A canalside walk in London

Tags

Apostolic Catholic Church, Blow-up Bridge, Grand Union Canal, Lemonia, Lisson Green, Little Venice, London Zoo, Paddington Basin, Paddington Station, Primrose Hill, Regent's Park, Trevor McDonald

Earlier this week, I went up to London to see my friend Mary. Inspired by her brother’s previous exploit, and hoping to have better weather than he did, I decided to walk from Paddington Station towards Camden Town. Mary met me off the train, which was five minutes early. I was pleased to have her guidance to get me to Paddington Basin, the start of the walk.

I did not realise it at the time, but we must have been very near to St Mary’s Hospital, where I had a couple of minor operations in my childhood.

Looking back at the Fan Bridge

We stopped for a coffee in a café in one of the many luxurious buildings in the recent grand redevelopment around the basin. We sat looking out over the canal, which at this point is the very end of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal. (On just looking this up, I now realise that the canal we used to visits as kids in West London/Middlesex was on this same Paddington Arm.) We thought we might hang on for the few minutes before the expected Fan Bridge opening, but fortunately checked our facts. We thought that two days and seven minutes was too long to wait.

We also reckoned that, though attractive – in warmer weather – these boats were far too expensive to hire.

I tried to capture in this picture the expansive splendour – about which I had very mixed feelings – of the whole development, but failed miserably.

The gulls seemed to like the roof of the narrowboat as a resting place.

Just one of the many interesting buildings

We could find no explanation of this sculpture of two men facing each other.

Approaching Little Venice, where the Regent’s Canal joins the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal.

A gull photobombs the view of the Grand Union Canal. We’re going over the bridge to turn right and walk beside the Regent’s Canal

A Canada goose is a little more co-operative, but a moorhen isn’t

I think Mary’s suggestion that we take the boat rather than walk was only a joke, but I’m not sure.

For much of the time, because of private moorings, works, or the canal disappearing into a tunnel, we could not walk on the towpath itself. Here we passed alongside the Blomfield Road private moorings, and can see the Apostolic Catholic Church on Maida Avenue. It is (or was in 2014) the only remaining congregation of that movement in the world, and that with limited liturgy, as the last priest died in 1971. There were 200,000 followers in 1000 congregations worldwide in 1900.

The canal goes into the Maida Hill tunnel, but we have to go over the top.

Another short tunnel we could not enter

I was particularly glad to have Mary with me at this point, as works sent us away from the canal for a short while, but she knew where to go. It was particularly pleasing, for more than one reason, to see this as we approached Lisson Grove and the Lisson Green estate.

As we crossed back over the canal. we saw the boat we had not caught earlier on, returning to Little Venice.

We continued to the most beautiful section of our walk, including six Italianate villas, built, amazingly, between 1988 and 2004, as this fascinating article reveals.

Looking back at a vanishing cyclist. I think this is the one who actually said ‘Thank you’ as we stood aside.

This is Macclesfield Bridge, also known as Blow-up Bridge following an incident which led to the passing of the Explosives Act, 1875

We’ve come just a little too far, as we are now at the aviary in London Zoo…

… and opposite the giraffe house.

We made our way back a few yards, and went up a short flight of steps to cross the road to Primrose Hill This plan informed me that, whereas all my life I have referred to ‘Regent’s Park’, I should have been calling it ‘The Regent’s Park’ – which makes sense.

We crossed the grass beside Primrose Hill, resisting the temptation to go up.

So this was the best view overlooking London that I could manage.

I enjoyed the effect of the thinning foliage on the elegant houses as we neared our exit from the park.

A delicious Greek meal was taken at ‘Lemonia‘ in Primrose Hill, but we had arrived too late for the chocolate fudge cake. Perhaps it’s as well.

In the early evening, Mary went off to a talk on Troy, a prelude to an exhibition to come soon, and I went to a Guardian Live ‘conversation’ at King’s Place, between someone who no doubt thought she was too well-known to introduce herself, and Trevor McDonald, held to promote the latter’s recently published autobiography.

A bowl of home-made lentil soup and an exchange on our cultural experiences rounded off a very pleasant day.

Arnhem Remembered 2

Tags

barnacle goose, carrier pigeon, cormorant, EU, Freedom Museum, greylag goose, Groesbeek, Nationaal Bevreijdingsmuseum, National Liberation Museum, Nazism, Nijmegen, Operation Market Garden, Rhine, Rhineland Offensive, sugar beet, Vreiheidts Museum, Waal, Wiel Lenders

Sunday 15th September. We were free for the early part of the morning as the chapel was being used for eucharist. So I went out for a short walk with Clementine and Mariske. The first thing I saw of note was a huge pile of sugar beet, a first for me.

A pleasure lake pleases both humans and cormorants

Two adjacent fields were full of wild geese, Barnacle and Greylag. The farmers do not like them, I was told.

Clementina and Mariske did not take much persuading to climb onto this sculpture ‘The sunken windmill’, on the site of a real one which had stood here from about 1300 until 1929

After a late morning rehearsal and lunch, we piled into a coach to be taken to what had, until recent renewal and enlargement, been called the Nationaal Bevreijdingsmuseum (National Liberation Museum). Having just reopened on 1st September, it was now called the Vreiheidts Museum (Freedom Museum). The Museum was the sponsor of our entire weeklong visit. The journey to Groesbeek took about 45 minutes.

