keeping track of things

The hard frost over the snow has let me wander off-piste so to speak, able to leave the straight and narrow and crunch my way over field and moor.

Up at the edge of the moor the sky was the colour that used to be associated with Mr Reckitt with wispy cirrus clouds but, on the northern horizon, there was a lowering bank of cumulus with snow in its folds.

I amused myself by trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to identify the animal and bird tracks in the snow. Some were easy, the lines of runes left by the local pheasantry, the neat prints of Mr Fox’s nocturnal searches and the dainty pockets in the snow of the roe deer.

Pheasant

It was obvious where deer had left one field and crossed the road into another, seeking shelter in the lea of a hedge, perhaps, so, fired with boy-scout enthusiasm, I followed on.

Feeling like a hunter I stalked my quarry although the illusion was somewhat dented when a fellow walker, spotting my camera said,
“There are some deer near the river. You might get some pictures”

I’m convinced I would have tracked them on my own!

With a bit of stealth, I did get within bow shot of one and felt that, if I were a Neolithic archer, I might have dined on venison even if I had had a bit of help on the way.

My unsuspecting prey

A better picture

Today is the winter solstice and my Neolithic antecedent would have been celebrating the sunrise. This is the true turning point of the year. Christmas, Hogmanay and all the other festivals are human constructs of religious, political or administrative origin. Gaia doesn’t know when they are but she does know when we have reached the nadir and things are looking up. The new year begins now.

Midwinter sunrise, December 21st 2009

Happy solstice!

Winter days

The Trees

Now is the start of the halcyon days, the spell of mild weather around the winter solstice when the fabled halcyon would build its floating nest.
Freed from the embarrassment of sticks, I have begun to wander further afield though still on the beaten track. The flocks of fieldfares and redwings are back, stripping the haws off the hedgerows.
As I made my way along an avenue of old trees that once graced the approach to a mansion house now long gone, the low winter sun was bathing them with watery rays.
My eye was caught by a bobbing jerky movement around the bole of a venerable field maple. A great spotted woodpecker was busy investigating the cracks in the bark. I wondered if it was the one we photographed being fledged in the nearby wood last year.

Last year

As I watched it, I became aware of the amount of activity in the trees. Chaffinches and goldfinches even a bullfinch, were competing with coal tits and blue tits for what ever they could find in the crevices and between the scales of the bark. A wren was prospecting around the great roots.

Catching the rays

On another tree, I was lucky enough to spot a nuthatch, moving head downwards on the upper trunk. We are just at the northern boundary of their range, so is this the result of climate change?
The little group of two maples and a surviving elm were alive with birds and yet, when I returned after about half an hour, the sun had sunk behind the ridge and, although there was still plenty daylight, the trees were no longer illuminated by sunlight and were empty and silent.
Every creature craves the sun especially in the depths of winter and you can appreciate why our forefathers lit bonfires to celebrate, or to defy, the darkness of the shortest day.

I am beginning to see those seemingly OTT displays of illuminations festooning some of the nearby houses in a different light, if you’ll pardon the pun. The lights, the coloured, flickering ropes, the electric icicles, the santas, the reindeer, the Christmas trees, even, in one garden, Snow White and her vertically challenged chums are all burning up the kilowatts
My eco-spirit, instead of condemning them for an extravagant waste of resources, has been thinking, well, they are just the old bale-fires in a new guise. A shout against the tyranny of darkness and cold, they do seem to cheer up the passer-by.
After all, what is driving them is just the sunlight of millions of years ago bottled up in fossil fuels and we can allow ourselves just a wee drop especially when the daily ration is so curtailed.

Roll on the Yuletide, the 21st when, at last, the days will slowly start to lengthen again and we will all feel better.

