. I've copied one explanation below. It might as well have been written in Sanskrit for all that I could understand.

Wave ripples form because the interaction of the oscillatory flow, induced by surface waves close to the bottom, with a bottom undulation of small amplitude generates steady streamings which consist of recirculating cells. Indeed the presence of the bottom waviness induces periodic spatial variations of the streamwise oscillatory velocity component. Hence the nonlinear self-interaction of the velocity field, that is due to the convective acceleration, generates time-independent terms into momentum equation which can be balanced only by the presence of a steady velocity component.

Having sorted that out, the main group headed along the beach to Nairn, while we three went inland on a hoodie trek.

Mission accomplished.

The detour did have the benefit of allowing me to get a good photo of the raised beach. This feature is found throughout most of Scotland to varying degrees. Basically, the sea level was reduced because huge quantities of sea water were used up by the glaciers and ice sheet formed during the last ice age. In addition, once the ice melted, the land in Scotland bounced back up, whilst England, where there was less, or no ice, is sinking. The effect of these phenomena is to push the present sea level back from previous levels of over 6000 years ago. Essentially, the fields at the front of the photo were once under water and the cliff you see in the background is where the old beach used to be. As the tilt in the land differs depending upon where you are in the country, you cannot assume that all the beaches are the same age.

Fascinating, isn't it? And easier to understand than ripples in the sand.

So, a few millennia ago, this Tortoiseshell butterfly would have been struggling to find somewhere to settle in the sun.

As we got nearer to Nairn, we spotted a couple a couple of lads trying out the new bike washing facilities.

It wasn't long until we were sitting on the grass at the links with an ice cream to cool us down after our exertions. Liz Lamb was so grateful, she offered up a wee prayer.

Jimmy the Jack is a bit impressed by Pam Ham's 99.

Liam was a bit less impressed, when his ice cream fell out of the cone onto the grass. He did manage to hang onto the flake, though.

He sat and enjoyed what was left of it all.

Meanwhile a seagull soared gracefully through the azure blue of the summer sky - a fitting end to a great walk. Thanks to Dangling Dave and Smart Sandra  for organising it all. Then again, perhaps the seagull thought there was a chance of picking up the remains of Liam the Lobster's ice cream!