Passing via Nijmegen, we crossed the Waal, a distributary of the Rhine.

As we arrived, a Dutch Band, calling itself Bill Baker’s Big Band, was playing American dance music of the ‘forties.

We stood and listened for a while, before moving to the museum itself.

The museum itself may be finished, but its landscaping has not quite yet been completed. Its dome is reminiscent of a parachute.

Once inside we assembled in the café, were given vouchers for refreshments to be taken later, and were welcomed by the Director of the Museum.

Items on sale

I don’t think this radio equipment was on sale!

Beatrix and the Director of the Museum, Wiel Lenders

As planned, we moved back to the performing area,

and sang four short items from our programme, not under the tent but in front of it. The woman singing with the band had been amplified and I was a little concerned that the audience would not be captured by our acoustic sound, but they were, and were highly appreciative. I was delighted to find that we had been singing under the EU flag.

After refreshments, we were then free to look around the museum. This was very comprehensive, and dealt fully with the build-up to WWII, its roots in WWI, poverty and unemployment, the rise of Nazism, and moved on to the course of the war, particularly as it affected the Netherlands. Here are just a few of the many photos I took, some of them not as focussed as they might have been by my less than steady hand in dim light.

A short film introducing the Museum

It was inevitable that much of the explanation had to be in text panels. These were in Dutch, English and German.

Unemployment leading to unrest

The outbreak of war, and Nazi occupation of surrounding countries. (I use the word ‘Nazi’ deliberately. I learnt later in the week that one of the two brave Germans in our group was very uncomfortable at the use of the ‘German’ in connection with the events.)

A reference to WWII in other parts of the world

The stories of individuals

A German (I can’t avoid the word here) one-person bunker, offering protection against flying shrapnel and shells.

American carrier pigeon’s uniform. Pigeons ‘were normally transported in cages. This uniform was used for short transports during which a pigeon could be tied to a soldier’s uniform with a piece of string. Paratroopers sometimes jumped with the carrier pigeon strapped against their chest.’

My time started running out. I had no time left to sit down, choose my language, and watch the mock up of the progress of the Operation.

A photo of a small part of the parachute drops in September 1944.

And I just had to rush through the last sections of the Museum

As I went round, I felt so strongly that our current politicians, many of them a near generation younger than me, should be obliged to visit this museum to understand what the EU is really all about, and why it was created.

This was ironically brought home even more as we realised that our route home was actually taking us through a small corner of Germany. Only the yellow street signs told us we had crossed a country border.

Arnhem Remembered 4

Tags

C-130 Hercules, Canadian War Cemetery Groesbeek, Dutch Military Pipes and Drums, Freedom Museum, George G Blackburn, Groesbeek, Magritte, Operation Market Garden, OPeration Market Garden commemorations, Pannenkoeken Restaurant de Duivelsberg, paratrooper, Prince Charles, Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, South Windmill Groesbeek, Wiel Lenders, Wylerbaan

Wednesday 18th September. Before we set off for today’s events, Mariske, on behalf of all of us, presented Beatrix with some flowers to thank her for all the hard work she had put in, on a purely voluntary basis, to organise our splendid week. What a lot she had had to think about! And later, we gave a her a restaurant voucher, which will have enabled her to have good company with her as well.

Beatrix had certainly organised a full day for this our last day! After the presentation, we once more embarked in our coach, armed with packed lunch, music and costumes, and travelled again to Groesbeek, passed the Freedom Museum, and shortly afterwards stopped on the road at Wylerbaan, like many other vehicles, to catch a few minutes of a parachute drop, the first of several sessions that day. I manage to get these photos through the coach window.

That session over, we were able to move on the remaining few hundred metres to park, and walk a short distance to the spectators’ ground, encountering many people coming away from the session of which we had seen just a little.

It was time for lunch. It was going to be a while before the next demonstration.

Most of us ate standing up. The alternative was sitting on straw and dust.

In due course we were diverted by hang gliders, some, Beatrix told me, (translating from the Dutch commentary), with people making their first drop, in tandem. (Remind me to add that to my list of unfulfilled ambitions.)

I spotted some red berets eating their frites, and went over to talk to them. It turned out they were German paratroopers, volunteers for the day. They had already done one jump each and were due to do more. (I never did find out exactly who was taking part in the demonstration that day, but I had the impression there were no UK or US paras there. Perhaps they were being saved for the following weekend, when Princess (formerly Queen) Beatrix of the Netherlands and Prince Charles were attending the commemorations.)

I asked if I could take a photo of the badge of the spokesman, and got his smiley eyes as well.

The next session of parachute drops was about to start. I moved down to the fence to get the fullest view. Here they come.

And I switched to video to get the full passage of four planes, each spewing out a dozen or so paratroopers, followed up by a fifth plane, whose purpose was not clear to me.

The planes then circled round several more times to pass again and release more paras.

(This picture makes me think of Magritte for some reason.)

