I wouldn’t have too much desire to live in places such as Edinburgh or Glasgow, no disrespect those cities, but they are too large for me.  Deep down I’m a small town/village sort of fellow.  I never realized that until moving to the UK and having spent the last few years in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, this has shown me how quiet life can be in a smallish village.

My own regret after my most recent week in Scotland was that I wasn’t able to get out into the countryside and do more walking around, but what I did manage was superb and gave me a real boost mentally and “spiritually” (in a non-religious way).  One of these days I’ll go and just never come back. 

With some spectacular views like these it’s easy to see why [click to see full sized images]

I think in just a very short time of being there I’ve fallen in love with Ceann Rois (Kinross), it’s just about the perfect size and the views of the surrounding area are, well, spectacular.  From the shores of Loch Lìobhann (Loch Leven), or looking east to Bishop Hill or Benarty Hill to the south, the views are simply awesome. 

A line from a song sung by Celtic Woman, Caledonia (click to see the video) (Sung by Lisa Kelly) really does describe how I feel about Scotland

Let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia, you’re calling me,

[The two photos above are from the Isle of Mull, click on them to see full size images]

Since the mid 90’s when I got my first taste of Gaelic I’ve had a fascination with the language.  Thought by many to be a dead or dying language, however it’s been shown to be gaining ground in parts of Scotland with more taking up the language all the time.  Back in the 90’s I’d heard about Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (meaning, the great barn at Ostaig, owing to it’s 1973 start up location),on the Isle of Skye. This was, and still is today, the only college specializing in higher education taught solely in Gaelic.  Anyhow, back in the 90’s I’d ordered some CD’s and Video tapes from the school to try and learn Gaelic at home.  This worked a little, but without any support network and anyone to speak with it all sort of went by the wayside.  When I went to the Isle of Mull back in 2008 my love for the ancient language came back having not only heard some of the locals speaking it, but really but the fact that I could actually remember and understand some of it (very little, but hey better then none at all). 

I’ve recently been looking into taking a distance learning course from SMO.  I’m just waiting to find out when the term will actually start and see about getting signed up for it.  I still have a problem with finding local people to converse with, however I don’t think it will be nearly as hard these days as it was back in the 90’s, especially being this close to the source of the language. 

What will it give me to be able to speak Gaelic?  Likely not that much to be fair, but it will give me another ticked box on my list of things I want to do in my life, not really my “bucket list” as such, but I suppose if it needs a label then that can be used.   Maybe one day I’ll formally write my list of things I want to do and start physically checking stuff off… hmm good idea.   I suppose another thing that learning Gaelic might be give me is a bit of an advantage should I actually manage to pull off move to Scotland and ending up in an area where the language is commonly used.

While up in Scotland I’d attended by first Céilidh and even dressed the part with a hired kilt.  While I didn’t actually muster enough courage to go and try dancing it was still great fun watching it all.

While the tartan wasn’t that of the Clan MacKenzie I think it looked alright, the tartan is that of the Clan Douglas, the kilt hire shop wasn’t able to get my own tartan on the short notice I’d given them.  Oh well, next time.

I’ve been blithering on for too long and it’s bed time.

We arrived at the camp site about 9pm and had everything set up by about half 9 or so. A quick trip around the camp site to see is about and scope out the facilities, then it was back to meet the neighbours and chill out by their fire.

The sleep was great, I used my new down sleeping bag, it was very warm and comfy. Only problem, on a clear morning the Sun in Scotland shows its face about 4am… Needed my siesta glasses but could be arsed to get out of my bag to get them. Won’t make that mistake tonight thought haha

Saturday: first on the list besides getting showered will be to find food. Then its off to the kilt makers for Gord and I. Then to the actual Mega Scotland event.

I will post more later including some pics I hope.

Cheerio from Scotland

Posted by Wordmobi

On May 1st I managed to get a few hours to get out alone and go walking.  I’d planned a 3.5mi walk but it turned out to be a 5.5 mile walk.  What a great place to go walking.  There were two separate wooded area’s.  Once was Archers Wood

About this wood

Parts of Archer’s Wood are believed to be remnants of the original British wildwood, a ditch and bank in the northern section is a scheduled ancient monument and, true to its name the wood was a sanctuary for highwaymen. Even today you look to the north and imagine a 14th century Cistercian monastic grange that once stood there. Flat and easy to access, the site is dominated by oak, ash and field maple and served by a figure-of-eight network of rides so it’s great for gentle walks. Be sure to stroll along the main ride to spot the rare and beautiful wild service tree – and look out for foxes, woodpeckers and nuthatches.

The other was Aversley Wood, both just outside of Sawtry, Cambridgeshire.

About this wood

A woodland gem in England’s least-wooded county, expansive, impressive Aversley Wood is well worth the steep trek (sometimes boggy in winter) required to reach it. Believed to date back to the Ice Age, it is one of Cambridgeshire’s largest ancient woodland sites and a full tour is not for the faint-hearted – but very rewarding, with impressive fenland views.

