small quietness

I set up my camp at Kilvrecht on Loch Rannoch`s southern shore. I wasn`t bivouacking under a fallen birch tree in the Black Wood, in the snow, like Robert MacFarlane . However, again inspired by his Wild Places,  I still want to experience what Nan Shepherd described of the Cairngorms: "No one knows the mountain completely who has not slept on it. As one slips over into sleep, the mind grows limpid; the body melts; perception alone remains. These moments of quiescent perceptiveness before sleep are amongst the most rewarding of the day. I am emptied of preoccupation, there is nothing between me and the earth and the sky."  [p91]

Leaving my tent I wandered for some hours along a trail skirting the Black Wood`s edge. At its upper tipping point I glimpsed a stretch of still water fenced in and almost hidden behind trees. There was no way in for eye or body to fully appreciate the lochen`s size or nature.

Then I found a lightly indented grass trail leading in to shoreside. 

Such quiet.... Sound-proofed against wind and tree sway. At my vision`s edge, the light plink and ripple of a trout jumping happened. And again. The sound of quietly falling leaves drifted over to me.

I stood and stretched down, feeling hamstrings strain and then relax. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I could have sat, stood, even swam, just here. And done nothing else.

In the early hours before dawn I was awoken by the cold and listened to and thought about two owls close by me, calling across the woods. High, clear night song, trailing off in wavelets. Soft as their feathers.

Rannoch Moor

Parking the car at Rannoch station early on Saturday I prepared for my walk across the moor to Glencoe : took a selection from the stock of tinned sardines, oatcakes, apples and carrots. Plus some water bottles. (I really wouldn`t need these). I was walking east to west, into a vast and ancient sundial; each distant mountain reflecting sunlight and shadow in an ageless repeating sequence, augmented by the infinitely variable patterning of clouds and mists.
The walk was 12 miles across, carrying a heavy-enough rucksack. I knew Saturday`s weather was to be fair, Sunday`s execrable.

The first of three sections passed through woodland that skirted the head of Loch Laidon

Loch Laidon

The middle third was a walk through boggy grassland accompanied by a long, highly unphotogenic line of power cables

Then onto solid ground. Glencoe drawing almost imperceptivley closer

Bridges are a fine thing. How I hankered after them on Sunday...

One of the landmarks that failed to reappear on Sunday - because I was to branch off onto another path. 

The mountain the cairn echoes is Buachaille Etive Mòr, the Great Herdsman of Etive, and it was this mountain that I was visiting, like a pilgrim to his God`s cathedral

I pitched tent here. Felt I should have been raising a yurt. A beautiful spot in which to sit and breath and stop thinking all those clamouring thoughts. A place to awaken to an orange sun glowing on the mountain`s face.

When all was in its place a liveried estate manager drew up and asked me kindly to flit further along as they were set to move a herd of Highland cows that evening. 

The second pitch had a fine view of the mountain. Here, the river roared soothingly. Also it was only a mile or so down to King`s House Hotel. I sauntered down to the climbers` bar for a pint and some crisps.
Returning, I sat watching the mountains and marvelling at an eagle`s agility in flight. I then lay reading and, an hour after sunset, fell asleep - the river`s white noise a lullaby.
So that was Saturday

I was a bit concerned that the early Sunday rain would make some streams difficult to cross on the trail back. I woke before dawn and set off by torchlight. Sound as this notion was, the darkness caused me to wander onto the wrong road. In the dawning light I walked along for five miles or so looking for yesterday`s landmarks - finding none. The drizzle and fog obscured all the mountains. My compass showed south where north should be.  Retracing my path I came to a dead end. I became quite dismayed. I was lost on Rannoch Moor. Not good.

Then I saw what I hoped was the west to east trail markers (those ugly power cables). I followed the marshy line of a fence down towards them and was very relieved to have found my bearings again. Sure enough I encountered each Saturday landmark in turn. Safe.

All was fine (if wet and blustery) until I encountered the first in a number of "challenging" crossings. The first of these cataracts seemed impassable but, as there was no choice, I threw my rucksack to an " island", (on the middle left of the retrospective picture above) followed it, then chucked it and myself  to the other side. Had I slipped I would have been swept down the roaring flume. 

Even on reaching the woodlands, what had been gentle streams were now torrents. This last one fordable only with rucksack on my back. 
As I hobbled the last few miles blisters burst and I hobbled some more...
In time I reached Rannoch station and the car, whose key I had continually reached for in my jacket pocket, like a talisman.
And as I sat, heater blasting, stripping down and drying my sodden body, the deserted and remote railway station started to throng with locals and travellers awaiting the arrival of the Glasgow train to Fort William.
And I realised that I worship the gods of nature and modernity.

