Grey, white and blue

The Grey Mare's Tail

Eight months since I got my new hip, time for some field trials. With no unclimbed Munros near at hand, I settled for a Corbett (2500 to 3000 ft.). After last week’s foray up the Yarrow valley, it seemed natural to venture just a wee bit further over the watershed into Moffatdale to White Coomb. Roadside car parking, courtesy of the National Trust and a well maintained, if fairly steep, path up the side of the Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall was a easy start to the climb. Sun hat, sunscreen, plenty of fluids – gone are the days when you could happily drink from hill burns - a fleece, for despite the sunny day, the temperature at the top might be a lot less, and off I set.
Up the long “staircase” to the top of the falls then further up to Loch Skene sitting in its little valley below Lochcraighead . Itself no mean hill at over two thousand feet. – a so-called Donald after Donald’s lists of lowland hills of this height,- it lowered over the loch.
Halfway up, a hawk cried from a high crag but was too far off to identify, possibly a merlin. I had seen one in a neighbouring valley previously.






Lochcraighead looms over Loch Skene while a couple of feral goats pay me no attention

Lochcraighead proved a bit of a challenge on the old legs but once the summit was reached, the ridge out to White Coomb looked a nice stroll following the county boundary fence. Ah, the county boundary – a face saver, indeed, maybe even a life saver, in the days before GPS navigational aids. Lost in the mist – find the boundary fence and you knew where you were on the map. Follow it and you would get to somewhere else on the map without risk.

The boundary wall and fence !

White Coomb provided the greatest of views. To the east the Eildons and the Lammermuirs: to the north the Pentlands and the southern edge of the Grampians : west to the Manor hills : south to the Cheviots, then over to the Lowthers and, hanging in the haze, the Lakeland fells.

White Coomb from Loch Skene

Going up had been strenuous enough but, oh, coming down was hard on the old joints. Plenty of stops gave me time to admire the carpet of wild flowers. Yellow stars of tormentil, the deep blue of milkworts, the tufts of bog cotton, northern orchids, and masses of dwarf cornel. Apparently, its berries are an appetite stimulant which gives it its Gaelic name lus a chraois – plant of gluttony. I would have thought climbing two thousand feet would have been enough of a stimulant without any berries.

Dwarf cornel

Down at car-park level, there was time for an expedition up to Dobb’s Linn to look for fossils. The fossils are easily found amongst the oil shale rocks -Ordivician graptolites, like little doodles on the slatey shale.
Dobb's Linn
The most pleasing find was the linn itself, a delightful little three-stage fall, much prettier than its big blowsy hyped up neighbour down the road.
So the new pin stood up to a bit of off-roading. Well done, the orthopods !

The blue remembered hills ...............where I went but cannot come again

but now I can, thanks to the skill of the orthopaedic surgeons and the marvels of technology. I am very thankful.

Black magic and bread & butter pudding

Monument to James Hogg near Tibbie Sheil's Inn

Reading James Hogg’s The Brownie of Bodsbeck with its setting in the Border valleys where Ettrick and Yarrow almost meet, we felt a trip to Tibbie Sheils Inn at the head of St Mary’s Loch and erstwhile convivial haunt of Hogg and Scott and the literarati of Edinburgh, was in order. By happy coincidence Tibbie Sheils turned up in the Times list of 50 Best Places to eat in Britain. It seemed like a good omen.
It also gave me a chance to go and look for the site of Binram’s Corse, corse being Old Scots for cross. It was common for the r to be transposed as in brunt for burnt or girse for grass.
According to tradition and to Hogg’s poem, Mess John, Binram was a priest at the nearby Kirk o’ the Forest who was so obsessed by “the bonnie lass o’ Craigieburn” that he raised the devil in order to bring her under his power and seduce her. He was shot and killed by Covenanters and his grave is still to be seen though the cross has long since gone.

After the success of my play with its hero, the grave-robbing Dr Laurie, a necromancer priest might just prove a source of further inspiration and there was the prospect of a pleasant meal in literary surroundings to boot.
Journeying up Yarrow is a trip into historical romance. _ the Dowie Dens of Yarrow. The characters appear from all sides Mungo Park the explorer of the Niger: Sir James Douglas, Bruce’s lieutenant, - the Black Douglas to the English, the Good Sir James to the Scots: Mary of Dryhope, the Flower of Yarrow: Hangingshaw, the home of the Outlaw Murray: Newark Tower, hunting seat of Scottish kings and setting for Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel: the Brakehope Burn, scene of the ballad The Douglas Tragedy with its tale of eloping lovers and pursuing brothers, duels and death.
What a river!
Tibbie’s proved as good as expected - simple food, excellently prepared, using local produce, a good Sunday roast beef and two veg. with a suitably comforting bread and butter pudding to follow, though LotH declined the latter.

After lunch, I wished I had taken the same firm stand as I puffed up the footpath looking for Binram’s grave.



Binram's Corse overlooking St Mary's loch and Bowerhope, once home to James Hogg

After my misadventures in the mist on Hart Fell (Blog 27/03/2007) when some rather dodgy compass work had resulted in my ending up in the wrong valley, the girls, fearing for my safety had bought me a GPS navigation aid, so it was easy-peasy finding the site using the RCAHMS co-ordinates..
A lonely spot made even more desolate by the mournful calls of the whaups, - curlews to English speakers. Binram's Corse, a lonely spot

Mission accomplished. Home to re-read Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Hogg’s great master work.

Ospreys and Eye-ops

A trip up north to Carrbridge was just the way to take advantage of the recent sunny spell. A chance to watch the famous Boat of Garten ospreys and search for the elusive Scottish crossbill, our only truly indigenous bird. It’s a sair reflection on our delusions of Braveheart grandeur when we realise that our truly native species, found nowhere else, is not the majestic golden eagle but a dumpy wee finch with a beak like a pair of secateurs.

Male osprey leaving after bringing fish

The crossbills proved too elusive. It would seem the long harsh winter has diminished their numbers, but we did spot golden-eye on Loch Mallachie and Slavonian grebes on Loch Ruthven, six breeding pairs alongside red-throated divers and the dotterel on Cairngorm.

The Clootie Well

A trip to Cromarty in search of the dolphins ended up in Raigmore hospital. We had gone by way of the Clootie Well, an ancient site where people have left bits of clothing as part of an old belief that as the cloth decomposes the ailment from that part of the body will also go.
Two hours later, I was in the Eye department with a vitreous detachment and a retinal tear getting lasered. The influence of the Clootie Well is obviously not pro-active.

LotH has become an osprey fan and has been watching the hatching and the rearing of the three chicks via the web-cam.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/webcams/birdsofprey/lochgartenospreynest.asp

The last and smallest chick’s battles to get a share of the food are fascinating to watch. To raise three young is a huge achievement. but the pair did manage it last year and the male bird seems a great provider so here’s hoping for a similar success this time.

A trip to feed the Cairngorm reindeer was fun but an even easier way to watch wildlife is to go to Inshriach gardens and sit and eat cake while watching the squirrels. If only all nature was so accessible

!!!!