In due course we had to remember our musical obligations. As we left I spotted a group of four more soldiers in uniform, chatting together. One would not be photographed, but the others agreed. It turned out they were Dutch military police.

That’s one of our number photobombing!

As we walked away I got this beautifully sunlit photo of one of the C-130 Hercules. I just love it’s bottle-nosed dolphin nose! Its registration is G-273, and I’ve been able to find out that it belongs to the Royal Netherlands Air Force.

During our time in the country we had seen virtually none of that icon of ‘Holland’: windmills. But we did pass this one as we drove to our concert location. It turns out it was South Windmill, now one of many war memorials in Groesbeek. ‘In the cupola of this mill was planned the Spring offensive of 1945 by 400,000 British and Canadian soldiers… that … allowed irresistible Allied armies to cross the Rhine and end the war. … [T]he crucial role of this mill as the prime observation has been immortalized ….. by George G Blackburn, who as an artillery forward observation officer spent much of the winter of 1944-45 in its cupola.’

It was good to find that we were to sing in a more modest-sized church that evening.

After short rehearsal, we got back into the coach to be taken to a pancake house (the Pannenkoeken Restaurant de Duivelsberg). Because of coach access problems, this involved a short walk though a nature reserve.

Not only was that pleasant, it was worth it!

My cherry pancake was excellent!

It had been intended that we visit a Canadian war cemetery before the parachute drop, but time had run out, so Beatrix fitted it in now.

Post Script. I have since learned that although this is called the Canadian War Cemetery, in addition to the 2617 graves of known servicemen, the memorial is to 1,047 missing soldiers whose bodies were never found. They died during operations in northwest Europe after August 1944 when the River Seine was crossed. Their names are on the red brick memorial, and include 942 British, 102 Canadians, 2 South-Africans, and one British aviator.

There was plenty of time back at the church for us to get ready, and we were amused to be able to watch the audience coming in via CCTV!

It was standing room only for the concert, with welcome and introduction by Wiel Lenders, (Director of the Freedom Museum). His also were the thanks and valediction (‘We’ll meet again’ had again gone down very well), at the end of which each one of us was presented with a (paper) carrier bag with souvenir booklets and other items.

We departed separately after breakfast the following morning, and I spent some hours in Amsterdam. That will be the subject of the final blog in this series.

Caen Hill

Tags

Caen Hill, Caen Hill flight, Caen Hill Locks, Canalling, Devizes, Gongoozling, Great Canal Journeys, Kennet and Avon Canal, Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, Marshfield ice cream, New Hampshire, Prunella Scales, Royal Berkshire Hospital, Timothy West, Wadworth Brewery, Wiltshire

Thwarted by a dead computer, it is only now that I can write up a very enjoyable day spent nearly two weeks ago with my ‘American’ cousin Geoff, his two daughters, Claire and Sophie, who live in New Hampshire, and his mother, Barbara, who lives in Berkshire. Sadly a last-minute problem meant that Geoff’s wife and their son were unable to make it over the Pond, so the party was somewhat depleted.

We had arranged to meet up in Wiltshire, as being about halfway between where I live, in Somerset, and Berkshire. Caen Hill is near Devizes. (‘Caen’ is pronounced ‘Cane’, not like the French town.) It is best known for its 29 locks, and in particular its ‘flight’ of 16, engineered by John Rennie the Elder and a scheduled monument, on the Kennet and Avon Canal, which links Reading and Bristol.

Constructed between 1794 and 1810, it was not long before the railways were serious and stronger rivals. Through lack of maintenance, most of the canal had become unnavigable by the mid-twentieth century. Some 35 years ago, when I was living in Reading and mad keen on canalling – and I still could be – I was a member of the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, which had been formally constituted in 1962 from an informal group to bring the Canal back to life. Much of it had been restored by then, but the Herculean task of the flight had only just been started upon. The only time I had visited Caen Hill, before this month, had been in the 1980s, and it was then in a sad, derelict, sorry state.

Total restoration of the canal and all its works was not complete until 2003, but it was fully navigable by 1990, and formally reopened by HM Queen in that year. The first boat to do the complete trip was that of Sir Timothy West and his wife Prunella Scales (‘Great Canal Journeys‘). They had been founder members of the Trust. (And as it happens, I came across them as they were canalling near Hungerford in 2005, and drove them in my car to A and E at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, but that’s another story.)

I had last seen Geoff and co in New Hampshire in February 2018, and Barbara this January, so there was quite a lot to catch up on. We wandered downhill in one direction.

Looking backwards and upwards as we started off.

Gongoozlers – that’s what canallers call people who stand and stare.

Barbara admiring an owner-occupied narrowboat, solar panels and all

Sophie, Claire and Barbara watch a lock filling. Out of the sun it was decided chilly until lunchtime

There was wildlife.

On one of the side pounds, holding water in reserve for the nearest lock

There were reflections.

Outside the flight, the distances between locks were not far.

Every lock was dedicated to someone or some group.

As we walked back up to our starting point, Geoff and the girls helped two women holidaying on a hired boat. It’s so good to have someone to do the locks!

As we went back up we had a good view of that central flight of 16 locks.

Because of water management problems, in fact that day boaters had to be in the first lock in the flight by noon. There is no stopping and mooring up between locks on the flight.