Warm Wood

First run in about three weeks yesterday evening.
My back had been suffering shrill spasms as the stomach muscles screamed at the core muscles to carry their fair share of the burden. They screamed back.
Pine smell sharp in the nostrils. A consolidated and permanent warmth. Like consolation before a trial; it being so unfamiliar... 
Only scant sign of slugs.
No fatness on them.
Also a settled, interior warmth; I`d helped make good things happen at work this week.

I thought of Joanne Newsom`s soft caterwauling lyrics, saying the scene for me:

Peonies nod in the breeze,
and as they wetly bow
with hydrocephalitic listlessness,
ants mop up their brow.

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour;
butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours.

The Lost Avenue

Another longer run yesterday. This time revisiting the Traquair side of the Bold Burn . "The sun shone and then it rained" was on a repeat loop. Rising to around 400 metres at Plora Craig,  the road levelled out and I enjoyed again those panoramic views to north and east.

My memories of this stretch have included:

A disproportionate joy in seeing a red squirrel; 

A hobbling frustration at having pulled a calf muscle;

Sharing small, pleasant greetings with passing bikers;

Fear and exhilaration when running for home, through a larch plantation near the Bold Rig in a thunder storm (should I chuck my watch away or not, I wondered - it being the only metal object I was wearing. Apart from my fillings); 

And the memory of lingering many times at  the long avenue of tall spruce trees below Plora Rig. Echoing in my fancy the Sequoia Avenue at Benmore.

I`ve marked the place with a cross on the map.

As I ran I began to realise that the Avenue was gone; acres and acres of trees were now stumps, leaving fields of stubble. Harvested like a crop of turnips. Like a personality had been erased taking my bearings with them. Home to deer and badgers and foxes and all the smaller creatures. Shade and contemplative corner for me. Like a duvet had been pulled off someone`s bed.

memory mapping

A number of locations in this and neighbouring forests have for me strong emotional associations; evoked by the scenery, the weather, the time of day and year - yes.  But, because I am a lone runner, much more so by whatever is cogitating inside me. Just as heavy food and toxins will sweat from my body over the course of miles; similarly, frustration, despair, happiness and all the complicated cocktails of emotion which build and coagulate over time are given space to ooze or judder out of me. That I don`t often encounter anyone else makes these trails a vast private retreat. There`s liberty to yowl. 

If I`m to run a half marathon distance over summer I need to stretch the journeys and so

revisited a long loping loop beyond Elibank castle. 8 miles or so .

And looking at the picture of my route I could point to memory-map co-ordinates of where I`ve stood when transfixed by birdsong and childhood homesickness.

To where I planned, in my mind`s eye, the smooth apple-wood sculpture of a woman`s beautiful head. A piece that was to have the profound simplicity of folk art but that was only made manifest in my imagination.

And where, spinning from the sprawling iron age wall high above Cardrona, I ran off into a blueberry strewn, sunlight-dappled pinewood, fleet and predatory as a Mohican !

But I also associate pounding the forest trails with heart and mind quietening. Body and word mantras pitched at my needy thoughts like bread to ducks on a pond. Stilled by the clocklike pulse of foot-step, arm-swing, ex-hale.





lemon moon

I listened at the dark wood`s edge. All colours polarising to straw and ink. Above, in the southern windy cloudiness, a small, bright blurred half lemon moon. All the wood`s bird singing said the sun was leaving.

 

It was like I`d found myself in a large echoey school hall. The windows open, letting in shafts of warm light, releasing wood varnish smells. The wind in the spruce tops a russet rustling beech hedge surrounding the hall . Its roar a protective wall of sound.

Birdsong like scatterings of small children, each having found his and her own private space - in the middle, at the edges, in the corners, to better hear and be heard . Every one of them - oblivious to its neighbour - in animated talk with an invisible parent, who is at home or at work or far away.  

Twenty or fifty small piping voices. Each private communion following its own ebbing, flowing wave . Jabbering excitedly;  telling a long rambling story;  standing still,  listening intently. I felt their happiness and their young yearning.
What a projection onto a dusk chorus !
Maybe my heart was remembering summer evening soundtracks, old as time;  when I was small and never far from home.
 

twilight zone

I stopped a few times to take in the northern view over the river. Moorland hilltops level with my eyes. Though few signs of new leaf growth in the larch, I`m reassured by the ever-green-ness of pine. Also I hear a thrush`s beautiful song echoing across the woods at my feet. Sounding late summer stirrings.

I went back to find the frog. I knew it sat, poised and dead, close by a little pine sapling but could hardly recollect where. So retracing my footsteps I searched more carefully, my slow brain ticking and crossing off the three mental boxes: pine-sapling, stone... pine-sapling, stone. 

Then pine sapling, stone, frog. I knew my friendly sketch last time had done no justice to its strangeness.  Hunkering down I saw the falling dusk had drained and blackened all cherry brown colour; all warmth. Much as a slug at its side had been leaching the alien-looking husk of nutrients. Of goodness. In a sense. 