Toad in a hole

Toad has been missing from the garden for some time. Originally rescued from a dustbin where he had foolishly decided to hibernate, he was turned loose by the pond (or puddle, as the family referred scathingly to it) then he vanished under the radar or at least under the border plants. With the arrival of ambulant grandchildren, the pond was drained in the interests of safety and the frogs captured and re-homed in a neighbour’s bigger and very wildlife-friendly pond. Toad, however, escaped detection and it was assumed he had wandered off.
Now years later, he has turned up under an upturned plant pot, looking as handsome as ever.

We are wondering if his reappearance is connected with the fact that LotH has just taken possession of a new motor car. Poop Poop!!

It's all a bit of a myth.

For the last week I have been watching the north-eastern skies for the Perseids meteor shower. Between periods of over-cast skies ( what else could I expect ?), the glow of a waning gibbous moon, and the light pollution of the village, I managed to spot a few shooting stars and wished on every one. Always the same wish for I am not greedy and, of course, you cannot ever tell your wish or it won’t come true.
The meteors originate around the constellation of Perseus, sitting in the heavens alongside his beloved Andromeda, with the head of Medusa, the Gorgon in his hand, the devil-star Algol, winking in the forehead. His perfidious in-laws Cassiopeia and Cepheus are there as well.
Perseus was probably some chieftain or warrior king in Bronze Age Greece. He was supposed to be the progenitor of the Mycenae who went on to dominate the eastern Mediterranean, fought the Trojan War, became the Greeks bearing gifts of whom we should beware, and who “burnt the topless towers of Ilium”.

At the weekend, I travelled up to Forteviot to see the excavations of the tomb of a Bronze Age warrior chief.
A stone lined cist set into an even older Neolithic henge that his people must have recognised as a sacred place. A “pillow” of quartz crystals pebbles and a birchbark coffin marked him as an important man. Even more so was presence of a bronze dagger with gold banding placed in the grave. His tomb was sealed with a four tonne capstone.

On the drive home, I reflected that we know all about Perseus, a man, probably contemporary with the occupant of the Perthshire tomb and probably of the same social standing, a warrior king, yet we know next to nothing about our local hero. Did his people see him in the sky after death? Was he the “Tabhaicht” in Fothair Tabhaicht or Forteviot?
There were later Pictish palaces on the site so it has always been associated with chiefs and kings.
A pity there was no Homer around to sing his praises.
We have to borrow our myths.

Westward Ho.

We’ve been off travelling, overseas, to a land where temples to the sun and moon arise out of the landscape, where the natives speak an ancient tongue, where rare orchids are to be found and where there are tales of pygmy islands. A land of white sands and turquoise seas.

No, we’ve not been east of Zanzibar, more like west of Ullapool. A trip to the Outer Hebrides, to the Long Island, to Lewis to be precise, in order that LotH could recharge her Gaelic batteries and revisit youthful haunts and not-so-youthful relatives.
As the ferry approached Stornoway, we were welcomed by a pod of porpoises jumping ahead of the boat. A good omen and so it proved for the weather, so often a limiting factor on the Atlantic’s edge, stayed fair throughout our stay.
LotH enjoyed reliving her childhood all over the island, as well as doing all the tourist spots. The Callanish stones were, as usual, too crowded but we were able to soak in the atmosphere at Callanish II and III , the smaller circles in splendid solitude

Callanis II

A trip across the Bridge over the Atlantic took us to Bernera with its wild rugged scenery and spectacular beaches. The sea looked so inviting on a warm day; it was only the realisation that the waters were those of the North Atlantic and not the Caribbean that stopped us dipping a toe. LotH spied a golden eagle sitting on rock surveying us with imperious eye. And, yes, it was an eagle. We were in eagle country.

The bridge over the Atlantic

Neolithic sites, round every other corner, standing stone or chambered cairn or stone circle jostled for attention with Iron Age brochs, duns and crannogs and early Christian chapels and anchorite cells.

In between, there was time for a bit of orchid hunting. The Hebridean Spotted-orchid is native to the island but it proved elusive, hybridising as it does with other species. I think I found one but it was probably a hybrid with the Heath Spotted-orchid or with the Northern Marsh orchid which also abound on the moors and machair.

