Mellbreak and Hen Comb

Mellbreak

Monday, 4 November 2024

Ascent:       789 metres
Distance:    13 kilometres
Time:          4 hours 21 minutes

Mellbreak North Top   509m    1hr 14mins
Mellbreak                     514m    1hr 38mins
Scale Knott                   338m    1hr  57mins   
Hen Comb                    506m     3hrs 09mins
Little Dodd                   362m     3hrs 27mins

It was day 2 of the November fog fest, we decided to visit Loweswater and climb the two steep peaks that Keith and I had yet to climb on our second Wainwright Round. It was mild with no wind but the fells were smothered in cloud. We parked by the Kirkstile Inn and wended our way up a splendid track leading to Mellbreak, the impressive pyramid of a hill that overlooks Crummock Water. 

There is an easy option to head along Mosedale and climb by a path to the col between the twin peaks. We took the steeper route up a path through the scree and rocks on the north face. Time was on our side so there was no pressure and despite the poor visibility the day had an autumnal calmness that was surprisingly enjoyable. We crossed to the higher southern summit before descending to Scale Knott, a Birkett, a hill of over 1000 feet in the Lake District. Keith collects hills of all denominations and we were accomplices although it was hardly difficult, a mere 200 metres away from the path with a minimal ascent and some Herdwick sheep posing on the summit.

We dropped down to the wetland between Mellbreak and Hen Comb where we had almost 2 kilometres of boggy ground to cover to reach the path up Hen Comb. John and Keith took a more direct route to the summit whilst I battered through the boggy ground to reach the path that gave a steep but reasonable route. We emerged on a summit and took some time for food and drink before an easy descent to Little Dodd, the Birkett at the northern end of Hen Comb. 

There is a good path down to Mosedale where we crossed the beck and found the excellent track back to Kirkgate Farm and the Kirkstile Inn. We took some time to look around the large churchyard, builders were working on replacing the roof slates. It was still early and we had thought about another couple of hills but returned to Keswick and spent an hour in the outdoor shops before calling in for a fish supper. 

We returned to the Youth Hostel and spent much of the evening talking to other guests including a couple of Glaswegians whom I found much in common with.

Track to Mellbreak

Whiteless Pike over Crummock Water

Scale Knott above Crummock Water and Buttermere

On Hen Comb

Mellbreak north top

Whiteside and Grasmoor

Lakeland Barn

Haweswater Wainwrights

Branstree: Artle Crag Cairn

Sunday, November 3 2024

Ascent:       963 metres

Distance:    17 kilometres

Time:          5 hours 32 minutes

Tarn Crag                  664m      1hr 43mins

Gray Crag:                638m      2hrs  9mins

Branstree NE Top     673m     3hrs 38mins

Selside Pike              655m      3hrs 56mins

Branstree                  713m      4hrs 34mins

I made an early start to collect Keith from Glasgow and to head for the Lakes for three days walking. We made it to Haweswater by 11:30am after a slow 20 miles on the narrow single track roads beyond Penrith. We jiggled our way through the remote and tranquil Lakeland villages of Askham, Butterwick and Bampton and the  bucolic scenery of Mardale. It was my first visit to this remote part of the Lakes although I had always intended to visit Mardale after browsing photo books of the Lake District as a child. The villages, hotels and houses looked unchanged from the 1950s. Haweswater was flooded in 1935 by Manchester Corporation to provide a water supply for Lancashire and has a rugged wild appearance compared to the more tamed lakes elsewhere in the National Park. 

The long singe track to the road end of Haweswater brought us to a crowded car park and we struggled to find a place amidst the land rovers and other vehicles that had gathered for the last open day for trail bikes and land rovers to have permission to test their driving skills on the Gatesgarth Pass that climbs to 582 metres as it snakes its way to Longsleddale. John had already arrived and it was almost noon as we began the long ascent up the rocky path that had been chiselled over the Gatesgarth Pass. 

I had previously climbed these hills from Longsleddale and knew that they were amongst the boggiest hills in the Lakes. I had warned John and Keith and I wasn't wrong. We decided to paddle out to Tarn Crag and Grey Crag first and savour the higher drier hills of Braintree and Seaside Pike later when we hoped the hill fog may have lifted, our optimism is unbridled. Keith took us on a short cut from the top of the pass to the col between Braintree and Tarn Crag. The path might have been quicker and certainly easier but hill walking is not about making things easy, it is gymnasium for nature's freeloaders.