I flicked away the slug and took some snaps.

                                       

Then I  passed a tree wrapped in a forest worker`s safety jacket. It was as though the man had stood there so long and so still, a sapling had crept its way up and through him. Sucked his nutrients into the building of  itself.

frozen frog

the frozen frog

Snow still 6 inches deep at 300 metres, I`d been running in Size 8 or 9`s walking-boot prints: fresh today, sometimes splayed, herring boning up the slippy slope towards Bold Burn`s source. Then scuffling prints where dog and walker merged, played, or where leash wrapped around legs even. Then at the hill`s crest, walker`s prints went on backwards, admiring the view, the light, taking a photo, calling dog away from deer scent. And right-angling their walk, roe deer tracks scored their own careful paths from woodland to woodland. 

I wondered if the creatures met at all or if, like me,  inhabited different spaces of time. All of us though seemed to be present in the eternal "now". Our passing prints fleetingly evidenced this.

I stopped to pee over a sapling pine tree. Wondered lazily if I was nurturing or poisoning it. There`s nitrogen and potassium in urine, I thought. I`ll come back soon - see if the plant is burnt or thriving. Then looking down right I see a small frog sitting on a stone: 2 inch long body, 4 inches  if the back legs extended into a leap. Sharp angled, the colour and patina of cherry shoe polish. I gently poke the frog with a stick. I`m mildly startled that it`s hard and stuck fast to its rock like an aborted fossil. I stare. Life`s spark has gone. Either last year`s remnant or precocious victim of a late springtime.

Following the Bold Burn as it runs by the roadside, heading to Glenbenna I look out for the Heron, who hates company and flies off, wings like strings and pulleys, whenever I`m near. Muttering under his breath.

As I pass his haunt I see no sign, thinking he`s at his Heronry until, looking into the still pool, I see his submerged body, like an avian Ophelia. A cloud of feathers by his side. Victim of a fox or the life frozen out of him.

sunlight snowshine

Yesterday afternoon my running shoes crunched through residual snow crust. I gathered no momentum, no running rhythm.  I kept stopping to photograph the plays of light on pine tree bark, white gold light leaking through bronze pine-tops. No creatures; just light and colour, Stopping and staring too long I grew chilled and stiff. Lumbered into motion once more, struck by the warmth of the colours, by the cold sterile air. Spring is reaching tipping point now;  melting winter.

In Pursuit of Spring

On the map I`ve traced in red the trail I followed yesterday. I followed where the logging road had been cleared of snow and arrived finally at the high point where the Southern Upland Way, the old drovers` route, intersects the foresters` way. At this point I took off my headphones and breathed in the silence and cold crisp air.

Then I turned back to north again and replacing the headphones, retraced my footprints. As I ran down the slope, I listened to an excerpt from "In Pursuit of Spring" , experienced and written by Edward Thomas exactly 100 hundred years ago:

"The road was visible most dimly, and was like a pale mist at an uncertain distance. When I reached the green all was still and silent. The cottages on the opposite side of the road all lay back, and they were merely blacker stains on the darkness. The pollard willows fringing the green, which in the sunlight resemble mops, were now very much like a procession of men, strange primeval beings, pausing to meditate in the darkness.."

"...I walked more slowly, and at a gateway stopped. While I leaned looking over it at nothing, there was a long silence that could be felt, so that a train whistling two miles away seemed as remote as the stars. The noise could not overlap the boundaries of that silence. And yet I presently moved away, back towards the village, with slow steps."

"I was tasting the quiet and the safety without a thought. Night had no evil in it. Though a stranger, I believed that no one wished harm to me. The first man I saw, fitfully revealed by a swinging lantern as he crossed his garden, seemed to me to have the same feeling, to be utterly free of any trouble or care. A man slightly drunk deviated towards me, halted muttering, and deviated away again. I heard his gate shut and he was absorbed."

"...I felt that I could walk on thus, sipping the evening silence and solitude, endlessly. But at the house where I was staying I stopped as usual. I entered, blinked at the light, and by laughing at something, said with the intention of being laughed at, I swiftly again naturalized myself."

Shoots and Leaves

I picked my way along the northern flank of the forest track as it heads towards Scrogbank. Two foot deep drifts forming ridges and curves like desert sand dunes. I tunnelled into the sheltered pinewood, ran past the  tree fall barricade. Matching a lone walker`s ice fossil footstride. Seeing the memory of his dog`s meandering track in the snow. Slowing, my cough like a fox bark, the white ground gathered new prints: Deer. And further on a roe deer, sharing my window of time, skips over the track a hundred yards ahead, sees me and bolts. Then turns and, from a coppice, stares at me. Invisible now in my bright red jacket, blue hat, because I`ve become motionless as the wind is.