Northern Marsh, Heath - spotted, Hebridean ? Which orchid is which?


The Isle of Pygmies? Oh yes. Luchruban or Eilean na Luchrupain is a small outlier separated from the Butt of Lewis by a narrow channel and steep cliffs.

“On the sea coast about 1 mile WSW of the Butt of Lewis is a precipitous grass-covered rock, rising some 60 - 70ft above the sea, and isolated from the mainland by a deep cleft. It is known as Luchruban and has been identified with the 'Eilean na Luchrupain', or Isle of Pigmies or Little Men, recorded by Dean Munro in about 1549, and later writers. At the SE corner of the summit, which measures about 80ft - 70ft, is a building, built partly underground, which lies NE-SW and comprises an almost circular chamber about 10ft in diameter at the SW end, connected by a passage 9ft long and 2ft wide to a rectangular chamber 8ft long and 5 1/2ft wide. There is an entrance to the passage from the S, and opposite this on the other side there is a recess.” (RCAHMS
The building where the pygmies were thought to live is now regarded as yet another anchorite cell from the early Christian era like so many dotted around the island fringes, the Pabbays, Pappys, Pappas and Pabails of the western and northern isles.
Some thirty years ago, in younger fitter and, on reflection, foolhardier times, I climbed the cliffs to get on to the island. I have no idea how I managed it but I do recall a buttock tightening moment getting over the overhang on the way back.
A somewhat faded thirty year - old shot of the cell on Luchruban

Older and wiser counsel now prevailed and we viewed the island from the safety of Roinn a Roidh – the promontory of the bog myrtle (?). LotH announced that if she had known about it, I would never have made the first visit.
The weather continued to favour us but alas still neither sight nor sound of the elusive corn crake. BiL assured us that one had been calling just below the family croft and SiL had actually seen one crossing the road but, as usual, as soon as I arrive they take a vow of silence.
An expedition to find a chambered cairn on the moors aroused to proprietary instincts of a pair of Arctic skuas but at leas they weren’t as aggressive as their big cousins, the bonxies, whose ire I had aroused on previous field trips and who can really mean business when it comes to driving off intruders.

Tramping or in my case hirpling, across moors and machair made us appreciate the pleasures of the sauna and jacuzzi in our accommodation as well as the local restaurants and take-aways – Malay. Thai, Chinese, Indian, Italian and, of course, that most Scottish of cuisine, the chippie.
I wonder if there would be a market for a Hebridean restaurant serving Lewis lamb, Stornoway black pudding, tatties and salt herring, fresh mackerel, perhaps even guga in season. Guga? Oh that’s another story! Google it, if you you want to know more.
Sailing back across the Minch, expedition over and not a pith helmet or native bearer needed, it had turned out a fruitful trip in space and time.

Pushing the boat out

Conditioned as we are to the to the sea haar and the easterly winds, when the sun shines it brings out the old joie de vivre, so, on a whim, LotH and I went off down to the harbour acting the tourists and took a trip in the latest addition to the local fleet – the Glass Bottomed Boat.
As the North Sea fish stocks diminish, the fishing community are turning, in some cases reluctantly but in others eagerly, to catching a new species - the visitor. It must be a lot easier life than fighting the elements and literally risking life and limb for uncertain returns. The trawlers, prawners, crab and lobster boats have been joined or sometimes replaced, by sub aqua dive boats, sea angling boats and, now, the Glass Bottomed Boat.
LotH and I boarded from the pontoon jetty with its gently slopping ramp. Another concession to the new market, you can’t expect land lubbers to climb down harbour ladders.

An easy life

The harbour seals are so spoiled they nosed expectantly round us as we chugged out to sea. Entrepreneurial local merchants or fish cadgers as they are called, have started selling fish to the visitors to feed the seals. A win-win-win situation. The fish sellers get rid of any unwanted fish, the tourists have a great time interacting with the wild life and the seals have a pleasant superannuated existence, eating and sleeping on the rocks.
There had been word of minkes moving up and down the coast, following the mackerel but neither they, nor the porpoises were to be seen but the trip was otherwise a great success.

