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.