The ascent of Tarn Crag was a walk up a slow moving horizontal waterfall over grassland. The flat and undistinguished summit of Tarn Crag is embellished by a tall surveying pillar that was built by Manchester Corporation when constructing the Haweswater Dam. We continued across to Grey Crag and met a couple of other walkers, the conversation turned to the vast number of hill classification schemes that had sprung up in recent years. Keith had disappeared to bag a nearby Burkett, or was it a Nuttall but probably not a Marilyn or a Hewitt, or was that the other way round. The confusion stemmed from three factors: imperial or metric measurement, random or rule based classification and height drop between adjacent possible summits. All the classifications provide some excitement for the tick box fraternity. We had some food and drink before beginning the long up hill and down dale squish to Branstree. Well, not quite, we traversed across to Selside Pike once we reached a suitable height and took in the North East Top of Branstree that is higher than the nearby Seaside Pike. The consolation was the firmer ground conditions.

The last leg was the trek back to Branstree with its two cone shaped cairns but the true summit a couple of hundred metres away and is a stone ring in the ground that presumably once held a trig point. There were no rocks in the vicinity to erect a cairn so we began the quick descent to the Gatesgarth Pass as the November light combined with the hill fog made for an eerie descent on the rocky path back to Haweswater. It was one of those occasions that changing footwear and socks was essential before the drive to Keswick. 

There had been a diesel spillage on the A66 and a diversion so it well after 6pm before we were able to enjoy the splendid facilities of the Youth Hostel. A hot shower, well equipped kitchen, a bar and helpful staff make it a near perfect base.  Youth hostellers nowadays are not Generation Z or even Millenials, we are mainly the generation called baby boomers but I would prefer to stick with Youth as a descriptor, it has  the promise of more exciting times ahead. 

Bog trotting in Mosedale towards Tarn Crag

Surveying Pillar on Tarn Crag

Selside Pike

 

Ben Challum

Beinn Challum summit

Wednesday, 30 October, 2024

Ascent:         1035 metres

Distance:      14 kilometres

Time:           4 hours 18 minutes

South top            998m    2hrs 13mins

Ben Challum.     1025m  2hrs 29mins

Ben Challum is one of those hills that is easily forgotten, I had usually climbed it with Creag Mhor and sometimes included Beinn Sheasgarnach or the nearby Corbetts. It must be one of the only Munros not on the blog, I last climbed it at the start of my fifth round before I retired and started the blog. Mark had chosen it as my first Munro on Round 5 and after climbing Creag Mhor refused to let me climb Beinn Sheasgarnach on the basis that it would lead to me trying to do a quicker round than the 80 days taken for the fourth round. 

Today, it was just Ben Challum from Kirkton Farm. I started early and intended to be down the hill in time to listen to the budget. The weather oscillated between fog and blue skies as I travelled up and parked at an empty layby on the A82 to walk over the River Fillan to Kirkton Farm. This is part of the West Highland Way and it was highly unusual to see no walkers on the WHW. The path to Ben Challum circles the farm and heads up an old track past a cemetery to cross the Fort William railway line.

It steepens and runs alongside a plantation of pines the fence keeps out the deer and provides the route of the path. The path was extremely wet, some sections were 10 centimetres deep in water with odd fence posts scattered on the bog to prevent that sinking feeling. It was a slow plod and the fine views visible lower down gave way to a hill fog that persisted all the way to the summit.  Above 700 metres, a cold wind was blowing from the northwest so I put on a jacket and dug out some gloves for the final steep ramp to the 995m top and then the ridge to the summit. There was little to stir the imagination other than another tick on the list and the possibility that the hill fog may disappear by the summit.

There was no such luck. I had little recall of the final narrow ridge between the top and a final climb to the summit.  It is quite a barren summit and the cairn was looking partly wrecked and needed a bit of rebuilding before I began the descent. I passed a couple on their ascent, they thanked me for my footprints that had guided them over the boggy sections. There was little to see on the the descent because of the fog and lower down the landscape had no intrinsic attraction nor was there any wildlife before reaching the railway line where a flock of small birds were feeding on the rowan trees. 

I was down just after 1pm and listened to the Chancellor's speech on the way home. After Rachel Reeves rant about the mess and unfunded projects left by the previous government and a slew of taxes to plug the funding gap, she segued into an impressive list of investments she would be making funded by a change in the borrowing rules. Rishi Sunak was making his final speech as Tory leader and gave a full-throttle response that must have made the Tory benches ask why they were having a leadership election. As ever, he was selective in his evidence and too anxious to have Hansard publish an upbeat abstract of his legacy. It was probably fair as Rachel Reeves had played the same game. The budget and the arguments from the opposition were a bit like climbing Ben Challum: boring, foggy and bogged down in a mess.