Gannets soared up, folding their wings and diving like arrows, kittiwakes dipped into the water like children ducking for apples, and guillemots, swimming like penguins, shot under the boat, all in search of the sand eels which seem to be plentiful again. We even saw a solitary puffin. There are only about ten breeding pairs on the Head but even this is an improvement on previous years.

The shallow draft and the expertise of the local skipper who knew every rock of his native coast, let us get close into the breeding birds on the cliffs and outliers Shags, herring gulls, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes, all alight, take off, sleep and breed on the crowded ledges. The gannets have their own colony further up the coast on the Bass and other islands in the Forth.

High density accomodation

Despite the absence of the big sea mammals, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Seeing the land from the sea is a bit like coming into a town by train rather than car, you see familiar surroundings from a different angle. It made us feel even more like holiday makers so, after disembarking, a stroll to a harbour-side restaurant for lunch seemed obligatory.
We are so quick to dash off to foreign climes we sometimes ignore what is on the doorstep.
As Wallace and Gromit would say… “ a Grand Day Out”.

Puncturing my beliefs

As soon as I straddled the usually reliable bicycle, I knew there was something amiss. The seat is never that comfortable but today it was positively attention grabbing. I had just read an article about excessive cycling as a threat to masculinity and this seemed the positive proof. A glance behind confirmed my suspicions. I had a puncture in the back tyre.
A quick whirl of the wheel revealed a tack in the tread. A curse on the local school and its poster campaign against dog fouling, Primary 3 & 4 thumbs are not up to pushing drawing pins into unyielding substrates and I had unwittingly fallen foul, if you will forgive the pun, of a stray drawing pin,
Mending a puncture is to have a Proustian moment, a remembrance of things past, like winding the clock or being able to do mental arithmetic. It took me back to school days when bicycles were just bikes not mountain bikes and had, if you were lucky, a Sturmey-Archer 3 speed gear.
It was with some trepidation, I approached the prospect of removing the rear wheel of a bike equipped with a fifteen speed derailleur “French “ gear with multiple cogs and shifts. I recalled the time when I broke the chain and, having managed to insert a new link, was faced with the prospect of re-aligning the chain and the gear wheels, especially when the aforesaid bicycle is turned upside down sitting on its seat and handlebars. A task that involved staring at the picture in the manual and then imagining it upside down and back to front.
Getting the tyre off was the first task. As far as I recalled, this used to involve a pal and two spoons filched from the kitchen drawer, the bent handles of which had to be explained afterwards to an irate parent of the female persuasion. There were no pals or spoons available so a couple of flat keys and a lot of cursing sufficed. Then the ritual of pumping up of the punctured tube, the immersion in a basin of water to find the tell-tale bubbles, the little yellow crayon to mark the hole, a sandpaper strip to roughen the surface, the rubber solution, peeling the backing of the patch, sticking it on and then, grating the French chalk over the patch to stop it adhering to the tyre, then the struggle to replace the tyre and the satisfying “plop” as it fits back onto the wheel.
There is something very satisfying about mending a puncture. In an age when cars are computerised mysteries and all electrical appliances are cheaper to bin than to repair, mending a puncture takes you back to youth, to “the blue remembered hills…. where I went and cannot come again” .
Once, in discussion about age, we concluded that once you were unable to do a cartwheel or climb a tree, you were old or, at least, no longer young. It is a couple of years since I, for a dare, performed a sort of cartwheel and as long since I climbed a tree but, yesterday, I mended a puncture.

Come wind, come weather

The westerlies have returned.
The trade winds started to blow again last week, in mid June, and brought with them the torrential rain, our own mini-monsoon, that ruins so many sport events and outdoor gatherings planned with no thought of the weather cycle.
It happens with remarkable regularity, year in year out, but, cocooned as we are from the elements, we are hardly aware of it.
The buffeting winds and squally rain did not deter a group of archaeologists on a dig on one of the mounds that are scattered over the high moor above the village. The moor is where an outstretched limb of the Lammermuirs eventually descends to dip its toe in the North Sea at St Abbs and is as exposed a spot as one can find. Living there must be like living on the deck of a ship.
Folk did live there and still do.