After lunch at the Trust’s café, we had a pleasant walk uphill into the town, with the intention of going round the Wadworth Brewery.

Looking back at some residential narrowboats

It’s just always fun to gongoozle

The brewery

Unfortunately, when we got there we found the afternoon tour was full. So we sat around for a few minutes in the entrance hall, and reflected on what to do next. There were exhibits, including a rather detailed one on the beer-producing process – and lots of different beers on sale in presentation packs.

We decided to meander the mile back to the locks’ cafe, and to have a Marshfield (West Country speciality, highly recommended) ice cream, before dispersing.

A lovely family get-together, blessed by the weather.

Knuston Hall and Castle Ashby Gardens

Tags

Alwyne Compton, Castle Ashby Church, Castle Ashby Gardens, Knuston Hall, Peter Syrus, Renaussance music, Woodpecker Studios

Last weekend I was in Northamptonshire, at Knuston Hall for music-making, a journey round Renaissance Italy, visiting Florence, Milan, Naples, Verona, Rome, Ferrara, Mantua and Venice, under the expert tutorship of Peter Syrus. We were nine plus Peter. At the same time there were smaller courses happening on Russian culture, Hatha yoga, Making polymer clay jewellery, and Hand embroidery. I took no photos of the actual music-making – or anything else – but I did of the Hall and its grounds.

In our free time on the Saturday afternoon, Frances, who had already kindly driven me all the way from Somerset, suggested we visit Castle Ashby Gardens, about 20 minutes away. Sadly my camera decided to go on strike just after we had got there, so those pictures are were subject to the limitations of my tiny phone.

My huge room was the one two floors above the entrance.

The view from my room, early evening

A close up next morning

A very pleasant place to take morning coffee round the side of the house.

And the view from there

Castle Ashby is the ancestral home of the seventh Marquess of Northamptonshire.

Entrance to the Gardens was quite along way further on from this view. Having parked, we wandered towards the church, taking this photo of the Castle itself through the trees.

The church was locked when we tried the door, so we wandered around the impressive graveyard.

The vicar turned up after a few minutes and she explained that the church had been locked because it was all prepared for a wedding starting in an hour’s time, but we could explore it now.

It didn’t take long for us to notice that the small, topmost panes of the 19th century stained glass windows had images of musicians playing from the era of music we were making on the course. The organist arrived while we were there, and he said that the windows, and the delightful angel carvings at the ends of the choir stalls, had all been installed in the 1870s by an energetic vicar, the Rt Rev Lord Alwyne Compton, a matter of days before he left to be Dean of Gloucester, and later Bishop of Ely. (The stained glass windows were quite beyond reasonable reproduction by my phone, but I offer the following approximate images of a few of the carvings, mostly blurry because of insufficient light – and possibly a hand not quite as steady as it should have been.)

The singer is minus his left hand.

Frances told me that this must be a Crusader because his feet are crossed.

We moved on to the gardens.

Frances modelling the carved tree trunk seat at my request

The Orangery is at the end of the path.

View on leaving the Orangery

And looking back at it. It was not possible to climb the staircase.

What a delightful way to spend a couple of free hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Grantown-on-Spey 4

Tags

common sandpiper, Findhorn Valley, little grebe, Loch Farr, Loch Ruthven, mallard, Meadow pipit, oystercatcher, Raven, red deer, ring ouzel, RSPB, Slavonia, Slavonian grebe, Strathdearn

Sunday, 2nd June. The verdict as to what I should so on my final full day was unanimous: ‘Strathdearn’, they said, which is also known as the Findhorn Valley.

Findhorn Bridge

Through which can be seen a railway and a major road bridge

I made several stops along the valley As I got back in the car the first time, ‘Henry’ and ‘Clara’, out for a walk, asked me was I looking for waders. I replied I was looking for anything, in a very amateurish way. The waders were all over the fields they said.

I succeeded in seeing nothing for a while, except some colourful cows,

evidence that sheep had once inhabited this field,

some actual sheep,

and some oystercatchers too far away to get a decent picture. I liked the colours in this newish wall round a farmhouse.

And then it started raining. Many years ago, when I was working in Whitehall on public housing subsidies, it had been alleged to me that it rained sideways in Scotland. Here’s the proof.

With wind like this, no wonder it does.

It calmed down, and I came to a little layby. ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ were there with telescopes and heavy rainwear. Of course I pulled in. Birdwatchers always compare notes, though I had nothing to offer. The hope was to see a golden eagle. I stayed just a short while, which they clearly did not think was very professional of me, but I was keen to reach the car park at the end of the road for lunchtime, and I was now only halfway along.

I had stopped at a broad bank and had been watching the first oystercatcher making desultory nest-building moves, before the second came along and appeared to tell her there was no point. ‘Marie’ and ‘Hamish’, who said they were keepers (self-appointed or not, I was not sure) came along in a Landrover, and said they were concerned that a pair of dippers had been disturbed ‘just under that bridge’ in their nest-building recently. They seemed satisfied that I was not guilty and after some pleasantries drove on in the direction I had come from.

I continued on my way, and just before the car parking area, I encountered this meadow pipit, with caterpillar.