Fort William line, Ben Lui in distance

Cloud over the Crianlarich Munros

The path along the fence

Regenerative planting

 

Place Fell, Lakes

Place Fell

Friday, 25 October, 2024

Ascent:         538 metres
Distance:      7 kilometres
Time:            1 hour 46 minutes

Place Fell        657m     58mins

After three days of visiting my childhood territories and spending time with my sister and brother, I headed home. I have always found it hard not to visit the Lake District on the journey between Lancashire and Scotland. I had suffered a back spasm the previous week and had not exercised for a week apart from a fast promenade along the Lytham waterfront yesterday. I scanned the map for a hill that would not be too taxing. Place Fell is an impressive hill overlooking Ullswater and the hamlet of Rooking. I had yet to climb it on the latest Wainwright round. It looked a perfect fit, although driving up the M6 in the grey clouds made me doubtful. I had not climbed Place Fell since the Karrimor (OMM) International Mountain Marathon in 1992, it was towards the end of a long day and I don't recall much about it.

Despite being in the game of buying a bike, I gave the enticing cycle shop in Stavely a miss and drove through Troutbeck and down the Kirkstone Pass to Patterdale where I found a large parking area managed by the hotel. It was noon as I began the walk on a mild autumn day, Place Fell was circled by a halo of blue skies although Helvellyn and the hills to the south were enveloped in clouds that seemed to be heading north towards me. I set myself a steady pace on the road to Rooking passing a family of three and a woman escorting her elderly mother on the steep path that starts from Rooking and is signposted to Boredale Hause and Angle Tarn. 

The path climbs steadily with stone steps through the bracken. It gives good views back to Ullswater and the Helvellyn range and a direct view to the sombre-looking Brothers Water and Kirkstone Pass. There was no back pain and apart from a couple of photo halts, no pace dropping, and I was at Boredale Hause within 30 minutes. Two girls of about twenty were on their descent from Angletarn Pikes and encouraged me to go there but I had climbed them a couple of months ago so I hooked to the left to start the steep climb to Place Fell. It is a good path with a 260-metre ascent to be made, a steeper section below Round How and then a half kilometre across a flattish ridge to the rocky summit of Place Fell. The guidebook had said 1 hour 35 minutes for the ascent but I was up in less than the hour. 

I had entered the clouds at about 500 metres and stopped to put on a jacket. I was hoping the clouds would disperse and they did for a fleeting few seconds just after I reached the beautifully constructed trig point that sits erect on a rocky plinth. I ate an orange and drank some water hoping that the clouds would break but no luck today, it was retribution for all the sun-kissed days of September.

I began the descent and bumped into three men nearing the summit, I had passed them on the way up. They asked where I was from and on telling them Scotland they said I didn't sound as if I did. They were from Preston and I discovered that the father of one of them had been brought up on the same estate as myself. The coincidence continued when he told me he had bought a £3000 bike at the Ribble Bike shop in Clitheroe the day before. I had been there two days ago but had yet to decide whether to buy the bike I had been measured for,  it certainly wouldn't be as pricey as his. Another five minutes further on the descent I met a family from Stockport whom I had passed on the track to Rooking. They wanted a break from the climb and regaled me with their recent trip to Scotland with stops on Skye and Stirling. They had been mesmerised and intended to go again next year. I recommended some places for their next trip before I finally extricated myself and began to run down the path to catch up on time. 

As I emerged from the cloud below Round How another couple appeared, I had spoken to the man earlier as he was struggling to get the car park payment machine to work. He was a farmer from Hexham and on hearing I was from Stirling told me his family had originated from Stirling. His wife prolonged the conversation as we discussed the felled sycamore tree on Hadrian's wall, Alnmouth, Armstrong's Cragside House and climbing the Wainwright's. This was the fifth Wainwright they were climbing and they had recently made it a mission to climb them all. They were surprised that I had climbed them all and began to ask questions. I showed them a route down Place Fell to the north and encouraged them to take this and walk Wainwright's favourite path alongside the shores of Ullswater back to Rooking. The conversation was endless and I half expected to be invited for a weekend in Hexham. Place Fell was shedding its cloud cover so I encouraged them to see it in all its glory so that I could escape. 

I had lost 35 minutes to these enjoyable conversations during the descent so I ran most of the way down to Rooking where I paused to take a photo of a glorious Lakeland house decorated with a couple of pumpkins. It was almost 3pm, I changed my shoes and began the journey home. I was delighted to tune in to a 5 Live discussion with Helen Lewis and Armando Iannucci, both wonderful raconteurs, on the meaning or non-meaning of political words and phrases. I reached Hamilton before five and stopped to buy some provisions when the car computer told me to take a rest. The rain and darkness had fallen by the time I continued. Another interesting day had been hewn out of what could have been a tedious journey home. 

Path to Boredale Hause, looking back to Patterdale

Helvellyn view

The final romp to Pace Fell

Perfectly built Trig Point

On the descent

Looking to Boredale Hause from Rooking

Rooking Lakeland House

Lytham and Ribble

Lytham Promenade

Ribble Gravel Bike

I decided to visit my sister and brother, the first time I had been to my home town(city) this year. I intended to visit the Ribble Bike emporium that had started life in Preston but had moved to Clitheroe where a well-equipped shop had all the bikes on display and facilities to measure you for a new bike. I also had a yearning to visit Lytham where I had spent many a day as a toddler when my parents cycled there on the family tandem with me strapped into a rear metal caged seat.