The dig team assisted by "locals"

The dig was on a “settlement” that had just been de-scheduled from the list of ancient monuments probably to save the expense have to fence it off and it would appear to have been an exercise in checking to make absolutely certain there was nothing of significance on the site before leaving it to the depredations of the rabbits and the sheep.

Not much of interest, an external ditch, not really defensive, probably just to keep livestock out: a few spots where there was evidence of levelling out bumps in the bed-rock or of infilling depressions, to make a level floor; a water cistern cut into the rock. Not much, just folk making themselves a little more comfortable. An Iron Age farmhouse, probably occupied by people of the Brythonic tribe the Romans called the Votadini. A farmhouse then, just a hundred yards from the current farm house, a good place to live, high and dry above the marshy, wooded valley bottoms, a place with wonderful views of the coastline, a stream close at hand and the ability to exploit every resource from the fish in the sea to the game on the moor with the fertile ground to farm between the two, it would have been occupied for generations.

The modern farmhouse, on the right, is only a few yards away after 200o years


The only significant find was a huge post hole, one of four that would have supported the centre of the circular roof. It was extremely large and deep and the reason for all the effort to embed it so deeply in the bedrock floor was there for all to see or, rather, feel. It would have needed a firm setting to withstand the wind and keep the roof from blowing into the North Sea.

Those Iron Age people would have been only too aware of the return of the westerlies.

Bunker shots

What with all the furore surrounding the D-Day commemoration reminding us how Tom Hanks won the war and a repeat showing of Churchill’s Secret Army on Channel 4, I thought I’d go and check out the secret wartime bunker hidden about a couple of miles outside the village. I heard about it from a pair of local worthies who stravage about the countryside even more than I do. They discovered it some years back dug out the entrance, got in and photographed the interior but kept it very quiet. I was given a rough idea where to look, so off I went.

The Main Entrance

Apparently in 1940 or so when a Nazi invasion was on the cards, a group of volunteers from the Home Guard were picked for training in sabotage, demolition, and survival. In the event of a German landing they were to leave their families, disappear and go underground, literally
Bunkers or “operational bases” were hidden in woods. I suppose, our village being close to the East Coast main line and the A1 with all it bridges, it would have been an obvious spot. Equipped with guns, explosives and supplies, these men would have formed the basis for a resistance movement ….or a suicide squad.
Needless to say they were never called upon and, in latter part of the war, were disbanded. Having been sworn to secrecy and signed the Official Secrets Act, they never divulged the details of the scheme and most of them, if not all, are long gone.
In these days of off- the-record briefings, smear campaigns, leaked documents, lost c.d.’s, and stolen lap-tops, their honest, loyal, honourable integrity seems touching.
They were told not to say anything so they didn’t
Would they have been so quick to volunteer if they had known what a collection of freeloaders, shysters and opportunists, now represent the democracy they were so keen to protect?

The Escape Hatch

The bunker is still intact, fifteen feet below ground, nearly seventy years after its construction from corrugated iron and brick. All there, entrance, escape hatch, blast wall, a tribute to the workmanship and quality of materials used even in wartime. How many of today’s housing estates will be standing above ground in seventy years?

The Interior (courtesy of the original finders)

Altogether, a fun day out. There is an Adopt- a-Monument scheme for preserving old buildings. I wonder if we could preserve it as a historic monument. We could alert the government to its survival. After all, they probably still own it. If not, someone could claim a second home allowance for it.. It is certainly an attractive spot and I’m sure there are those in the spotlight at the moment that might just welcome just such a tranquil hideaway.

