Hostile conditions on the East Wirren
"NOW in the falling of the gloom, The red fire paints the empty room, And warmly on the roof it looks, And flickers on the backs of books." (R. L. Stevenson).
Stevenson writing about coal fires. In another life we lived in an old, rambling and draughty house heated by coal fires.
Although cleaning and setting them was a messy job there is something about them that I miss. Coming back to central heating after a winter's day in the countryside in hostile conditions is not the same. I grant you that it's all in the mind but there is something strangely welcoming and homely about a living fire that cannot be replicated by radiators.
Hostile conditions were what we got on East Wirren (2092 ft) the other week when, as we climbed, we walked into a blanket of fog, rain and storm force winds. I bring up the rear on such expeditions ("coo's tail" someone remarked).
With visibility down to twenty yards the walkers in front assume a ghost like quality, unearthly, especially when the wind drowns out voices. In the lee of a peat hag we came across a mountain hare, cowering and immobile. It regarded us balefully, doubting our sanity perhaps.
We rarely have recourse to the compass but it was needed now. Used to good effect our navigators took us directly to the trig point; spot on. This was no day to hang around on the tops for a coffee stop so we made our best way down to a stalkers' hut.
We'd set off from Lethnot School along the side of Craig Finnoch. A mile or so from the start point some heavy plant is gouging out earth and rock. The local gamie told us that a lochan is under construction. It will eventually form an environmental feature in the glen and become home to water birds and the like.
The keeper was out in the hills putting grit for grouse into the feeders. Apparently this grit is treated with a substance that inhibits the plague of ticks that kills off game birds. The same beasties infest deer.
When we emerged from the shelter the wind had dropped and the rain had ceased. As we regained the downward track the sun appeared and, over the glen, we spotted a dozen stags in full antler. The rutting season is over. On a parallel course they followed us down. You always come across deer in Lethnot. This had been a seven mile walk full of incident. (OS Landranger Sheet 44).
On another windy day twenty Monday Walkers were out at Montrose taking a route from the golf course and past the site of the old airfield.
This ramble takes you to the hamlet at Fisherhills and into the parish of Kinnaber. There was plenty of wildlife in evidence in the estuary of the Northie. There are always heron here and a couple of cormorants were sunning themselves on a spit of land with a whooper swan paddling nearby.
A commotion near the river bank turned out to be a seal; at a guess it must have been a mile upstream from the sea. I was told that conservationists had been trying to catch it to tag it in order to monitor its movements. I gathered that so far it had eluded them.
I'll remember this outing for our lunchtime break. Although not especially cold we were buffeted by the wind. We eventually sheltered in depressions among the coarse marram grass and sand dunes.
As the tide was flowing we were able to observe the boisterous waves some twenty feet below our lunch spot. The gale was blowing sheets of spray from the wave crests. In the curious sunlight the scene was oddly hypnotic. As usual the camera, when I need it, is never to hand. (OS Landranger Sheet 45).
It's that time of year again. I came upon a piece of writing by Anne Gordon based on the journal of Mr. Smith, a well-to-do tenant farmer at Maisondieu, Brechin 1794-1801.
It throws interesting light on how one local farm celebrated the season. "December 25 was a normal working day, as it was for many years thereafter but, more surprisingly, so was January 1. It was January 5, Old Christmas, as the journal calls it, which was celebrated with the giving of presents and a day off work.
"Mr. Smith might give the lassies stockings or napkins... for the male workers it could be a leg of mutton, while John Duncan, his head man might receive a bottle of whisky and a boll of meal as well as, one year, even a pair of breeches."
Things change a bit in 200 years. Merry Christmas.
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Weather for Brechin
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 3 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: South