This was my view as I sat in the car starting to eat my lunch. I was really, really hoping to see a golden eagle or some other raptor.

Then I stopped chewing, because I could see two tiny protuberances at the top of the mountain. With my binoculars I saw this.

Then this.

Then this.

Then this!

I was spellbound.

In due course ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ came along, and asked me if I had seen the ravens. (As it was ‘Jock’ who asked me, I had to ask three times what he was asking, his accent was so strong.) The ravens were way up on a hillside behind me. I had been so mesmerised by the red deer (and nice and warm in the car as I ate) that I had not yet turned round to see them, on a far horizon.

I learned that ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ came up to the Highlands from Dunfermline and Airdrie as often as they could to look for birds.

All of a sudden ‘Jack’ got very excited. ‘I don’t believe it!’. He had just been idly looking through his telescope, and there was … a ring ouzel. I had never seen one in my life, and I had previously met people who had travelled many miles unsuccessfully to see one. It is a mountain relative of the blackbird, and has a white bib. I was invited to to look at it through their telescope. I then tried to find it with my camera, in vain. So I took some general pictures of the gully, hoping I might pick the bird out on screen later.

Here’s one of the photos.

And yes, the bird is there. Yes it is. Here is a tiny segment of the main photo, enormously enlarged.

And here’s a tiny segment of another photo.

Clearly there is a blackbird with a white bib.

I was chuffed! Thank you ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’. I’d never have seen either it or, probably, the ravens had you not been there. But that’s the birdwatching world (of which I do not count myself part). They love sharing their sightings.

Another car came along, but I was moving on. I had more plans. Again using the map and information provided by the hotel, I was making for RSPB reserve Loch Ruthven. But not before this common gull had greeted me beside my car.

And I had zoomed in on this ruin back along the Findhorn Valley.

There was what turned out to be a very narrow one-track road over some moorland to get to the reserve. The sun was coming out, and it made this ‘blasted heath’ a little more attractive.

(I don’t usually manage to take a 360 degree video at all steadily, but this time used the car as a leaning post.)

The road was only 7 miles long, but it took a while to travel it. There was a delightful small loch at the end of it, Loch Farr. But I stopped only long enough to take a picture of it, as I had a few more miles more to do.

This was the view as I parked the car at RSPB Loch Ruthven.

And these a couple of views as I walked along the path to the hide.

THE bird to see there is the rare Slavonian grebe. Half the UK’s breeding population is found at this loch. (I know, there are countries called Slovakia and Slovenia, but no Slavonia. I don’t know why the grebe is so-called! … Ah, I do now. Spellcheck didn’t underline the word, so I thought I’d better look it up. Slavonia is a region in Croatia. So now I know. Well, I still don’t know how the bird got its name. In the US it’s called the Horned grebe.)

Anyway, I didn’t see any. Neither did ‘Janet’ and ‘John’, who were already in the hide, and didn’t say hello. They left after after ‘Janet’ said to ‘John’, ‘Shall we give up?’ I was happy just to sit there and see

a female mallard and duckling,

several little grebes, aka dabchicks,

two common sandpipers,

and various other birds of which I didn’t get decent photos, and to enjoy this abstract.

As I left, ‘Nick’ came in. We exchanged shy smiles and as I made my way back along the pretty path I found my self thinking, ‘I’m sure I’ve met him before. Is he on the telly, or is he in in the Somerset Wildlife Trust?’ I didn’t work it out.

Half a day left. What shall I do tomorrow?

Grantown-on-Spey 3

Tags

An Lochan Uaine, Cairngorm National Park, Cairngorm reindeer, Cairngorms, Ethel Lindgren, Forestry Commission, Glenmore, Glenmore Forest Park, Grantown-on-Spey, Lichen, Megaloceros, Mickel Utsi, Reindeer, Ryvoan, siskin, Utsi

Saturday 1st June. A day spent in Glenmore Forest Park, in the middle of the Cairngorms National Park. The morning was spent with the reindeer herd. This involved being led, (with 49 others) on a 15-minute walk, just a little steep at times, above the treeline, there to find a group of males kept during the summer months, within an enclosure of some 1200 acres, while they grow their antlers. The females and calves had dispersed a few weeks previously to roam the 10,000 acres available to them. The total herd is kept, by managed breeding, to 150, new bloodstock being introduced from Sweden from time to time.

We learned that a Saami (formerly known as Lapp), named Mickel Utsi, was visiting the Cairngorms in 1949 and realised that the conditions, (sub-arctic altitude, ground, lichens), were absolutely ideal for keeping reindeer, which are domesticated caribou. Indeed reindeer are a UK native species, but went extinct here about a thousand years ago. With his wife, Dr Ethel Lindgren, Utsi brought the first reindeer from Sweden to the Cairngorms in 1952. In due course, the Forestry Commission granted them the right to use the current land to keep reindeer. By the late 1960s the hill trip for tourists was well established, having been by appointment only up to that point.

Despite being in a group, or perhaps because of it, I was able to stop and take some pictures on the way up.

At the bottom right of the preceding picture is part of a boulder, with faintly engraved on it, ‘Utsi Bridge’.

Beginning to leave trees behind.