The view from the bunker

Rhymer's Reel

The Eildons

Fed up with the limitations imposed on my wanderings by a game leg and frustrated by erstwhile climbing companions gleefully reporting” there’s still snow on Ben Wyvis”, I decided to test myself on our own mini-mountains, the Eildon hills. The remains of an ancient volcano, Trimontium of the invading Romans, and oppidum of the native Selgovae, the Eildons stand out from the surrounding country and would, I thought, be a fair trial.

Melrose Abbey

Setting off from the site of the Eildon Tree where True Thomas the Rhymer met the Queen of Faerie, I trekked up North Eildon with much grunts and muttered expletives. It took a long time but it was worth it. On a clear day, such as it was, I could see as far as the moor above our village away on the coast and had a great view of Melrose Abbey where that other Border wizard, Michael Scott, lies buried.


Rhymer's Tower

Thomas the Rhymer was a real 13th century man. His keep still stands in Ercildoune (Earlston) and his name appears on documents of the time. He is credited with some of the earliest recorded Scots poetry. His poem-play, Sir Tristem ,was resurrected by Sir Walter Scott who also took the great landscape artist Turner to Rhymers Glen by the Huntley Burn. Turner’s watercolour of the glen is in the National Gallery.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was so intrigued by the tale that he started to compose an opera about Thomas. Sadly, it was never finished.

Thomas, apparently met the the queen of Elfland while resting under the Eildon tree, she took him away and he was not seen for either three or seven years depending on which version you read. He was given the gift of prophecy but cursed with only being able to speak the truth. An Orphean figure,his prophecies were widely consulted for hundreds of years down to at least the eighteenth century. Only being able to speak the truth might indeed be a curse but also quite a handy reputation to have once word got around that everything you said was gospel.

Our current politicians would give all their expenses for such an accolade. Many of them seem to have been “away with the fairies” when it came to filling in claim forms
Thomas probably worked as a spy, maybe even a double agent, in the days when borders were fluid and kings and families battled for overlordship as the Canmore dynasty came to an end. Quite handy then to disappear and claim to have been abducted by the fairy folk

In some versions, Thomas fell asleep by the Huntley Burn and woke to meet the fairy folk. The folk that go to sleep there nowadays awake to find bits of themselves missing. It is the site of our District General Hospital.

Midddle and West Eildon from North Eildon

After getting to the top of the North Eildon I could see the path up the next one but discretion being the better part and all that, I made my reluctant way back to the car., Still, a good day out and, on return, thank goodness for hot baths, ibuprofen and whisky.

Patriot Games

The restoration of the thirteenth century Priory that dominates the centre of our village proceeds apace. A Cinderella amongst the great Border abbeys, it has been neglected for decades. Thanks to the efforts of local interest groups, support has been garnered from every conceivable source even including a visit from rock megastar, bassist, metal detector enthusiast and gentleman, Rolling Stone, Bill Wyman.

It all started after the local council started laying waste to the area with strimmers and chainsaws. My involvement came by chance as I rushed to protect three gean trees I had planted; one for each daughter in what was the wild area surrounding the ruins. That led to committees and meetings as I felt obliged, in my mind, to give useful advice or stick my nose in as others may have seen it.

The ruins are now being stabilised. The ancient grave slabs, including the enigmatic “Templar” crosses, are being professionally restored and interesting finds being unearthed. A wheel-head cross and an inscribed stone are probably from an even earlier establishment, closer in time to St Aebba herself. A Northumbrian princess, allegedly fleeing an arranged dynastic marriage, she was an Dark Age example of what is now called “girl power”. It is also a reminder how random are national boundaries.
This was once part of an Anglian, from whence “English”, kingdom. Aebba’s brother, Oswald, having already annexed Mercia, the area south to the Humber, marched north to the Forth and defeated the Scots. Aebba’s other brother, Oswui, consolidated the kingdom. Her nephew Ecgfrith laid siege as far north as Dunottar. Had it not been for the victory of the Picts at Nechtan’s Mere, Scotland and England might never have evolved into separate nations with arguably different characters. We might well have become part of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria and be now worrying about Newcastle United’s imminent relegation from the Premier League. Way-ay, the lads
I tell myself this as part of an auto-conditioning process. In the event of Scotland not qualifying for the next World Cup, I will have to cheer on England, especially with four English grandchildren. I will have to shout encouragement to Rooney (sounds Irish): Rio Ferdinand (sounds Spanish enough to have sailed with the Armada): Gerrard (un morceau de sang normande, peut-etre ) and their Italian coach.
Nations are mere constructs and we should not get too hung up on them.
Mind you, if by the longest of shots, Scotland do qualify then I might sing a different song.
“ 0’ Flower of ….”

