Castle Dounie

The walk was listed as a three-hour walk and we did it in three hours ten minutes - and that included a lot of short stops to enjoy views. The first hour was all uphill, zig-zagging up the hillside through ancient woodland with the sound of water in our ears and every shade of green around us.

The gravel track soon became a grass track interspersed with boulders, and the trees towered over us. Every so often a curve in the path would offer a spectacular window-view through the trees.

We made it to Castle Dounie on the lower summit of Creag Mhor along a wonderful path with heather billowing beside us on the last narrow path to the fort. There were no bees to be seen, which is a little worrying.

Right on the top of the hillare the stones of an Iron Age Fort. To me they looked like a cairn, but if you were an enthusiastic archeologist well versed in prehistoric structures, then you might be able to make out wall lines and such like. It was very small, and I kept on wondering if the people walked up to it or if they took their sure-footed garrons all the way to the castle.

 There are terrific views towards Jura and Mull, and they say you can see the notorious Corryvreckan whirlpool and even Ben Nevis to the north on a clear day. I suspect you have to be looking at just the right state of the tide to see anything of the whirlpool. I have seen film of it and watched documentaries that explain it and I have no urge to go out in a small boat and peer over the side knowing what is beneath me.

You can see a little white house on the hillside of Jura.  I think they must paint  Barnhill gleaming white every season because it stands out like a beacon. George Orwell lived there when he wrote his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. I could see Barnhill from many points during my stay in Crinan, and acknowledged a certain wish to be there, concentrating on writing to the exclusion of everything else. I know it will never happen - the mere idea would horrify dh and the midgies would be a torment in summer.

The walk is full of interest, varying terrain and returns by way of the same path this time plunging down the hill - and believe me, sustained walking down a steep slope is just as tiring to muscles not often used as going up. When we reached the path across the beach at Crinan Harbour we found a large rock each and sat in the sunshine and watched the little waves roll in. Their gentle splash mingled with the tapping of steel rigging on the yachts moored not far away. There is happiness in such simple things.

Druridge Bay

A day out today! The weather looked good, the forecast promised sunshine, and for December the temperature was high. So off we went to Druridge Bay, just south of Amble on the north-east coast. Lindisfarne was a tiny triangle of white on the horizon. One day I must go and visit the castle there.


 Today was a walk along the beach and back again while Tim ran in and out of the sea, gaining confidence as he went along. Just like a child, really - he splashed through pools of standing water, and explored every nook and cranny of the patch of rocks we discovered. All the time the sun was warm on our faces and then on our backs as we followed our footsteps back to the point in the dunes where we came down. Important to get it right as the beach is over seven miles long and a mistake could have extended our walk far more than we intended!

Driving away after the walk we drove by a farm that has converted old buildings into a Cafe and Gift Shop, so we bowled into the car park and went inside for a fruit scone and a cup of coffee. Most welcome, but we didn't dare stay long as Tim isn't too used to staying in the car on his own. Fortunately the sun was strong enough to keep the car warm for him even with the window open a crack.

All in all, a beautiful day and a lovely walk.

Tim and 10,000 steps

All the health pundits say we should walk 10,000 steps every day. Today we're only halfway through the day and Tim and I have walked  6,337.  By the end of the day we might have cracked it. Yesterday was 7,000 or so and the day before I forgot to wear the pedometer. One day I inadvertently set it to record kilometres rather than footsteps, and we did something like 6 k. It takes time to walk so many steps, but I have the time. Whether I have the stamina in this long hot summer of ours is another matter. I find I'm now thinking rather fondly of the autumn to come. Already the blackberries are ripening, and what a bumper crop we have in our hedgerows this year. Think of all those blackberry and apple crumbles we can have in the winter!

This morning we set off early, and walked across the river and up the hill towards the Roman Wall. After an hour, I phoned home and got dh to come and pick us up so we didn't have to face the long drag back uphill on the other side of the river when Tim and I were tired. Cheating, perhaps, but it makes it so pleasurable. The only other people we passed were two cyclists and for most of the route Tim ran off-lead, which he loves. We have lots of walks around here, and pretty countryside to do it is. (Cocks a snook at Lord Howells and his desolate north-east!) At puppy school I was told Tim should walk five minutes for every month of age, so right now he can do forty minutes. Given that the breed is noted for stamina, I've added in another third to that, otherwise after a couple of hours he'll be up and raring t go again.

In our early days together I walked him too far, remembering the long walks I used to do with my other Dalmatian so long ago. Tim began refusing to go out. He would sit on his backside on the lawn and just not go.  I was puzzled. Who knew of a dog that didn't want to go walkies? So I mentioned it at puppy school, which was where I learned that he'd walked too far and made his joints ache - associated the walks with pain. I felt so guilty! So now I'm more careful with him.

As a sideline of all this walking, I'm much fitter, but I wouldn't claim I've lost any weight. Possibly if I gave up the red wine, that would do more good! On the other hand, I can get into all my clothes - or nearly all of them. One pair of grey jeans to go and I'm home dry.