The first evening, I spent time with my brother-in-law at the local cricket club while my sister was at a Pilates class. The beer was from a microbrewery in St Helens and called Howzat. Not out; it was an excellent pale ale, and we stayed for a second innings.

The next morning I drove to Clitheroe, a douce town in the Ribble Valley that is the HQ of the Ribble Valley Council. It boasts a healthy town centre, fine sandstone buildings and a well-healed population. The Bike shop was a couple of miles away in a new commercial centre next to furniture showrooms, fast food outlets and Screwfix.  I spent half an hour drooling over the complete range of bikes before an assistant became available to measure me for a bike and help me consider the options. 

Was it to be a CGR bike (Cross, Gravel, Road) or a Gravel bike? An aluminium, steel, titanium or carbon frame and what groupset? Did I want an electric bike? It used to be a lot easier to choose a bike in the 1960s - a Dawes, Claud Butler, Holdsworth or Mercian frame ideally with 10 Campag gears, Mavic wheels, Werinmann brakes, Stronglight chainset, Christophe toe clips and a Brookes saddle. All for £21 for a Dawes and up to £30 for a Holdsworth.  The price range at Ribble Bikes was from £1099 to £7000 and Ribble is supposedly among the best value bikes. 

Whilst looking at the bikes and waiting for the assistant I chatted to another customer who lived in Derbyshire but was Scottish. He was green with envy when he heard that I had lived near Aberfoyle for 36 years, he referred to it as Gravelfoyle, one of the best places in the UK for trail riding. He convinced me to get a Gravel Bike and encouraged me to spend as much as I could afford because Ribble bikes were excellent value. He had brought his friend to the shop who was being measured for his bike as we spoke. I still have to decide which Gravel bike, both carbon and titanium are lighter and more expensive, steel had been my first choice but I am currently thinking of aluminium with a better groupset. I would have liked to choose the colour but that cost an extra  £350. That would have bought 12  Holdsworths back in the day. 

On leaving the Bike Shop, I decided to visit my brother who had just returned from a ten-week tour of northern Europe from France to Denmark, up the Norwegian Coast to the Arctic Circle and back via Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France. I drove from Clitheroe by the less travelled roads to the Ribble and Hodder valleys, taking in places that had been the backdrop to my early years. I had gone trout fishing on the River Hodder, walked along the frozen River Ribble in the deep-frozen winter of 1962, cycled around the Trough of Bowland, written a university geology dissertation on the area, and raced half marathons and 10k races during my running days. It was a trip down memory country lanes. I crossed the river Loud where I had camped for the first time with my dad as an 8-year-old and where my parents had their Ruby Wedding celebrations in the hotel. I  spent the afternoon with my brother and invited everyone for an evening meal at Great Eccleston. It was close to the market garden where my father cycled 15 miles to work every day after leaving school before he joined the army and spent the war years in Africa, Greece and Italy with the Eighth Army.

The following day I persuaded my sister and her husband to make a trip to Lytham, the salubrious residential town facing Southport on the other side of the mud flats of the Ribble estuary. As a youngster, I had spent many summer days here when my parents would cycle out on the tandem and where I would play in the paddling pools, admire the windmill, and discover ice cream. It was a fine but breezy day, the tide was out and the mud flats were no more appealing than yesteryear, nor had Southport got any nearer. 

Blackpool is only 5 miles away but is socially and economically more distant. It has declined from the UK's top holiday resort with a wealthy rapacious business community to a tumbleweed seaside town with the highest level of deprivation in England. A sad reminder of the days when the pleasure beach, donkeys on the sand, saucy postcards and sticks of rock made a holiday. Only the trams, the tower and the annual Strictly pilgrimage maintain any sense of pride today. 

Unlike Lytham, where the well-maintained and busy 5-mile promenade along the shore to Fairhaven and St Anne's was alive with dogs and their elderly owners. The centre of Lytham was buzzing with baby boomers bursting the capacity of busy cafes. My sister was welcomed by an Italian cafe owner with the brio that Italians are famous for and we had an excellent late lunch. 

Returning to Preston, I became perplexed by the numerous new housing developments and a road network that baffled me and Google Satnav. The logical morphology of a twentieth-century town has been exploded by thousands of new houses and the school catchments have about as much logic as most social media posts. I began to think it was time to return to the simple geography of the part of Scotland where I am fortunate enough to live. 

