Fired up with all things nautical I have been diving into the wonderful Lighthouse Stevensons book, previously having only read the Bell Rock entry, to read about lighthouses we narrowly missed on the St Kilda expedition. In addition whilst researching how to use a sextant, for when my GPS inevitably fails, I came across astronomical tables which happened to be done by an old client of ours – it is amazing where happenstance appears. Other sites tell the wonderful story of celestial navigation, from pirate eyepatches being used to retain night vision for star spotting to the horoscopes all being based on a 4,000 year old chart which has shifted at least one zodiac value with the effect that I now move off the cusp from Capricorn to the cusp of the water carrier and the fish, which given the nautical theme is hopefully more appropriate than acting the goat. International Talk Like A Pirate Day came and went with some very confused call centre operatives.
The equinox struck whilst we were in Perthshire tolling the entrance of autumn so it had to be autumnal walks up the Birks of Aberfeldy, with magnificent waterfalls and woodland riverside walks around Logiealmond where our chums fed and watered us into submission when I couldn’t even eat breakfast as I would have exploded. The pub next door to them had shut down due to licence difficulties but had magically reopened for my visit and we spent many an hour recounting travellers tales over real ale. Munching stovies in Dunkeld whilst scaring off the riff raff at the surrounding tables with Kim’s foul language recounting my sailing yarns and our drunken arguments – she could have simply sworn in different languages and only offended foreigners.
We had a mass breakout today from the field -Flora lifted the heavy metal gate off the hinges probably with Roo the horse helping and the sheep followed in a mass feed on the neighbouring farmers grass and newly planted rape. At least no-one was running around shouting ‘Rape, Rape’ like an Archers episode. I used my newly learned sailing knots to secure the gate and we tempted them all back into the field by shouting at them a lot and waving my crook.
Having discovered ‘Deep Blue’ at a gay stag party night at the Clachaig Inn last year – we decided to return with friends to see them live again. This time with Steph, Squirrel, Stuart, Al and Alison with Ian, Kim and Mike spoiling the alliteration we marched up in between two of the three sisters of Glencoe to the Lost Valley, a flat piece of land high up and hidden from below – where the Macdonalds hid their cattle from reivers and themselves from the Campbells. In the valley we proceeded to try to get all of us up on top of a boulder, which was a good idea at the time, the more interesting descent tested our ankles with a jump onto stony ground. The Clachaig Inn bar proved a welcome hostelry and we watched the rugby after dinner where Scotland squeaked through helped by our drunken support. The night carried on drunkenly as we bopped to Deep Blue before the Stornoway black pudding, pints of stout and Macsween haggis met in my stomach and I spent part of the night glued to the toilet sounding like a very ill pair of bagpipes.
Next morning it was a wee visit to see the boat I had spent 9 days on, and then to the Neptune’s Staircase (built by Telford in the mid 1800’s) and capable of lifting boats through a series of locks up 60 feet to the Caledonian Canal. We watched as a catamaran and a yacht were passing through one of the locks and through the gate – the view of Ben Nevis from here is stunning too. Hence up to the friendly Treasures Of The Earth Geology museum at Corpach, which was well worth a visit with a vast array of minerals and luminous rocks and fossils and a constant menacing roaring from the dinosaur exhibit. We passed on the 650 quid lump of Brazilian Amethyst and the 140 quid crystal ball and bought some Bismuth and was told that it was used in Rennies along with a touch of arsenic to ease stomach pain.
A visit to Glenfinnan primarily to see the Hogwarts Express viaduct but the view of the tower and hills was very pretty, before returning at high speed to Callander and watched Deep Blue (the first time I had seen them whilst sober) at the Jazz and Blues Festival with a less enthusiastic crowd munching our way through Confectionary Town’s fudge, tablet, belgian chocolate coated bananas and licorice comfits. Callander also has a very niche market shop called The Christmas Shop (do they take the rest of the year off?)
The highlight of Callander was the Toy Museum which took me down a whirl of nostalgia with Magic Robots and Scalextric, and Kim found out that she had a disadvantaged childhood being made to make her own toys (although her slot car racing set is probably worth more than my old one now due to its rarity). There were nazi action men and black dolls as well lots of golliwogs – Political Correctness had been banished from this collection.
