EAT, WALK, REPEAT

Two blogs for the price of one, this time around.

Early in December, we went to Contrast for our Christmas luncheon. We didn't get one of these last year due to Covid, so we set out to have a good one this time.

It really did not take long for us to get into a fairly convivial mood.

Charlie managed to have a bit of fun, despite being tied to the chair - a common occurrence, I've heard. Sharon certainly enjoyed it.

Pam was wearing her ear buds so that she couldn't hear Robin going on about what he was wanting from secret Santa later. Maybe it was a pair of pyjamas as he then  decided to cut out the meal and go straight to sleep sitting up.

Hugh couldn't bear to look to his right as Dave was wearing exactly the same coloured crown as him! Luckily their shirts were different, so as to avoid a complete clash of outfits.

Liz was anxious to leave for a quiet evening at home.

Unfortunately, Sandra had other ideas and forced Sharon and I into inviting them all back to our house for lemonade and crisps.

It seemed as if they had all missed each other's company so much, that they all turned up. Indeed, it was as if they had only got out of jail that morning, such was the gusto with which they demolished the white wine and crisps.

Such was the level of Bacchanalian consumption that it could only end badly. And, it did.

What follows is a set of time lapse photos (taking about 3 hours) showing Robin attempting to get an After Eight mint from his forehead to his mouth without using his hands - a wine soaked orgy, or what?

Success, at last!.

Hugh, on the other hand, was more athletic and elegant - as well as a lot quicker!

Eventually, we got them all to go home and we only took 2 hours to clean up.

Before too long, we were meeting up with them all again, only this time they were sober. Well, at least, I hope they were - it was half past ten on a cold Sabbath morning!

We had organised a walk starting from Milton of Leys shopping centre, which is a lot less grand than it sounds.

This was new territory for some of them and the country folk were agog at things like houses and building sites.

Not far past this building site, we crossed over the road, passing a waterfall and burn. This is the Millburn, which flows through a good deal of Inverness. At the point we crossed the road, there once stood a corn mill and a saw mill. Doubtless, this is why this area is known as Milltown of Leys, and the burn is the mill burn.

Soon enough, we were into the countryside and climbing uphill on the Old Military Road. This was built between 1728 and 1730 by General Wade following on from the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion. They were designed so that government troops could move quickly through the Highlands to quell any unrest. The irony is that the Jacobites used the roads to great effect in the early stages of the 1745 uprising.

I doubt we were as fast as any Jacobites or Hanovarians.

An artistic shot of sheep through a wet fence. I think this is a fitting visual metaphor for the way in which mankind has subjugated all nature and turned it to his advantage, without any thought for the suffering of creatures. The wispiness of the grass lies in stark contrast to the rigid lines of the fence, dripping with ironic tears for a lost paradise. The sheep are deliberately out of focus to emphasise the extent to which we have lost touch with the real world.

Then again, I just quite liked the effect.

Take your pick.

It was surprisingly boggy at this height - about 210 metres - getting on for 700 feet. You would wonder that houses were being built not too far from this height. In fact, there is a significant and wide spread prehistoric settlement of Bronze Age hut circles and field systems just here. People have lived here for a long time. In an echo of today, people lived at much higher altitudes until climate change forced them to lower levels after decades of wet and cold weather. Nothing really changes.

There would normally be a good view over Inverness from here, but it was all a bit murky. There was a temperature inversion over much of the Highlands today.

Generally air gets colder the higher up you go. However, sometimes, in high pressure, the air at higher levels sinks down and dries out and warms up. As warm air is more buoyant than cool air, this layer of air traps the cold air below it. If there is mist and fog about, as today, it can get trapped. As we were climbing, it was getting warmer, rather than colder as it normally would - hence the term inversion.

Despite being so close to the city, the air here was pretty clean as this lichen covered tree showed. Then again, Inverness is hardly the most industrial of cities.

We came across a couple of these concrete structures. I have no idea what they are and there was no clue nearby. I am having a great deal of difficulty with my usual site for identifying built structures and archaeology, so that hasn't helped. It will just have to remain a mystery for the time being.

There was a lot of water lying about in places, so there was plenty to reflect on.

About halfway round the block we decided they had been good enough to get a wee reward, so we opened up some non-alcoholic hot mulled wine and warm mince pies, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

The view over the trees was less than inspiring in the murky conditions.

Close up, the grass at our feet was much more interesting.

Could this be Larry the :Larch?

We were well into Daviot woods by now and they are well used by walkers. Someone has gone home without a glove and some pink thing I could not identify. Did they belong to the same person, the same group or family? Who knows? Will they ever come back and find their lost treasured objects? Does Boris have a sense of right and wrong? We may never know the answers to these questions. Well, maybe the last one and the answer is no!

Yellow Staghorn growing on a tree stump. This can sometimes be confused with a similar fungus, but the Staghorn always grows on wood. The proper name is Calocera viscosa. Calo means beautiful and cera means like wax. Viscosa means greasy or sticky - so sticky beautiful wax like fungus. Sums it up, really.

Heading downhill now.

Not a nuclear bunker or a Second World War pill box, but the Bogbain water reservoir. Bogbain doesn't sound too nice a place, but the Gaelic place name is Am Bog Ban - the fair bog, so named for the masses of cotton grass that used to grow here. Bogbain was one of the few places around Inverness where first language Gaelic speakers lived well into the 20th Century.

The remains of an ancient broch, or, perhaps, something cobbled together by little children.

Another mystery structure. This semi-circular feature seems to be part of the stone dyke, but it's purpose is a mystery to me.. I have tried to find out in the past, but to no avail. It does appear on some maps, but there is no indication of what function it might have.

Back in civilisation and we wander through the Balvonie site of Scotland's first Housing Expo. Balvonie derives from Baile a' Mhonaidh - township of the hill grazing. The Housing Expo actually took place because of experience on Finland, where there are annual housing fairs. These showcase new design and new materials and are huge tourist attractions for Finns. There is enormous competition from towns to host the fairs and they are open for a few weeks a year and visitors can visit the houses and wander round them even if they are occupied. Well worth a visit if you are ever in Finland.

As it happens, I visited a couple of Housing Fair sites - one old and the other, the current one for the year. I was with an architect, a forestry expert and a guy from the Scottish Government and the plan was to see how these Fairs worked and to try and have one established in Scotland. The Forestry Commission were interested and saw it as a means of increasing home grown timber use in construction and possibly as an option to promote woodland living.

It was a great experience and some time after I had moved on, the idea finally took off to a limited extent at Balvonie. It was never as big or as successful as the Finnish experience and I think there was a huge missed opportunity to improve domestic architecture through the use of local materials and innovative thinking. The big stumbling block was funding for services and convincing the private sector that this was something they should be pursuing. It was always easier to build lookalike little boxes that people would buy, because that was all that was on offer.

Never mind, rant over. 

From there it was a short step back to the car park and the cars, with a fine view through the murk to the firth.

From the car park, we (nearly) all decamped to our house for soup and a cheese scone. Having had nothing to do with the making of either, I can fairly say they were excellent and just what was needed on such a murky day.

Well done, Sharon.

So - Eat, Walk, Repeat.