Travelling again – 1. Friends

Tags

blue tit, Eskdale Hotel, goosander, grey heron, grey wagtail, Langholm, Langholm Castle, Langholm Church, Noble fir, oystercatcher, Tebay, Tootlepedal

It was so wonderful to be travelling again, and so weird to be mixing ‘naturally’ (almost) with people again. I could scarcely believe my holiday was happening as I set off, having not stayed away overnight since early March 2020, and now I’m back I can scarcely believe it has indeed happened. It is lovely to relive it through my photos, and here beginneth the recital of 13 days’ travel, roughly up the left-hand side of England, the right-hand side of Scotland, and vice versa on the way back. The first couple of days were comprised of close-packed visits to friends.

First stop from Somerset, on Monday 7th June, was Stafford, in time for lunch with Ellie, a former probation service colleague, and her two cats. Here she is with Skimble, who passes most of his time on the ironing board.

(I should have used flash (1)!)

The following morning, I left quite early, to have coffee with Stan, with whom I used to make music when I lived in Staffordshire.

I was delighted to learn that his son, for a long time himself a professional musician in the Netherlands, was shortly getting married. This in fact happened three days ago, while I was on the road, nearly home, and I was very happy yesterday to watch a video of the music- (and musician-) packed event, which took place in the Anglican church in The Hague. The couple will shortly be coming to the UK for a church blessing here.

I had had the mad idea of meeting up with Peter, to have lunch with him in the Manchester area. Thank goodness he was not going to be free. Time and traffic constraints would have meant that I would have to have cancelled at no notice my diversion eastwards to visit 97-year-old Brian in Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

I stopped for a bite of lunch by my car high on the moors, about 15 minutes’ away from Brian’s, on the Halifax road. This photo does no justice to the beauty of the area, but I could not park where I would have liked to.

I had known Brian and his family when we both lived in Reading, Berkshire, in the 1970s. They had, as it were, adopted me when I moved into Quaker circles there. I used to make music with their daughter, Hazel, until she moved on marriage to Hebden Bridge, many years before her parents followed her. Sadly Hazel had been called away on urgent family business just before my arrival, but her husband, Jim, was on hand to welcome me, and took this photo, possibly the first of Brian and me together since we had a narrowboat holiday together, with his late wife and another friend, in the 1980s.

There followed a long drive all the way to Langholm in Dumfriesshire. I stopped briefly at the Tebay Service area,

and was pleased to find that the rather heavy traffic I had encountered thitherto thinned considerably from then on.

I checked into to the Eskdale Hotel for two nights at around 6 pm.

Tom and Ally, brother and sister-in-law of my London friend, Mary, joined me for dinner there.

(I should have used flash (2)! I promise you they are not really purple.)

I spent the next day with them. Tom writes a blog every day(!) and I asked first if we could just have a wander around the town so that I would be able to envisage the various places he mentions in it. As ever I snapped away, and here are some of the photos I took.

Their (Church of Scotland = Presbyterian) church

Its great – especially from a musician’s point of view – interior. Covid-necessary cleaning going on.

They have local birds to die for:

Oystercatcher

Grey wagtail

Goosander

I think this is ‘just’ a Lady’s smock/cuckoo flower, but if Mr Tootlepedal disagrees, perhaps he would say so in the comments. (I’m not sure why I took it.)

Sawmill Bridge

All that remains of Langholm Castle

Noble fir

I was pleased to catch this blue tit emerging from its nest in the tree trunk (not of the fir), which it did with great frequency, having bought food to its chicks.

This heron may or not be Tom’s Mr Grumpy, who appears regularly in his blog posts.

Elements of both primary and senior schools, not to mention the seniors looking on.

And a sneaky peak at Tom and Ally’s garden, of which more anon.

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!

Return to Aigas 8

Tags

Aigas, Arctic skua, eider, Gairloch, Golden eagle, greenfinch, grey wagtail, Loch Ewe, Meadow pipit, oblong-leaved sundew, primrose, red deer, red-breasted merganser, roe deer, Round-leaved sundew, sea eagle, sedge warbler, Slavonian grebe, Strathconon

The two final days at Aigas in one post.  Accounting for Thursday will very be short. We drove over to the West Coast of Scotland, to the Loch Ewe and Gairloch areas, returning by way of Loch Maree.  Here are a couple of views we saw on the way there, and a very short video.

From these it can be seen that the weather was not exactly ideal, and I have already indicated that I was not well-equipped with bad weather gear.   Having had our lunch we walked along the seashore for a while, in a howling gale, hoping to see sea eagles.

The sea and the grass show how windy it was, and I chickened out again, being absolutely frozen, and made my way back to the bus.

It was quite a time before my colleagues returned and I hoped they were having luck with the eagles.  They weren’t, but they did see a ‘bonxie’, an Arctic skua, which was a plus.

On the way back to Aigas, we had two unexpected sightings at the same place.  The stop was for reasons of nature other than wildlife, and we weren’t expecting to see anything special, but to our surprise we saw there a large group of eider duck, and a red-breasted merganser, swimming on the sea.

This is only part of the group of eider

Red-breasted merganser

And it was a treat to see a greenfinch, that increasing rarity in our gardens because of a rapidly spreading disease.

Friday was our last day, and was spent along Strathconon.  A pleasant morning:

Roe deer

Meadow pipit

Meadow pipit with insect

Red deer

An after-lunch stroll:

Round-leaved sundew. Each trap is no more than a centimetre across

Primroses -in June!

There are both round-leaved and oblong-leaved sundew here

Grey wagtail

The very same making photos easier

But the best was yet to come.   I wasn’t able to get pictures of an osprey perched in a tree, because sadly someone had not understood the instruction to keep within the outline of the bus when we got out, so it was spooked and flew off.  But I had been able 30 minutes earlier to get a few pictures of – at last – two golden eagles!  Sadly, in terms of wildlife the fact that we saw two of them flying around was not a good thing, because it meant there were no chicks on the nest to be looked after by one parent. But it was a thrill for us.

View from a bridge…

… which was really a hydro-electric barrage

The afternoon’s sightings were completed much nearer our base by some Slavonian grebes and a sedge warbler.

Sedge warbler

 

A last drive back to Aigas through the Highlands

Up very early on the Saturday morning for the 8.55 flight from Inverness to Bristol.  What will be the next photographic experience I post here?  At present I have no idea!