A dead soay sheep crawling with maggots was an revolting way to start the month, followed by giving blood and I find that I am in the 9% of Scots with Group B positive (a lifestyle choice too – Be Positive). The Japanese believe that us B+ folk are attractive but agressive, empathtic but selfish (thats me), credited with intuition and balanced and flexible (useful for rock climbing). Forty percent of us are millionares which is a reasonable goal. It was also time for the bi-annual blood pressure check so we got the home machine out in case we needed to do something before a doctor in a short skirt says I have high blood pressure again. My pulse appears to be that of a well-conditioned athlete at 50 beats per minute (but then it could be as lazy as I am).

Geoffrey, our badger glove puppet, is settling in now – with Cara and Professor Moriarty no longer attacking him. Badgers seem to be the Semites of the animal world – continually persecuted although now protected by law – gassed for suspecting carrying rabies, bovine TB and of course more recently anthrax, the Daschund was named ‘badger dog’ because it was used in hunting them. Although I am not sure what Mel Gibson thinks of badgers, they come out quite well in childrens literature.

Online 3D Virtual Worlds have come of age – I have been playing around with Second Life where I blunder around as Mike Curtiss – looking for rock climbing the easy way in my mountain world.

My free Moo cards have arrived with ten of my favourite flickr photos on them. Excellent and cute business cards…

It now appears that the badger drum I played was infected with anthrax but my reassuring letter from the NHS seemed to suggest that it was a low probabilty that I would die (not zero note, just low)

Gardening time – so whilst Kim uncovered the front stone border from the ravages of time and tractors, Ali and I played lumberjacks with a long ladder and a hand saw. Our gardener cam along with his heman chainsaw which the tree promptly broke – leaving Ali and I with our hand saw and axes to dispatch the stubborn trunk – which filled in the time since my drumming classes have been cancelled for Anthrax reasons.

I read an article that said that one of the highest earning Google Ad sites was Plenty Of Fish, another dating site with ladies offering Intimate Relationships to Just a Chat. Since google ads target ads to do with the subject, the ads were all competing dating sites – so for the site to make the 10,000 dollars per day there had to be lots of people desperate enough to click an ad to find another dating site. Whilst on the subject of dating sites – there has to be a money spinner in providing a service to remove ex-spouses from dating pictures – so many pictures on these sites seem to have ‘the other half’, ex or otherwise, hanging around their neck like the albatross from The Ancient Mariner.

It would be remiss of me to miss out on Gothic Personals though, also powered by Google Ads – yes a dating site for Goths. The search form is a cracker – you can find Polyamorous or Transgendered goths and any of the subtypes of Gothism.

Having been described as ‘Naughty’ on one of the dating sites, and with sailing and climbing as my pursuits, I invested in Knots for Climbers. Now I wander around with a piece of rope in my pocket and am unsure what happens if I use a sailing knot whilst climbing or a climbing knot whilst sailing – they all look the same to me at the moment, whether a Knot, Hitch or Bend. Not too sure what airline security are going to make of it all too.

Booked on a “Make Your Own Coffin” course where I have to bring my own lunch and secateurs and get to take away my willow coffin at the end of the weekend.

Enquiring after the ‘Fur Lined Trout’ at the National Museum of Scotland I was met with a cryptic “Not On Public Display, Sir” from the enquiry line. We took the chance to find their cryptozoology section, expecially with the mermaid in it – however on asking one of the lady attendants if I could see her furry trout it became clear that she was protecting it or had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. The museum was jolly otherwise and we took a side trip to Greyfriars graveyard and to the Mapplethorpe exhibition of naked men and women (they wouldn’t give me a discount for only looking at the explicit photos but they did give a discount for the 15 year old girl we took along).

We were driving down to swimming when a car careered across the road, then was driving on the wrong side of the road before turning off on the wrong side of the road – on the back was “One Life, Live It” – a short life if he does that often methinks.

Visit to Glasgow meant racing around the Kelvingrove Museum, with a spitfire haning from the ceiling and loads of disembodied heads it is a cabinet of curioisities. I was drawn to the painting of Barra by Peploe and to a Lowry painting of a seascape rather like the photographic ones by a Japanese artist/photographer (lots of pictures of sea and sky labelled by which sea they are).

Halloween had Kim and Ali off to throw underwear at Tom Jones, returning on the M8 narrowly missing a cow (they called 999 to report a maurading cow on the motorway). I stayed at home with Bell, Book and Candle – the book was Magick by Aleister Crowley (bizarrely with lots of information on yoga rather than raising demons), the bell was a Yak bell and the candle managed to collapse and drip all over the stove and wooden fireplace. Kim was also not too impressed at me using all of her sea salt to form my protective circle. A skull and a hawthorn wand and a glass of cider and wearing my head torch to read the rituals and All Hallows Eve was off to a swing.
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Best Very Short Story

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” — Hemingway
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Photo Of The Month
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Quote of the month

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
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Poem Of The Month

The Green Eye of the Yellow God by J. Milton Hayes

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as “Mad Carew” by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel’s daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars;
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel’s daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying, “That’s from Mad Carew,”
And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn’t take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he’d chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hastened to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro’ the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp’ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
‘Twas the “Vengeance of the Little Yellow God.”

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu
There’s a little marble cross below the town;
There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

After my Barra rescue we had to return the trailer to Connel Flying Club in Oban and decided to make a weekend of it by staying in Glencoe, my favourite mountain area. We needed to repair the trailer and one of the microlight club members Ali is a welder so he was the third port of call, after picking up the trailer at East Fortune and then delivering our new Google Mini to our data centre in Edinburgh – where I was locked out and was busy cracking the combination lock when I looked up to see Kim on the other side of the gate – the back entrance was actually open and she walked through…

Ali the welder was near Dollar overlooked by the Ochil hills. Ali not only welds but has some great metal sculptures and a grass runway next to his house. Several blue flashes and general swearing about the metal being zinc treated and the job was done and we were on our way to Oban.