Lytham, then @ 5

Lytham, now @ >5, with sister

Lytham Windmill

Ribble Estuary and Southport if you put your specs on

Spitfire at Fairhaven

Mute Shadow

Ribble Estuary and some timeless Beach Art

 

Time for a devolved democratic budget

The countdown to Rachel Reeves's budget is reaching a fever pitch of despair from the government and opposition benches. There is a sense that we will get more of the same permutations of taxes and spending cuts that have been a major reason for the poor performance of the UK compared to other nations over much of the past 45 years. 

The media obsession with tax increases, unfunded projects and the NHS has dominated the airwaves and plays into the belief that these are the metrics to be examined when the chancellor delivers her budget on 30 October. They are missing the real issue, the government's model for budgeting is fundamentally flawed. It is failing to devolve budgets to those who have the knowledge, the contact with their customers and the willingness to innovate and work in partnership and at a pace that gets things done. We need a more devolved inclusive and locally accountable budget process. A step change on par with what Keynes advised and Attlee introduced following his landslide election victory of 1945.

The UK government's derisory budget management stems from what Mrs Thatcher saw as too much public spending and the profligacy of councils and other public bodies in delivering public services. She introduced the tendering of public services, the sale of council houses, the privatisation of many state-run services and reduced public expenditure. She centralised many local democratic services to be run by government departments and agencies. They in turn were told to contract out these services to private outsourcing companies. She also abolished the GLC, Metropolitan Councils and John Major extended this spree of abolitions to Scotland by reorganising local government in Scotland to eliminate most of the regional councils.

This was followed by John Major's introduction of Private Finance Initiatives, later to become Public Private Partnerships. These mechanisms to remove capital expenditure from government spending were embraced by Blair and Brown who were equally wedded to centralisation. By these mechanisms, central government effectively defenestrated local government and replaced it with an ill-considered collective of rapacious multi-service outsourcing companies that are now the operators of what used to be public services. Once ensconced in this role they have used their claim of greater efficiency and near monopoly position to ramp up costs and maximise profits. 

Evidence from various audits shows that the quality of service has often diminished and costs have escalated in many of these services. In some instances, massive profits have been taken and companies have subsequently been bankrupted by the debt they have taken on. When this happens the risk reverts to the government which has had to either bail out 'too big to fail' companies by allowing them to win more contracts or to take services back into public control. Notable examples include probation services, rail franchises and some academy schools. The outcome of these failures has been a double jeopardy for the government and more importantly for those dependent on these critical services. It is one of the tragedies of the last forty years but has escaped detailed examination because of the lack of transparency about the way an ever-increasing swathe of public services has been centralised, privatised and gutted from any form of democratic accountability. 

The expectation is that Rachel Reeves will allow the Treasury to impose another round of budgetary control that reinforces the trend of removing democratic control at both the local and national levels. The Treasury has little confidence in other Whitehall departments to reconfigure services other than by the simple expedient of controlling the size of the budget and telling them to find efficiencies. 

They do not recognise that one of the reasons public expenditure has exploded is not the profligacy of councils or other accountable bodies, who generally keep within budgets and who were normally prudent in the control of public expenditure before compulsory tendering of services. The contracting out of services and the insistence of PFI and PPP for capital investment have transferred much of the operation of public services to multi-service outsourcing conglomerates. They compete in a restrictive market that largely excludes local companies that cannot bear the cost of complex tendering procedures. Having won the contracts they have been able to escalate prices as the contracts were often far from watertight and councils and local companies have lost the capacity and expertise to win back contracts.  

Rachel Reeves should be divesting the management and procurement of these outsourced services from centralised Whitehall departments to the regions and councils. There is evidence that this is having some benefits where Metro Mayors have been trusted to take back control. They are far better positioned, as are Councils to specify appropriate service level agreements and to encourage local companies to deliver services according to needs, not some generalised specification that takes no cognisance of local circumstances and priorities. Massive outsourcing service companies like G4S, Capital, and Serco, which have become so dominant, cannot be allowed to be the justification for centralised government budgeting. 

At the core of a more effective model of government budgeting is an understanding that the specification of services is best done with an understanding of local knowledge and priorities. Local democratic bodies and local businesses have been victims of untrammelled centralisation. Innovation and adoption of new technologies are seldom implemented successfully by overly complex government initiatives. The way for the Starmer/Reeves government to achieve growth is by befriending and trusting local democratic bodies to deliver the services and infrastructure. Devolving budgeting in this way would accelerate the mission of growth and ensure it is more than another mantra.

