Tuesday 30.03.2010

An eighteenth birthday lunch on a blowy,snowy day with blizzards forecast, much like the day she was born in fact.

Saturday 27.03.2010

A good drying day and blowing a hooley on top of Bennachie. Staying nearby again for a week: six horses, three sheep, four hens and two dogs to look after. One dog confined to barracks with a bad leg but dog number two keen for a climb to the top.
Lots of folk about: a young man carrying three children, one in a front sling, one in a back sling and one on his shoulders. Hope he hung on to them if he got to the top.
The odd small patch of snow sitting in the nooks and crannies on the hill but the high mountains in the distance still have a good covering. And guess what? There`s more forecast for next week......

Tuesday 23.03.2010

So today I tidied a beach. As you do. Not my intention as we set off to "our" beach, a small cove on the Moray Firth we`ve been going to for years. Can get quite busy in the summer but often there`s no-one about and so it proved on this breezy Spring day.
While the others ambled about with dog in tow, clambering over rocks and taking photos I idly started picking up the odd bit of rubbish near to where we`d sat down. And then I couldn`t stop. There was so much of the stuff: beer cans and bottles, plastic string, disposable (ha!) barbecues, bottles of ketchup, carrier bags, one bright orange inflatable, uninflated and wrapped round a small tree,plastic bottles and bottle tops (millions of them),two china plates,plastic feed sacks,labels with foreign writing on them that presumably had washed up on the beach..........it went on and on. In the event I filled four and a half large black bin bags with the stuff and carried them up to the wheelie bins in the car park at the top of the headland. It sounds like hard work but was all done at a steady meandering sort of pace, looking up a lot to admire the view, sniff the air and watch the birds. And it was hugely pleasing to see how much better the place looked when we left. There was also masses of driftwood so we had a very satisfactory fire. There are many worse ways to spend a day....

Monday 22.03.2010

Well, that blew a few cobwebs away. Couldn`t decide where to start this morning so, as always, the best thing to do is walk and then everything else falls into line. Another wild, windy March day, spring wind rather than winter wind though. Sky very busy: white, grey and black clouds scudding about revealing patches of blue and letting the sun through every now and again.
`Scudding` seems such an unoriginal word for what the clouds were doing but I just looked it up and they really were "sweeping along easily and swiftly, driven before the wind".
A scudler, on the other hand,is "the leader of a band of guisers; the conductor of a festival" while a scudo is an old Italian silver coin. Dictionary surfing - one of life`s little pleasures. Just off to order some scuppernong.

Wednesday 17.03.2010

A mad March day, all bright sky and brisk wind. You could smell the sap rising, watch the grass recovering from the tons of snow that have been lying on it for weeks.
Dog and I were back to one of our favourite haunts, the neighbouring farmland that a few years ago was planted up with trees with the help of a grant that stipulates public access. Given the sparse population on the hill it`s like having nearly 300 acres of your own private nature reserve to amble round.
There`s a mix of hard and softwoods, some mature copses (including Edmond`s - see post 10.02.2010)and a stream running down one boundary. A couple of pylons are plonked in the middle over the far side but even they can look majestic when you`re standing right underneath.
It was all about noise today: wind in the trees, running water, madly busy crows, buzzards getting in their way and being chased off. Never a dull moment.
We walked more or less the whole perimeter and checked out the `thinking stones`. In the early days you could sit on the stones and look right across the valley but now you have to stand on them to see over the tops of the trees.
Apparently they`ll start thinning out the softwoods in about twenty years prior to harvesting and re-planting....this is a commercial concern after all....but it`s hard to imagine what it`ll look like by then - or where we`ll all be for that matter.

Sunday 14.03.2010

Despite the proximity of Bennachie we didn`t climb up. The top was shrouded in cloud for most of the day so we walked through the surrounding woods instead. Streams swollen by snow-melt tumbled noisily down the mountainside but deeper into the woods sounds were muted. The damp air and gloomy light emphasized the strange luminosity of the lichens and mosses. No wonder stories set in woods and forests often involve mystery, magic or something sinister,even woods like these with their wide,shale-covered paths and proliferation of signposts. Glance off those neat paths:tangled undergrowth, fungi-encrusted stumps, dark shadows, scamperings and rustlings. Could be anything in there.