A lot of bull!

We've been walking almost every day we've been here, but now the days have turned sunny and hot, we've been doing it early in the morning, before the heat begins to bite. Yesterday we passed the Chateau Maurice at the end of a long walk over towards the holiday village of Constant, and today we went in the opposite direction and found ourselves deep in the woods.
Not a problem, even though imagination suggested that if I were walking on the north American continent, I wouldn't have been so happy, knowing that a bear might appear around the next corner, or a cougar be lying in wait along some branch. But I prefer my forest trails with vistas, and this one was simply flat walking along a muddy trail with scrub and trees either side. Nothing to look at until eventually we struck out into rolling hills and fields again.

Admiring a vast field of grass sprinkled with blue flowers, I got down on my knees to take a photograph and heard dh shushing me and pointing to something in the bushes behind him. Not five feet away lay a huge white bull, no doubt rudely awoken from his night's rest (by us). His back end, facing us, looked as big as a house and since I have little faith at the best of times that the single strand electric fences the French use would keep an animal of his size away from us if he chose to disregard it, we hurriedly tiptoed away down the track.
The blackberries are out here, and are ripening fast. We've collected a few and plan to make a blackberry crumble, maybe with some of the plums growing in the field mixed in. Right now as I sit by the open window with the sun pouring in, I hear the rustle among the hazel trees and catch a glimpse of a red squirrel scampering through the branches.

Daisy delight

I love these big, splashy daisies. When I sit on the patio and look through them, they seem like a forest of daisies, a wonderful world all of its own.



It seems everyone is on holiday, or else they're all laid low with 'flu, swine or otherwise. Usually I am on holiday along with everyone else, but not this year. At least staying at home has given me time to enjoy my garden all through the summer instead of missing almost a month and coming back to find a jungle and the birds have eaten all the raspberries.

Trouble is, you have to be quick to catch the sun in among all the rain we've had this summer.
We've learned to drop everything and go when ever it appears. We've also become very canny at
hopping on a bus , getting off at some previously unexplored point and walking home, map in hand.

Today we got the bus up the hill, walked across South Park fields and down through Stanleyburn Woods tot he golf course. Delightful. Quiet, pretty and no sound of traffic which is difficult to achieve in this day and age in a relatively small country like the UK. We saw only one person the whole walk, and that was for a split second as he veered off in another direction. Just one thing - I'm so glad we did it south to north. The uphill gradient the other way around would have killed me!


Reluctance is finished and now it is re-read and find all the mistakes time. The words the computer mysteriously edits without your knowledge or permission. The missing letters that turn a vital SHE into an irrelevant HE. The bits you've somehow included twice over and not necessarily because it was so darned good. And worst of all, the bits that you thought you had included and somehow just are not there.

Late plots

There, he's got the cup, won the match, worn his
Thunderbirds-are-go jacket and it's all over for
another year.

Good thing, too, as we've had horrendous rain today. I am, at last, back to work and wondering why it is I only have INSIGHTS into plot development once I've written the damned chapter. I romp on to chapter Eleven and in the middle of the night realise I should have had Mary turn up at the dance in Chapter Seven and flirt with Holbrook. She is conspicuous only by her absence.
So back I go and insert all the relevant bits, and wonder what I'm going to think about chapter eight, nine and ten once I've reached fifteen, sixteen and seventeen.
I think I'll go for a walk and ponder before I go any further.
There's lots to ponder. Why, for example, the media currently rules the world. Why people seem to go into national hysteria mode when a famous person dies these days. Or perhaps they don't, perhaps I only think they do because the media tells me they do. Was it like this for Valentino? Lennon? Or do the subjects have to be realtively young and goodlooking? I noticed no hoo-ha for Sinatra, but maybe I was looking the other way.
24 hour news on hundreds of channels requires 24 hour stories to tell and there are so many journalists trying to make the grade out there...am I a cynic for thinking that sometimes they well, tweak a story to make it interesting? On the one hand I hope I am; on the other, I'm sure I'm not. I am divided, and let me tell you, it is uncomfortable!

Walking

I've been out walking most afternoons this week and found it rewarding. Not only did I sleep better, but found these two cuties peering over (or through, if you're not as tall as your friend) the gate.

The weather was bright and blustery - so much so that on Thursday I was all but blown back up the hill home! The land rises about 90 metres from the river bank to the town in a distance of about in 1000 metres. Or put another way, 292 feet in two thirds of a mile. Either way, it is along haul going up, and a breeze going down.

Each day the river was different. We explored where the Whittle Dene joins the Tyne, and traced it north. One day we saw five living salmon and three dead. The other days the numbers had changed, and the last day we saw only dead fish. I think it is so sad that once they've struggled all the way back to their home river to spawn, most of them die.

Since the Tyne is the best salmon fishing river in England, I should take more notice of what goes on. Perhaps I will next season. Right now only three or four fish a month enter the river, if past statistics are anything to go by. But this is the time when the little smolts, no longer than a man's hand are fighting their way out to sea.