Podcasts: The Rest is Politics US

Two years ago, podcasts were an unknown medium to me. Today, I listen to more podcasts than I watch television. I began with the odd football podcast then discovered specialist ones that covered topics on the environment, politics and world affairs. These subjects are only cursorily dealt with by news programmes that are bloated with the affairs of celebrities. I then discovered the-rest-is-politics with Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell, two political thinkers who have an incredible knowledge of the world as well as UK politics. They also tap into their network of contacts of eminent leaders from politics to AI for in-depth interviews on the leading podcast. Although Campbell and Stewart had been at the heart of the Blair/Brown and Cameron/May governments respectively, they paired up and discovered that they agreed on many issues, and if not they would disagree agreeably. What a game changer from the Punch and Judy politics served by Parliament and fired at us by many of our newspapers and much of our social media.

I have just listened to the latest episode of the sister podcast by Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci, the rest is politics US, which captivated my interest. As always it provides a ringside commentary on the flaws, fantasies and fortunes of the two polar opposite candidates in the American Presidential Election. It pitches an intelligent, humane black woman against a rich, misogynist, non-apologist white man. Despite Scaramucci being a lifelong Republican, and Kay being brought up in the BBC balanced reporting code, there is no doubt which of the candidates they don't want to win. They have just completed a UK tour of Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff and London debating the issues and answering questions. They attracted an audience of 13,000 at an event in the O2 arena in London.  They are a compelling listen and have deep insights into the American Presidential election campaign. It was a stroke of genius to bring these two exceptional characters together. 

Katty Kay with her cut-glass English accent and Swiss citizenship has lived and worked in the United States for 30 years as a journalist with the BBC but with far more strings to her impressive career. Her knowledge and network of contacts in American politics are wide and close to the candidates. She curates and reports their comments in an articulate and disciplined manner. She has encyclopedic inside knowledge of the election process having covered the last six Presidential elections. 

Anthony Scaramucci is a financier who famously became Donald Trump's Director of Communications when he became president but lasted only 10 days before resigning in despair at Trump's self-absorbed chaotic style of governing. Scaramucci comes from a New York Italian background and has a colourful way with words. His analysis is strewn with a zinging vocabulary and a minestrone of metaphors. It ensures a lively dialogue with the word-perfect explanations of Katty Kay. Their chemistry is potent, Scaramucci is clearly enthralled by Kay's intelligence and posh English breeding. Like Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell, who invited them to do the US version of 'the rest is politics', they listen to each other's views and have adopted the maxim to disagree agreeably, which is not that often.

They also know how to engage and ensnare their audiences. Scaramucci confesses that the weeklong tour of UK cities was the most flattering and inspiring thing he had ever done in his rollercoaster of a career. Katty Kay was greatly touched by the enthusiasm of UK audiences and their granular knowledge of American Politics. As the day of reckoning approaches, this is the podcast to listen to. It is much better informed and entertaining than the alternative podcasts focusing on the American Presidential Election. The News Agents podcast with ex-BBC presenters, Emily Mattis and  John Sopel, and the BBC Americast podcast with the BBC ex and present Washington correspondents, Justin Webb and Sarah Smith were my goto ways of keeping abreast with American podcasts but they seem a bit lame by comparison.

Katty Kay is on the ball when she describes the election as causing global trepidation. Polls are predicting that Trump is 16% ahead of Harris with American men. I'm with the women and Katty and Anthony.

A grand day out in Edinburgh and the Scottish Parliament.

It was a 7:15am start to catch the train to Edinburgh for a meeting in the Scottish Parliament. It is quite a long time since I last joined the throng of commuters and even longer since I had attended meetings in the Scottish Parliament. I was anxious about being invited to give evidence to the Committee examining local government finance. We had submitted a paper to the Committee that focussed more on the need for a radical reset of the governance of Scotland's public services. Finance was only part of the problem.

The reform of local government in 1996, austerity and the cumulative centralisation of public services by successive Scottish Governments have emasculated Councils. Their ability to tackle local priorities, engage with their communities, tap into local knowledge, develop networks with local businesses and nurture the energy and goodwill of communities had been steadily eroded in the 25 years since the formation of the Scottish Parliament. 

Approval ratings and voter turnout for councils have plummeted and trust in Councils is only slightly better than the Scottish Government, 38% against 32%, according to the Scottish Household Survey. Yet Councils are more likely to deliver appropriate progressive solutions and innovations in their localities than central government which is too remote and less qualified to manage services. Councils are essential players in tackling issues like social care, climate change, poverty, economic growth and generally improving the common weal. Our message is that councils should be seen as friends of the government, not as a miscreant form of local administration.

My colleague and I felt a bit like dinosaurs amidst the younger MSPs and civil servants who gave us time and respect as we peddled the experience and knowledge from our lived experience. We were younger than that then and, maybe, wiser than that now.  If you've a couple of hours to spare you can check the video of the meeting here.