We come to a fence and see a boardwalk we will take, with the reindeer lying down by another fence.

Seen with camera much zoomed

But as we start along the boardwalk, the reindeer move to join us. In total we all went through the gates of three fences. Fortunately we had been told in advance that the deer would walk with us, across us, and alongside us.

I turned round and saw this

turned back and saw this,

looked ahead and saw a procession of reindeer and people ahead of me.

Despite the fact that they know what is in the green bag, they are patient while we listen to the next instalment in the story.

But when another green bag is rattled, they home in

on their huge, spreading feet. (Very useful in snow.)

They are moulting quite heavily now. Indeed, I learnt later that last Sunday was called ‘Scruffy Sunday’.

We each had one or more chances to feed the reindeer. A two-handed technique was necessary to begin with, but when I had just a little left, I was able to use my right hand to take this picture. Their teeth are flat and very ground down by tearing up lichen. This poor deer’s had his head elongated by the camera!

Lichen technique

Gentle creatures, enjoy a scratch, but we are warned to touch neither head not antlers, which will be taken as aggressive..

We made our way back down in our own time, when we wanted.

From Utsi Bridge

I was pleased to meet this woman and her golden retriever, Elsie (who was expecting her first puppies very shortly) near to the end of the walk. She had something to do with the herd, and was able to tell me how Utsi’s widow had taken on Alan Smith to manage the herd in the early 1980s, how a summer volunteer had shortly afterwards become Mrs Smith and how together they bought the herd on Ethel Lindgren’s death a few years later.

I had some soup at the Glenmore Visitor Centre, and then looked at a plan of the various waymarked walks. I decided to do the longest, 3.5miles/5.8 km, starting from there. It was marked ‘strenuous’, which I would normally have avoided, but the shorter ones, all marked ‘moderate’ looked really so easy that I decided to risk the more demanding one. To begin with the path sloped gently upwards, and was wide and gravelly. The route, from the contour lines, appeared to continue to climb gradually and then steeply toward the end of the outward leg, culminating at a loch.

Looking over right,

zooming in with the camera,

zooming in further, and confirming with my binoculars that the white dots in the middle are indeed reindeer. The path is the boardwalk.

Looking left, and still on a broad, gently sloping path. What is strenuous about this?

The broad path has now gone, and the contour lines are closer I am glad that I have a walking pole with me, for the sake of balance.

Oh. Nice to have the Escher-looking boards to walk on over the boggy bits, but they are not meant to to be going down, please. This suggests there is going to be some climbing on the leg the other side of the glen, back to the start, where I had hoped it would be a gentle stroll downwards. (I much later realised that I had not noticed the heights marked elsewhere on the contour lines.)

Oh. Even steeper now, and I’m extra glad I have a walking pole with me. I allow some human mountain goats rush by me, on legs much more confident than and half the age of mine.

Arrived after much more descent at An Lochan Uaine (The Green Loch)

And again in the dusk of evening I shall find once more alone
The dark water of the green loch. And the pass beyond Ryvoan.

After a brief chat with two of the mountain goats who had passed me, who were contemplating continuing along to Ryvoan Bothy, and a nibble of a date flapjack, I continued on the waymarked walk, and was relieved to find that it was an easy path along a contour.

I was intrigued to notice this.

At first it reminded me of the mud volcanoes I had seen in Yellowstone last year. Then I thought it resembled a fountain. Then I realised it was a spring – and understood why in French the words for ‘spring’ and ‘fountain’ are the same, ‘fontaine’.

These four passed and fell behind me several times on my homewards stroll. I learned in due course that the 20-year-old grey was being used to train the 8-year-old piebald not to be afraid of the narrow drains which crossed the path at regular intervals.

The reindeer booking office/shop was just before the visitor centre car park, so I called into the paddock where those unable for various reasons to do the hill walk could go and see four reindeer, each kept there for just two or three weeks on a rotating basis. It was interesting to learn more about the creatures from the many information boards there.

I had once stood beside a model of a megaloceros in a French museum, an impressive experience! (And I don’t remember the moose in Yellowstone being so big.)

Finally, I had seen very few birds on my walk, though the loud and joyful sound of them up in the trees had accompanied me all the way. So I was pleased to see on a feeder several instances of one of my favourite small birds, the siskin. This has not graced my garden for a couple of years now, presumably because climate change means it does not now have to come so far south in the winter.

I was right to take the ‘strenuous’ walk. It was, I would say, not so much strenuous as a bit difficult at times. And, despite the grey colour of the sky, and the chill up there with the reindeer, the weather was OK. It didn’t rain all day!

Grantown-on-Spey 2

Tags

Anagach Woods, bird cherry, bog cotton, Caledonian forest, Clan Chattan, Clan Grant, Clarsach, Cromdale brooch, Curling, Decimalisation, dipper, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Grantown-on-Spey-Museum, grey wagtail, James Grant, James Grant of Grant, mallard, pied wagtail, Ramsay MacDonald, River Spey, Spotted flycatcher, Springwatch, Strathspey, Treecreeper, wild lupin

Friday 31st May. On offer this morning was a walk in the local woods, led by Simon, one of the experts on hand in the hotel. With three other residents, I availed myself of it. We started at the local golf course,

where we saw nothing of interest, though Simon did his best to convince us that this was a rare Scottish wild cat.

