Walk this Way

Last weekend, the warm October weather meant a pleasant stravaig along the last stretch of the West Highland Way from Kinlochleven to Fort William.

Looking back to Kinlochleven

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kinlochleven/kinlochleven/

Half of our party intended to climb Carn Mor Dearag and thence along the ridge to Ben Nevis but, after my last ascent of the big ben (Blog 1st July 2014), I opted for the gentler lower walk.

 A zig-zag climb to about 800 ft above sea-level, then an undulating path of approximately 14 miles into Fort William made for a pleasant day out.

The Pap of Glencoe in the distance

The Way followed the old Military road along the glen of Allt Natrach ( the stream of the adders?) and passed the lonely ruin of Tigh na Sleubhaich (the house of the mountain man ?) before it crossed The Lairig Mor, the big pass, the old path to Callart.  Looming above were the stony slopes of Stob Ban

Stob Ban

There was a information board about the Battle of Inverlochy where in 1645, during the religious civil wars that so beset Scotland, the Royalist Macdonalds slaughtered the Covenanter Campbells.

The next day, I stopped to get some pictures in Glencoe where, in 1692, the infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells took place. Our history is strewn with such enmities and feuds.

Gearr Aonach and the way to the Hidden Valley in Glencoe

The path climbed slightly around the edge of Mullach nan Correan and Ben Nevis came into view, with its customary chaplet of mist. There are few days in the year when the summit is clear.

We passed the vitrified fort of Dun Deardail. An Iron Age construction, that has been subjected to such heat that the stones have melted and become glass-like. The rationale for this isn't understood as the stones are brittle and less strong afterwards, nor is it possible to produce the sustained high temperatures required by mere burning as might have occurred in a battle. A mystery. It may have been some ritual to cleanse or sanctify the structure or to imbue it with supernatural powers.

Vitrified stone

After this, the Way descends into Glen Nevis and then by road into Fort William and draught Guinness.

 http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/fortwilliam/fortwilliam/

Quince-cidence.

Scrog

The recreated medieval orchard planted in the grounds of our ruined 14^th century priory has started to mature. So far,the mulberry and  the medlar have remained barren but the geans and scrogs.. cherries and crab apples to anglophones...have born fruit...and so have the quinces.

Our word marmalade comes from the Portuguese marmelada, a quince jam.

Golden and aromatic, they were cultivated long before the apple.

It may be that references to apples in legends really apply to the quince... the apple in the garden of Eden, the apples in Solomon's Song of Songs, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.

In Greek mythology, having been excluded by Zeus from a wedding, Eris, the goddess of discord, rolled such a golden apple among the guests. It was claimed by three of the guests, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Zeus asked the mortal Paris to decide who should have it. In the fateful Judgement of Paris, each goddess tried to bribe him and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world... Helen, wife of Menelaus, the Greek king.   Paris gave Aphrodite the golden apple and took Helen back to Troy. This provoked the Trojan War.

Only Heracles of the twelve labours and Perseus, slayer of Medusa, managed to get one of these prized fruit guarded, as they were, by nymphs and a dragon

 Perseus was helped by the nymphs of the Hesperides to kill the Gorgon. He saved Andromeda despite her mother Cassioipea's perfidy and can be seen in the Northern sky with his bride and her parents and the winged horse, Pegasus, that sprang from Medusa's severed neck. The red star, Algol still glares as the Gorgon's eye.

 I've just downloaded an app for my I-pod that shows the constellations overhead. A great boon to the star-gazer.

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Perseus_%28constellation%29#mediaviewer/File:Perseus.gif

Having made a few jars of quince jelly, an ideal accompaniment to venison, I wondered if we had captured the myths. Certainly, the pan boiled over in the process, cascading boiling hot, sticky liquor everywhere.
 Was Medusa still spitting with fury? Was the rage of the Trojan's at being tricked erupting?

The jelly still came out clear and sweet. We must have defeated the ghosts.

See the conkering hero come

The balmy weather continues into October, all the more appreciated when we recall the snow storms of previous years. A local farmer ironically admitted that he was finding it difficult to find anything to complain about. Butterflies are still settling on the rotting windfalls and dragon flies still dart over the water of the little loch. The fields that have been cropped, ploughed, harrowed and re-sown are, with the warmth, are starting to show a shimmer of green.

Dragon fly  at the loch

….and it is conker time, though, as boys, we always called them  “cheggies”. 

 Their prickly outer husks must have evolved to allow them to bounce and roll away from the parent tree and so increase their chance of fulfilling their destiny and creating another chestnut tree …..until they fall prey to boys looking for conkers. Now they are probably safe to spread and grow. Do boys still play conkers? I doubt it.

In my distant youth...in history as my grand daughter put it....I recall hardening them with vinegar, drilling them with a nail and then fixing them on to a string to bash my specimen against another's and whichever survived the trial of durability was the winner and so graduated from a one-er to a two-er. The rules were that, if your opponent had a sixer and if you had, say, a fiver and you triumphed, you could add his score to yours and so have an elevener!

It is said horse chestnuts got their name from the horse shoe shaped scar left on the twig when the leaf falls. I think not. There are lots of species with the “horse” prefix – horse mussels, horse mackerel, horse radish, horse mushroom – and all are larger, coarser versions of their non-equine equivalents. The horse chestnut was perceived as a inedible, coarser version of the sweet chestnut.

 In fact, they are not related at all.

Another chestnut gets ready for a canter on the stubble field

The sheen on the brown nut emerging from the outer covering is a pleasing sight and one can see why brown horses came to be called chestnuts, the glossy horsehide mirroring the lustre of the conker.

Now, I collect cheggies not for playground battles but to grow in pots and, after a few seasons, plant out in hedge rows and field corners for another generation to enjoy. 

 Simple pleasures.

Planted some years ago