The waiting game

I nearly waited too long for Godot. My cyber-alert system had been primed to let me know when Becket’s enigmatic piece was coming to Edinburgh but it had obviously decided that I was denying its existence by creating its memory and decided to be “of itself” and ignore my instructions. P erhaps it had been reading over my shoulder when I googled Becket.
Telephoning the theatre, I got what was, if not the last seat in the house, the next but one. I was seated in the top right hand corner of what is politely referred to as the Upper Circle but is generally known as “the gods”. I haven't sat so high up for years. It reminded me of school trips to pantomimes of yesteryear when gangs of nine and ten year olds were bussed up to Edinburgh for a Christmas treat and sat in jostling, unruly rows like so many pigeons on window sills, peering down from the giddy heights as Jimmy Logan or Stanley Baxter went through their routines.
Ah, the austerity of the fifties, when will we see the likes again? Gey soon, it would seem if the financial pundits are to be believed.
I hadn’t seen WFG for about thirty years and I had forgotten, or never realised, how funny it is. I suppose asides about prostatism, senior moments, incipient senility and daytime somnolence didn’t have the same relevance for me thirty years ago.
A superb production. McKellen, Stewart, Callow and Pickup were as good as all the revues said they were, The set, the lighting, even a very passable Merlot in the Upper Circle bar, all contributed to a tremendous experience. Yet after the buzz, the enjoyment of the theatrical experience, there was a bleakness that grabbed you unawares. We are all waiting for…for what ?

The swallows are back. I have seen my first of the year. 24th of April. Always the same, within 48 hours, every year! I have been waiting for them to arrive. We are always waiting for something but at least the swallows never disappoint.

Artful Dodging

I took myself up to Edinburgh to see the “Turner in Italy” exhibition at what used to be the Royal Scottish Academy, now part of the "National Gallery Complex". Auld Reekie is really in a mess. In preparation for the new tram system, the streets have been dug up into a system of trenches to rival the Western Front. Peering down into them you could see exposed the network of pipes and cables and conduits that keep the city functioning – telephone, electricity, water, gas. It reminded me of times spent in the dissecting rooms tracing the paths of the brachial artery or the lateral cutaneous nerve of thigh on formalin-bronzed cadavers in what was, in my case, a rather vain attempt to commit the complexity of the human anatomy to memory.

But the Turners were worth all the crossing and re-crossing of streets and finding a way through the maze of health-and-safety mesh fencing ( hard hats must be worn).

The earlier pictures were great but the later ones of Venice, of the Santa Maria del Salute rising ghostly in the miasma off the canals, were astonishing.

A step round the back took me to the National Gallery proper to pay homage to Velazquez’ “An Old Woman Cooking Eggs” that has been away, starring in the BBC series "The Baroque", and is now back where it belongs. It also gave me a chance to feel the warm glow of ownership as I contemplated the acres of naked flesh that are the Titians, proudly purchased on our behalf, by the government of Scotland. They have spent money on less worthy causes.
All those dimply bums, love-handles and cellulite would certainly merit a stern lecture from the practice nurse on the perils of BMI’s over 25 and the danger to the skin of over-exposure to ultraviolet.
Waving my free pass, I clambered aboard the bus to trundle round the countryside back to the village, my I-pod suitably charged to while away the couple of hours it takes to reach the sticks.
Despite all the twinges and niggles and general falling apart, getting older can be quite enjoyable at times.