The Anagach Woods were established in 1766 by James Grant of Grant (more later), but they look very natural, and provide excellent habitat for local fauna.

Treecreeper

And flora.

Bog cotton/cottongrass

As we walked through the woods, for much of the time to the right was acidic boggy land with stunted trees that could be 200 years old.

To our left, classic Caledonian forest, (the BBC’s ‘Springwatch’ is currently coming from just a few miles away) allowing lots of light through to nourish berry-bearing plants, good food for native species.

I was frequently a little behind my companions, as I was the only one taking photos.

Particularly if they involved reflections

The lichen is called Old Man’s Beard

We emerged from forest into more open land, and I learned that this native tree was called bird cherry.

We reached the River Spey, and went on to a bridge. (Of which, annoyingly, I did not think to take a photo when we later went down to the path on the right hand side.)

You don’t often get the chance to see a mallard’s orange feet so clearly.

On the far side of the bridge I was able to see this bird, identified for me as a spotted flycatcher.

I said that I couldn’t see any spots, even when it obligingly turned round for me.

But spotted flycatcher it was, I was assured.

From the bridge I was also able to wonder at these wild lupins, through which we were to wander minutes later. We also saw a very newly fledged grey wagtail.

Once down there, along the bank we watched a fledged pied wagtail being fed. Its parent was too quick for me.

Further along was a dipper, again it was thought, newly fledged, not least because it was showing a marked reluctance to dip.

And then there were two, sibling fledglings. Believe it or not.

As we started to walk back, completing a loop, it started to spit. I was able to notice and admire these patriotic finials.

By the time we were back at the hotel, via the Post Office in my case, it was pouring.

And still was in the afternoon, so instead of pursuing my rural intentions, I did that standby of wet afternoons, the local museum.

Which was small and perfectly formed. I learned that the Clan Grant had been around for a few centuries when Sir James Grant of Grant, he of the Anagach Woods, and known as ‘the good Sir James’, decided, in the mid-eighteenth century, to create a town on the River Spey. It didn’t become quite the boom town he had hoped, because it was too distant from anywhere, but it throve nevertheless, especially once it had become such a sought after place for holidays and leisure a hundred years later.

I learned about the superclan (that’s my word) Chattan, and its motto ‘Touch not the cat bot [without] a glove’, meaning that they were fierce fighters. This was a confederation of clans and large families with origins at least as far back as the fourteenth century. The wild cats engraved on this large 1600s brooch, the Cromdale brooch, suggest it may have a connection to the Clan Chattan.

Sir James’s plan of Grantown-on-Spey, showing the Anagach Woods, and The Square, in fact a thin oblong, where the Grant Arms Hotel is located.

The former town clock mechanism

Alone in the museum, for 15 minutes I got quite emotional as I took up the invitation, below, to try the clàrsach, which was perfectly in tune, picking out tunes and even singing with it. (In the evening, I spent some time researching the cost of and how to play the instrument, I had been so moved by the experience, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am unlikely to be any more successful with this instrument than I have been with any requiring the co-ordination of more than two fingers!)

Tearing myself away – I felt I could have stayed there for hours – I perused the rest of the museum, which featured various professions and achievements of the town’s residents, including the inventor of the flush toilet. (No pictures!)

Endorsement of he hotel by Prime Minster Ramsay MacDonald in 1934, from its wording apparently solicited.

I was fascinated by these next two images when I came to see them on screen. The light was flickering a little on the display of the curling stone, but my eyes did not see the complete darkness the camera did as it took the photos on burst.

Finally, the 1970s are clearly history to some, though I can remember the day we converted to decimal coins as if it were yesterday. Ironically, I was working in H M Treasury in Whitehall at the time. The lady on the sandwich kiosk was having a terrible time with the new coinage, and the queue was very long indeed!

Grantown-on-Spey 1

Tags

Cairngorms, fishwife, Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, Herring gull, jackdaw, Lochindorb, mallard, Moray Firth, Nairn, oystercatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Southern Africa, Yellowstone National Park

Thursday, 30th May. It would have been nearly three months since my trip to southern Africa, so a few weeks ago I fixed a short, four-night break in this small town in Morayshire, on the northern edge of the Cairngorms. In the event, just a few days after burying my lovely cat, Lulu, killed on a country lane near to where I live, this was not the best of times to leave poor Bella behind, not was I really in the right mood to explore this new, for me, part of Scotland. But all was booked – flight, hire car, hotel – so I left home, hoping my sadness and guilt would not intrude too much.

The weather forecast for the five days was not great, but the worst was meant to be as I arrived, gradually improving over the period. So it was pleasing that, when I picked up the car (I’d booked and paid for the tiniest car possible, and they gave me a 2019 Astra with just 1350 miles on the clock) at Inverness Airport around midday, it was not actually raining, though there was a bitter wind. The hotel – more later – had sent me a load of information, so I had already made my plans for the afternoon. While waiting for the car, I had bought a sandwich, and drove along the Moray Firth to Nairn, when I parked by the small harbour and ate my lunch, looking at the northern side of the Firth through the windscreen. In the distance is a red ship, at, I think, the neck of the Cromarty Firth. It didn’t move all the time I was there.