Bill and I sauntered back to Waverley station and had a coffee in the Fruitmarket cafe before his train left for the dark side of Edinburgh, Livingstone. I was free and feeling easy, there was an exhibition of Ibrahim Mahama, songs about roses in the the adjoining warehouse space. I was lured in by the massive photos of the work gangs building railways in what was the Gold Coast Colonial Railway. These were two subjects close to my heart. I had always loved the stupendous engineering of railways, the sight, sound, smell and touch of steam locomotives remain evocative memories of skipping around engine sheds and watching steam locomotives when I was growing up. 

A large picture of a diesel locomotive made for the Gold Coast Railway by English Electric in Preston conjured up fond memories of my teenage years. I became friends with a Ghanaian woman who was the first black person to live on the housing estate where we lived. Her husband was a graduate engineer and he had come to the UK to work for English Electric, now British Aerospace. They had been allocated a council house in the days when companies had agreements with councils for housing key workers. She had an elegance and intelligence that were compelling but none of the other mothers in the neighbourhood would speak to her. I was chastised by neighbours for spending time talking to her, she would stop and talk to me when walking to the shops with her baby. I occasionally babysat for her and learnt not only about Ghana and her philosophy of life but also witnessed her experience of isolation as an immigrant mother to the UK in the 1960s. When I went to university she gave me the best advice of anyone, 'just be yourself and you will do well in life'. 

I love the occasions when you have time and no plan. As I left the exhibition I headed up the steps of Fleshmarket Close, a magic tuntaway (a secret passage) into the innards of Old Edinburgh. I was meandering along the High Street when it occurred to me that I could go and look at some gravel bikes that I had been encouraged to buy following a recent hillwalking event and Edinburgh has lots of bike shops. Even better, I could phone my friend Neil, who's been heavily into cycling since we used to ride to school together on his Dad's tandem. There was no reply so I set off to find the bike cooperative, Neil returned my call twenty minutes later, he had been exercising on his turbo trainer. I was given the bus numbers to catch to his house in Dalry and we could go for a late lunch. 

Princess Street was buzzing with visitors and when the number 4 hurtled past me I chased it to the next bus stop but by the time I had weaved my way through the luggage of the tourists and reached the door of the bus, I was a second too late. The next bus would be in 9 minutes said the electronic notice in the shelter. After 7 minutes the bus disappeared off the screen into Edinburgh's Bermuda Triangle of missing buses, the next one was allegedly 8 minutes away. A constant stream of empty trams sidled past more or less bereft of passengers. Edinburgh trams never go anywhere you want to go and unless you live in Edinburgh the bus pass doesn't work on them despite the whole of Scotland paying for this expensive white elephant. Meanwhile, all the buses are crammed because they have really useful routes and destinations.

Neil suggested we go to the Athletic Arms (the Diggers), his nearest pub for a couple of pints. It is one of those institutions that specialises in real beers, has over 500 whiskies on sale and provides the staples of a good pub - basic food, darts, a snug room, sport on TV and a happy and regular clientele. They also have a £3 ale of the day and today it was 'As You Like It', a hoppy pale ale. We talked about old friends and families, bikes and cycling, sheds and politics. Neil advised me against a gravel bike and before we went to the pub showed me his two oldish mountain bikes, which he thought were more robust than gravel bikes, he also has a couple of road bikes and a tandem in his excellent and sustainable uhut shed. Neil is not convinced about the need for disc brakes, they are just another unnecessary complication like electronic gear changers. Upgrading my mountain bike was his solution. Asking for advice on a new bike is perplexing.  John told me to get an electric bike, most of the friends in his cycling group have now switched to them. My original advice was to buy a gravel bike, which would be a lot lighter and more versatile for road and touring than a road or mountain bike. Three friends and three different solutions!? 

It was after 4pm and time to get back to the station for my train. I ran for a bus and made Haymarket in good time. The man who sat next to me on the train was on his phone and sounded interesting. When he finished I struck up a conversation with him, he was a manager with Forestry Enterprise and we had half an hour chatting about Scottish Forestry. We shared a love of the Caledonian Pine Forst in Glen Affric and the Torridonian Mountains. I learnt why beech and sycamore weren't planted in Scotland and why good timbers like Ash and Larch were no longer planted. Norway Spruce still dominated the market because it was whiter than Scots Pine, which was darker and mainly used in structural stud work. Almost 80% of UK timber was imported mainly from Scandinavian countries. We could not compete with France or the United States for Oak because they grew them on good quality soils, timber in Britain grew less rapidly and in poorer soils. He also explained how they acquired additional low value land to plant trees like birch and rowan to ensure that they hit their performance targets for native species. We could have kept talking all the way to Inverness. 

It had been a grand day out and I received a message from a friend upon arriving home. As well as a thank you for gifting my Tubular Bells album to his grandson there was a compliment about our evidence to the Committee. "Watched your appearance in Parliament. Both you and Bill spoke compellingly. I quite take your point about the persistent centralisation of decision-making and the imposition by one tier of governance upon another."