I wonder why, when there are maybe one and a half million deer in this country, more than since the last ice-age, this still feels like an encounter with something rare. They are as graceful as  gazelles, shy and secretive.  But in the absence of wolves and bears,  have no natural predators and are on the brink of massive yearly culling.

This deer`s partner comes up through the wood and stops for half a minute on the logging road, nosing the ground. I see the buds of antlers.  Then both melt into the upper forest.

As well as admiring their beauty I harbour an atavistic impulse to stalk these creatures. To bring home fresh venison.

Deer are said to be having a devastating effect on woodland, damaging farmers' crops, causing road accidents. If it is true that around 750,000 of them are to be culled annually, it`s likely that we`ll become very familiar with the taste of their meat in the coming years.

Topsy Turvy

 Casting an eye over the heather bank shouldering the path I saw no bright blaeberry green and wondered at how these plants have retreated, burrowed into the soil, traceless. All is struck dumb at snow`s intrusion. I hear spring birdsong and feel icy fingers. Running to the junction of three roads I stop and look up towards the Minch Moor. Hills and block-forests, grey and white patterning, veiled, like shapes under tracing paper.
It`s spring yet you might perish from cold should you slip and twist an ankle on those high, lonely trails. The seasons losing their bearings.

Beauty That Owes Us Nothing

I spent some of this Monday cutting and gathering wood. I`m pleased to see that, driving further and higher  into my "patch" this time, there is still plenty deadwood to collect. Blue sky, sunlight and plum shadows enveloped me, Cezanne-like, rather than blanket grey dampness. Even the skyline gashes reflected ethereal elegance.

I hanker after some hardwood, but, beyond the very occasional prone birch, conspicuous in its whiteness, all is utilitarian spruce: fine for drying-out and burning. Quickly consumed.  

Nonetheless I`m going to saw and set aside some of this seasoning birchwood. As well as being a wonderful fuel, I`ll squirrel it away for sculpting during summer months, .

No deer, no robin even. Only a buzzard`s cry.

I am growing to know this place. Despite its sunset-facing valley slope there is nothing grand or beautiful about it, though spruce elsewhere, north America perhaps, are impressive trees when left alone by us to fulfil their potential.

I`m merely a form of woodlouse, harvesting the dead and the dying; neither coppicing nor planting.

Prosaic as this work-a-day Borders woodland is,  Muriel Barbery still speaks for it and for me when she observes:

“There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature...yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are - vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth - and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honour this beauty that owes us nothing.” 

wood gatherer

I`m very glad to have extended my firewood license another three months and look forward to being in this forest as it starts to come alive once more...Over the winter I`ve had one curious, tame Robin keep me company, have heard, of course, keening buzzards and seen, rarely, glimpses of winter-dark roe deer. But that`s about it.

Much of the deadwood up here is sodden, after unremittingly wet months; snow and rain. I`m going to start collecting the countless sawn trunk stumps, discarded and dumped in the logging road ditches by forestry skyliners. I`ll gather them in pockets under dark, dry, close-knit spruce plantation. In time they`ll dry out. Once split, storing them will be a challenge as they don`t stack beautifully...

The green mantel

Site for the mantel piece

The car couldn`t even reach the forest gate on Saturday, never mind drive through and up into the snowy woods to collect logs for the depleted woodshed. I was disappointed, not least because, the gate being locked, I couldn`t use my special padlock key;the one Neil Craig had entrusted to my keeping;  my key to the forest.

So, on the off chance it was open, I drove instead to the RealWood studios at Ancrum, intending to buy some hardwood for the mantel above the woodburning stove.

My luck was in - they were open. As their blurb says: "Real Wood Studios is a collectively owned workshop, showroom, sawmill and timber merchant, specialising in the creative use of locally sourced native hardwoods in the Scottish Borders." I looked amongst their sale samples like a kid in a sweet shop and, with the assistance of Graeme Murray, chose a couple of pieces of spalted oak.  The whitest oak I`ve seen.

Graeme and I struck up a conversation. He showed me an example of his own craftsmanship: a massive chest built from oak and beech from storm-damaged trees. Beautifully lacquered, waxed and oiled. Finishes are way beyond my knowledge-base, but I need to learn ! 

 Both of us had studied sculpture: he in Edinburgh, me in Aberdeen. I`d wanted to go to the Glasgow school, and he: Dundee ! However Graeme has taken his talent and love for wood to levels way beyond mine.

  Two lovely chunks of dressed Spalted Oak

The lower piece is to be carved

                         I`d like to repeat this floral motif I sketched at Roslin Chapel over twenty years ago

When carving is complete I intend sanding the surfaces and sealing with Danish Oil or similar. When I told Graham Murray I knew of someone who used Crisp n Dry instead of expensive oils or waxes , he showed polite interest: "Hmm, vegetable oil..."