seven of one

A sunny spring day and where better to be than The Greenyards for the Melrose Sevens or the Melrose Sports as the old men would call the tournament, harking back to when seven-a-side rugby was only part of the day’s events alongside kicking competitions, sprints and races. Now, this, the oldest sevens tournament in the world, the begetter of all others up to and including the Sevens World Cup, is great social event with fancy dress, Easter bonnets, a carnival atmosphere and literally, gallons of hospitality. It is still the Blue Riband event though, the one tournament every great player wants to win or at least play in. Waisale Serevi, probably the greatest exponent of the short game and playmaker of world champions Fiji was there for the swan song of his career and was reportedly happy just to have been involved despite his side being well beaten in the first round. My old home side suffered the same fate.
Sevens is a game for sheer blistering speed. There is no place to hide with only half the number of players on a full sized rugby pitch. Miss a tackle or throw a stray pass and like as not the other side are in under the posts. Seven and a half minutes doesn’t sound like much but it is a long time to keep running especially on a warm spring afternoon, then turn round and do it again and, if you win, you do it again and again, all afternoon. My only sevens medal came from a wet, dank afternoon on a muddy pitch in a junior tournament. The next week, on a sunny day and a dry pitch, my lack of pace was exposed, we went out in the first round and I was dropped.
I’ve always enjoyed sevens as a spectator sport having watched the great club sevens of the past when the perfect combination of backs and forwards were playing for one team at just the right time. Melrose themselves, Hawick, Kelso, Gala and the great visiting sides London Scottish, Loughborough the composite sides like the Barbarians, French Barbarians Irish Wolfhounds, Co-optomists and the overseas visitors, Randwick, Bay of Plenty, Stellenbosch, Narwaka have all had their day in the sun. Despite Melrose’s brave effort in getting to the final, I can’t see a Border side winning the sevens again such is the power, pace and pool of talent of teams like this year’s winners - University of Johannesburg.
A ten-a -side match between the finalists of the veteran’s tournament held the previous day took place between the semi-finals and the finals of the main event.
I felt the dead hand of Time on my shoulder when I heard the son of someone I was at school with described as a veteran!
Oh dear.

The Times they are a-changing

The times have certainly changed.
AOL no longer supports blogs so I have had to pack up my hyphens, commas and ellipses and seek cyber-pastures new.
Post-traumatic avascular necrosis of the femoral head some thirty years after dislocation of the hip in an RTA has limited my walking range so no more big hills for me unless and until I get a nice shiny new one.
I am now confined to circuits round the village where the times are changing rapidly. I saw my first butterfly of the year, a peacock, sunning itself in the shelter a clump of aubretia that has sprouted and blossomed on the needs-a-bit-of-pointing-that-does garden wall. On the same day as I came across an ermine in full fig looking some what embarrassed to be still wearing last season’s colours.
The garden has been invaded by the golden yellow stars of celandine. A pernicious, if attractive, weed, it has proved impossible to eradicate. I console myself with the words of Old Jimmy Brown, a local market gardener who survived the Somme and lived to be ninety- umpty. Contemplating the encroaching invader with its tiny bulbules that scatter with every attempt to dig them out, he shrugged and remarked “It’s syn past”. In a week or two the fleshy leaves will wither away - until next year. It gets its name from the Greek for swallow though it will be long past before they arrive. That won’t be for a fortnight yet.
The swallows seem fewer in number every year and more so the swifts. Only two graced the skies above the village last year where dozens used to scream round the eaves when we first came here. The buzzards are on the increase and have been conducting their aerial courtship, diving and wheeling with outstretched talons. Their “pee-you” cries are so elemental they make the hairs on your neck prickle. I suppose the dawn take-away of last night’s road kill helps to sustain the rising population. It is certainly so of magpies, an uncommon bird here thirty years ago and now commonplace.
Nary a hedgehog is to be seen around the lanes and gardens where dozens snuffled in times past. BFC was adept at finding them and suffered for his inquisitiveness with prickles to his nose.
The times are not what they were.