Friday 12.03.2010

Mud everywhere and a cold, cold wind. I`m off to spend a weekend near Bennachie which is still marbled with snow so it`ll be interesting to see what the walking`s like.
Finished Michael Morpurgo`s latest book for children, Running Wild. It`s a beautiful story of loss and resilience and relationships built up between man, or in this case a boy called Will, and animals.
Morpurgo is brilliant at pacy, gripping yarns which tackle political and moral issues - in this case the consequences of war and threats to the environment - without for a moment being patronising or didactic or pretending that there are easy answers.
Read the story of how he became a writer*: the "house built of books" and the "music in the words" of the stories he heard as a child and the subsequent "snuffing out" of that love at school, where stories became
"full of difficulty and threat. There was spelling to master, punctuation, handwriting, comprehension, and worst of all, grammar. There were endless tests, I remember, and the penalty for failure - I found myself doing plenty of that - was disapproval from parents and teachers alike, ridicule and humiliation from my fellow students, detentions, red slashes all over my homework, and sometimes even the cane from the headmaster when my marks and my reports were particularly dreadful, as they so often were. That early love of books, that my mother had given me, all but vanished."

Then go and find a child to read a beautiful book to.

*http://www.michaelmorpurgo.com/resource-centre/public/download/f3bcf2348b388582c0bfa5ee0c774a4c/

Tuesday 09.03.2010

One day I would like a telescope and a small, cosy observatory on the very top of our top field. Tonight would be a good night. It`s sizzling with stars and Orion is hanging over the horizon at a rather comical angle. Many moons ago,to keep up the astronomical theme,when flying was still the preserve of the few and a bit of an adventure, I took off for Africa and an adventure of my own. We flew overnight and every time I looked out of the window there was Orion. He`s kept me company ever since on this and other continents and fanciful as it may seem I am always reassured by the sight of him. Even if he does look a bit drunk tonight.

Monday 08.03.2010

Dog`s a bit bleary-eyed and hungover but glad to be back from her city break and I`m glad to have her company again. Snow still a foot deep and more in places but softening by the minute, like walking on sand dunes. Where it`s completely melted the solid ground feels unfamiliar,my legs weirdly heavy and awkward. As I get into my stride my eyes are taking in the greens and browns of it and my nose is taking in the damp earthy smell of it while my ears ring to the mixed chorus of buzzards and crows, pheasants and wood pigeons. Makes you dizzy.
I`m told we get no benefit from the sun in this neck of the woods at this time of the year but I was getting plenty of cheerfulness from it today.
And to cap it all, a snipe zig-zagged out of the trees in front of us at one point. Now all I need to hear and see are the oyster-catchers, curlews and peewits and I`ll begin to believe we`re finally heading for Spring.

Thursday 04.03.2010

Just watched Butterfly`s Tongue, which, apart from being a warm depiction of growing up while the world goes mad around you, contains the line:
"In books our dreams take refuge so as not to freeze to death."
Sombre ending to the film though, so rewarded myself with a few excerpts from The Boat That Rocked, including Rhys Ifans declaration that:
"The only thing that makes sense in this crazy world is rock`n`roll." That`s better.

Thursday 04.03.2010

On sheep feeding duty early this morning. You can`t really have too much of a beautiful thing can you? Not when it`s this exquisite frozen stillness, literally breathtaking......the lines in that poem should read:
"A poor life this, if full of care,
We MAKE no time to stand and stare."
No football today as dog is on a city awayday or two.

Wednesday 03.03.2010

On some days, instead of setting off to walk miles and miles, it`s nice simply to wander to the top of the hill and take it all in:
"A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."
The rest of that poem sounds a bit clunky but W.H. Davies captured something in those two lines. Surveying the frozen white fields while listening to the buzzards overhead and soaking up the warm sunshine on a perfectly still morning...well, you can only stand and stare really.

Or you could play with your football.....