Well wrapped up against the biting wind, I wandered around for a few minutes.

This is a fishwife, who erstwhile played a very important role in the fishing community. The statue was erected as part of the Highland Year of Culture, 2007.

Oystercatcher, feathers somewhat ruffled in the wind

Jackdaws always glare, even when their feathers are not being ruffled.

It was pleasing to see this sign on the harbour wall, but why only swans?

In the information from the hotel was a tip that there was a public car park, giving access to the beach, at the end of a road through a campsite, which otherwise I would have assumed to be entirely private. I went over the dunes …

on to the nearly deserted beach, and enjoyed the natural decorations.†

I was wondering about the precise sizes of the oystercatcher and the black-headed gull …

… when a herring gull photo-bombed the picture and answered my question.

After a few minutes it started spitting, so, not wanting to get drenched, I set off to make my way back to the car. But it soon stopped, so I was able to take more pictures, of which this is one, looking back to Nairn.

It was now my intention to go to a place described as, ‘A beautifully scenic spot – the ruined Lochindorb Castle lies in the middle of Lochindorb, surrounded by heather-clad moorland and scattered woodland.’ Followed by a long list of birds which might be seen there and thereabouts. But well before I got there it was teeming with rain. I got out to take a couple of pictures on my way.

Approaching the loch I stopped to take this picture of the ruined castle.

And was delighted when a mother and six offspring ran across the road in front of my car. Fortunately I lunged for my camera. Had I not, but just driven on, one, then another, further offspring might well have been crushed. I managed to get this picture with all nine safely reunited.

Proving this was wonderful weather for ducks

I drove on, scarcely stopping anymore. There was no point with the rain lashing down. I just got this picture of the increasingly mountainous scenery.

I was pleased to arrive at the Grant Arms Hotel, in Grantown-on-Spey (pronounced ‘Granton’).

I had chosen it because it advertises itself as a wildlife hotel. It had already sent me a great deal of information, as I have said. As a guest you become a member of its ‘Bird Watching and Wildlife Club’. There is a library, masses more information about walks and suggested outings, and real live human experts on hand twice a day for tips and information, plus a few guided walks from the hotel, and evening talks about twice a week. They also have celebrity-led weeks from time to time.

The hotel itself is comfortable, traditional in furnishings, serving excellent food, and for me was very good value for money, as they charge per person not per room. I felt very well looked after.

Queen Victoria stayed there, incognito I read elsewhere.

Not incognito, and some time ago, another royal couple stayed there…

There was just one talk during my stay there, and it was that first evening. It was on Yellowstone National Park in the Fall. It was very interesting to make comparisons with my own stay there in the snow of February last year.

Minterne Gardens, Dorset

Tags

Azalea, blackbird, blue tit, bluebells, butterbur, campion, candelabra flower, Churchill, Digby family, handkerchief tree, Himalayan plants, John Churchill, Minterne Gardens, Minterne Magna, ransoms, rhododendron, wollemi pine

A friend told me about the Minterne Himalayan Gardens on Monday, and I visited the next day. This is an ideal time of year to go, because of the rhododendrons and the azaleas and other spring wild flowers, but the great collection of wonderful trees would justify a visit at any time of year. I took so many pictures that I cannot make a choice, so here for the record are lots and lots of them, with occasional commentary.

I had to stop a few miles before arriving at Minterne Magna, to take this view.

Minterne Church, opposite the car park.

The entrance to the gardens, no cars allowed

I was not yet ‘Here’, but where the ticket booth is indicated, and that wasn’t there but at the main house.

The house, home to the early Churchills and afterwards the Digbys, is not open to the general public. It was the first Digby owner who made the magnificent gardens in the early 19th century.

The lawn was not available to he public either, for perhaps understandable reasons.

The gardens were a wonderful mixture of Himalayan planting and British wild flowers

Eyes right

A handkerchief tree from a distance,

then in ever increasing…

detail. What photos cannot show is that every ‘handkerchief’ is waving in time with its neighbour.

At times the bird song was deafening, not all the responsibility of this blue tit.

Another handkerchief tree,

and this time I’m right underneath it, on a small bridge.

This bridge is foreshortened by the zoom.

I’m in fact nearer to it now.

And there was a convenient bench.

Blackbird in the butterbur

Ransoms and reflections

Wollemi ‘pine’. Until September 1994, this species was only know in the fossil record, then some specimens were found in Wollemi National Park, (the tree is named for the park, not vice versa) 150 km to the northwest of Sydney, Australia. The original site is kept undisclosed to the general public, but propagation makes samples available to botanical gardens.

Entertainment in the lake as I had coffee and cake.

I decided to call in on the little church instead of returning straight home.

15th century font, on a somewhat more recent base

The very first Sir Winston Churchill, his wife, and his daughter are buried here. On the left is the grave of John Churchill, the first Winston’s father.

I felt particularly for this woman, ‘languishing under a tediouse sickness for halfe a year’ before she died.

And there were a few other commemorative plaques which caught my eye, some of which told interesting stories.

A lovely afternoon under lovely weather.