You can see the full route of the walk with notes along the way by going to www.stepwhere.com.  I’ve been using this site for storing and planning my recent walks.  You can see all my public walks by going to my user name, M1XZG.  The process I’ve been doing with the site is planning the walk online and loading the track onto my GPS, then, when I’m out walking I record the actual track I walk and upload that to www.stepwhere.com. 

To see some photos from the walk of the woods you can CLICK HERE for my www.flickr.com gallery.  Here are a couple of the photos.

If you get out walking why not share your routes?   Also, why not check out www.walkingforum.co.uk – it’s a fantastic site for all manner of walking discussions.

A detailed account of the walk …

I started by parking in the small lot that services a large open park and allotment area off St Judith’s Lane.  Walking out of the car park I turned right and followed the road to a “T” junction, 1.6 km (1 mi)  This is where you can enter Archers Wood.  Just inside the wood is a map, I had a quick study of the map and planned my route sort of through the wood.  I figured I’d walk the outside route around the wood.  The paths were mostly dry and in very good condition.  There was one detour put in place due to some flooding of the path but that was it for any sort of problems.  The wood is mostly on an incline and that was at the lowest end of the wood.  The rest of the wood was very dry with only a few muddy spots from the recent rains.  Through out the wood there are very nice benches placed in excellent locations providing nice views through cuttings or paths in the wood.  I didn’t find any wildlife except birds while walking through this wood, however there was plenty of evidence of small game by the number of rabbit runs.  If it weren’t for the din of A1(M) very close by this would be a perfect place to come and reflect on life and enjoy the quiet.

Exiting the wood by the same gate I entered by, I turned left and continued to follow St Judith’s Lane for just about 1 km (0.6 mi), just past a large farm on the right side of the road you’ll find the Public Path sign.  Follow the path for 1.7 km (1 mi) and that will bring you to one of the entrances to the Aversley Wood.   About 260m before the entrance is a park bench.  This is where I’d stopped to break out my stove and kettle and make a cup of tea and some lunch.  After about a 30min break or so I packed up and headed into the wood.  This was another spectacular wooded area.  The paths were well maintained and very wide with ample chances to sit on benches and reflect and enjoy the quiet.  Because of the geography of this wood there was pretty no noise from the outside world at all.  The only thing to be heard was the rustling of  leafs and the birds.  Again, I didn’t see any wildlife but it’s clear it exists from all of the small game runs.  I did see what I think might be badger tracks, I meant to take a snap of them to check it out but meh, forgot   After quite some time walking around the wood I finally left via the North Eastern most corner with a gentle ascent up a hill then down the other side right back to the park where I started off.  

The total distance was 8.9km (5.6mi).  The weather really couldn’t have been more perfect, it was sunny but a little cool so it made walking not too hot.  Sitting idle you could feel the cold after a while, but it was very nice. 

I’m looking forward to future walk and hope to plan for a number of them to be through wooded areas like these.

Check out blog postings over at Dean Read dot net. Here is the video of their Ennerdale Wainwrights video.

I don’t have a plan as to when I’ll do it, but I’m thinking mid-late summer.  Need to plan to do some day walks first and get an idea on what I’m in for.  The other “problem” is also finding someone to do these with.  It would be pretty foolish to attempt this sort of thing alone with the lack of experience.  So, I need for another nutter up for some fun too   If that’s you, lets chat, drop me a comment.

I’d really like a MSR Whisperlite but they aren’t cheap, however, they are very versatile.. best you read about them on the manufactures website (click the link back there).  At some point I’ll likely get one of these, but not right now. 

For now I’ll have a go with this Hexamine stove.    This the very same one I have picked up for £4.00

To night I decided to do some timing experiments to see how long it takes to boil water in both my crusader cup and a small aluminium kettle.  The Crusader cup took 6m20sec to bring 1L of water to a boil and the Hexamine cube held the boil for 3 minutes.  Might want it to boil longer if you were sterilizing water, but just pop another cube of Hexamine and it would be good for another 9 mins of burn time.  The kettle, which has a lid, only took 4m30sec and the same 9 min burn time on the cube so that means 4m30sec of the water being held at a boil.

A couple of pics and a couple of videos can be seen below.. click to enlarge or see the videos.

Well, now just have to try it out in anger one day in the field

So, I decided to take her with me.  The question was where too.  I decided to take her to Wicken Fen again.  We’d gone there before (Wicken Fen…) with Lisa’s school.  That visit was good for the kids but we didn’t really get to see too much of the place.  Today when we went back we’d ended up walking about 1.25 to 1.5 miles around part of the area.  Lisa had a good time but sure was tired.  Surprisingly she didn’t fall asleep on the way back home.

There are some pics and a video from the day HERE – here are some samples.

Anyhow, I took a load of pics which you can see if you CLICK HERE.  Some samples of the pics.