We stopped off at the Green Welly Stop for a venison burger at Tyndrum and to prepare for hill walking they seem to put the toilets a mile away from the cafe. Driving along the road the emergency landing roads that I had spied on my previous flight north were cordoned with ski poles which the wing would probably hit on landing. Connel bridge crosses the Falls of Lora – which were not as impressive as I have seen them but swirled away under the superb metal Connel bridge. Oban airport runways are being resurfaced and the place looks like a building site at the moment but the microlight club is friendly and we delivered the trailer with some thank you wine.

North to glencoe and booked into the Clachaig Inn (which has the welcoming sign ‘No Hawkers or Campbells’), we were too late to walk into the Lost Valley so wandered around the bottom of the hills looking forward to walking the next day. Dinner overlooking the loch and the sunset at
Holly Tree Hotel (named after the Appin Murder and in a converted Kentallen railway station) – there is a lovely pier there and there was a white rope laid out (obviously not done his seaman course and tidied up the rope with knots) – so we rearranged it into the form of a chalk murder investigation body. Kim’s dinner was a small trout, mine arrived being carried by two people – it was the Special Seafood platter – and took over an hour and three plates for the debris of mussel and oyster shells and langoustine.

We returned to the entertainment at the Inn which was an R&B band called Deep Blue – after ordering a pint of real ale which turned out to be cider we
started to recognise the band members playing Guns and Roses – they
were from Kelso and the guitarist was Alasdair’s friend – and what a performer excellent guitar playing along with his tattooed father singing and folk from Heiton and Sprouston near our home. There was something else odd – this was a climbing pub but the folk in the pub wearing leather hats and one in a dress didn’t look like the hunky folk I used to climb hills with – it turned out to be a gay stag night – less Munro bagging and more Munro debagging. Apart from one rough homophobe guy wandering around asking people if they were gay (one curiously saying ‘I used to be gay but I am not any longer’) the evening was entertaining with good music and a set of drunk glaswegian women dancing.

Apparently on retiring for the evening I managed to stub my toe and my
wife assumed that Father Jack had moved in with us as a torrent of
abuse filled the room.

The next day we awoke to rain hitting off the window – the Lost Valley was truly lost in very low cloud and heavy rain. I asked the waitress which country she was from, used to a large influx of eastern europeans – she replied Essex, which to my knowledge isn’t actually a country. The rain was getting worse so we decided to become tourists that morning.

The Glencoe visitors centre is interesting as it uses a vernacular architecture and used a variety of techniques for recycling and renewable energy. The view is stunning from there and the bookshop reveals an ecletic collection – I ended up with a book called ‘How to Shit In The Woods’ (covering defecation in sylvan surroundings in extreme detail) and a book about telepathy experiments on the west coast of Scotland. There was also an exhibition of the Himalayas by the photographer who took the pictures of the Tennant lager can lovelies.

We decided to abandon the Lost Valley walk and head for the indoor Ice Factor at Kinlochleven – the road is picturesque along Loch Leven and Kinlochleven is a lovely spot, on the West Highland Way and the only industry is now tourism with the aluminium industry now a museum (which like the industry was closed on Sunday). The Ice centre there has a large ice wall and 8 and 15 metre climbing walls – as we watched a group of people leaving all with limps we knew this was for us and we started with the climbing wall intending on moving onto the ice wall without realising how absolutely exhausting climbing was on vertical walls. My arms stopped hurting after 12 hours where other parts of my body still ache. Kim and I scrambled up the first wall, falling off to show that we were saved by the rope being held by or instructor (who is a part time fireman
and had just been on helicopter training). I had problems with the Egyptian climbing style that prevents you supporting most of your weight on your arm muscles, and I ended up supporting most of my weight on
my arm muscles which was extremely tiring as the chap said it would be, so gave up halfway up the second wall exhausted – Kim carried on though to do another two walls before thankfully our time ran out. We skipped the ice wall due to severe exhaustion, but totally dedicated to doing a lot more wall climbing before setting off for the nearest climbing rock, and headed back to see if the weather had cleared for the Lost Valley (it hadn’t), visting Glencoe village and the Massacre Monument.

The yellow car game has turned into a violent car journey where driver
or passenger wallops the other if they spot a yellow car – it was a
slapfest when we passed a large queue of JCBs working on the Glencoe
bridge. It is getting a bit too automatic now and I almost walloped an
old lady on a bus in the lake district when a yellow car went past..
We decided to call a truce as I was reading ‘The Short History of
Tractors in Ukranian’ and was developing bruises on my arms…

Back to Tyndrum I got a badger puppet from the Big Green Welly and had
fish and chips at The Real Food Cafe (which is a marvel with Pollock
and chips as good as Anstruther, with beer from Alva and a wall of
recommendations including Radio 4 and Scotland the Best – this is a
must stop on the way North). We stopped off at friends near Perth
almost reversing into their Golf, these are the friends we previously
left during the night walking over their Beechgrove Garden in the dark
so bashing their car and buggering off because they weren’t in would be par for the course. The drive home was filled with cars heading in the opposite direction with miserable looking people returning from kelso races.

Glencoe is one of the magical places on earth.

We got back to find a maggotty dead sheep in the field – one of the soays had died last week – I must have miscounted my daily count or they were doing their prisoner of war bit holding up a dummy sheep.