In full flow

Building the Gold Coast Colonial Railway

Coincidence of childhood memories

Fleshmarket Close

Diggers with pints of As You Like It

Lurg Mhor and Bidein a' Choire Sheasgaich

Sunday, 22 September 2024

Ascent:     1447 metres
Distance;   41 kilometres, Cycling 26 km, Walking 15 km
Time:         8 hours 10 minutes

Lurg Mhor.                                987m.   4hrs  12 mins
Bidein a' Choire Sheasgaich.    945m.   5hrs  31mins

It was the prospect of revisiting these two hills, along with Maoile Lunndaidh and Sgorr Ruadh and the tantalising forecast of superb weather that had prompted me to offer to accompany Anna on her quest to complete the Munros. She hoped to climb these distant Munros before winter and preferred not to walk alone on these two extremely remote hills. We had a couple of email exchanges and agreed to meet after we had both driven up and climbed different hills on Wednesday. I did not know what to expect following our previous casual encounter on the Glomach Falls path but her enthusiasm and determination to finish climbing the Munros was infectious. I had been similarly driven when finishing my Munro rounds. My passion for the mountains, which had languished since Covid was reignited. 

After 3 hard but brilliant days in the mountains and checking that the Indian Summer Sunday would extend to Sunday, we decided to take a rest day on Saturday   We had a lazy morning, eating, talking, looking at photos, sorting our stuff, drying shoes and boots and checking the bikes. I removed the toe clips from my bike to reduce the probability of any more strapped-in somersaults. We drove to Plockton for an al fresco lunch and meandered around the village, pottered around Lochalsh, walked across the Skye Bridge and did some food shopping. We arrived back at the house by 6pm and prepared a early dinner compared to the three previous nights. I was told to be up by six for the big day. We managed to get off by 7:20 and we were cycling from Attadale well before 8am.

The weather was cooler and there was a morning breeze but then we hadn't started any of our previous walks before 11am despite being on the doorstep of the mountains. There was already another car parked and a walker wearing a stalker's hat was setting out on his bike. We left about ten minutes later after unloading the bikes and donning appropriate clothing for the cooler conditions. The first couple of kilometres are flat and apart from slowing to watch a large stag hiding in the bracken, we were rolling along fine. 

We caught up with the man in the hat, let's call him George, he was perplexed about which track to take at a junction. I identified the right route by OS maps online after remembering that I had taken the wrong track on this route when climbing Beinn Dronaig three years ago. Anna was unfolding and refolding her paper map that was 20 years old and does not show the more recent paths but hey ho, some people are still fixated by analogue technologies. We found and crossed the metal bridge over the river and began a ferociously steep climb on the other side. George, his real name, had joined us as he was heading for Lurg Mhor. We all pushed our bikes up the next section. I was pleased that George's hybrid bike was as old but probably not as heavy as mine, we had excuses when superwoman rode off on her lightweight steed. 

George was a geordie with only half a dozen Munros to go including Lurg Mhor. Anna made a breakaway once we reached the rideable section so she could stop ahead to take photos of the two of us as we chatted away in an animated conversation about our common interests. George had done the Bob Graham round in the Lake District, and we both had competed in marathons and similar races 30 years ago. We were called a pair of sweetie wives for blethering whilst riding. When she rode past us again to get another set of photos she asked if her bum looked big on the bike, yes, we both retorted. 

After some longer flatter sections the track ramps up again and the gravel gets bigger and lumpier.  We were all reduced to pushing bikes again to reach the high point of the ride at 340 metres. There are then 3 or 4 kilometres of mainly downhill cruising to the bridge over the Black Water. Our schussing was interrupted by some sensational views of Sheasgaich and Lurg Mhor peeping out of a duvet of white clouds. The glens were green and golden, lit up by shafts of the sunshine that we were also blessed with. The temperature inversion had shrouded Beinn Dronaig in clouds and to the east, a large bank of white clouds completed the canvas. 

We stopped at the Black Water Bridge to admire the deep gorge, more photos and, well, to chat whilst not riding. The final two kilometres were easy cycling past Ben Dronaig Lodge where we saw an eagle circling over Creag Dhubh Mhor. It was already a magical day with the best yet to come as we dumped our bikes in a butterfly configuration and set out on the path leading to Loch Calavie. Sheasgaich and Lurg Mohr had been re-captured by clouds but it was only 10am and there was time for this to be burnt off with the chance of getting above the temperature inversion. 

Shortly after reaching the shore of Loch Calavie, there is a sign for the steep but good path up the grassy slopes to the bealach between the two Munros. We made steady progress as we entered the cloud layer that continued until the bealach, a 380-metre climb. The path between Sheasgaich and Lurg Mhor crosses here and there is a final 260 metres of ascent to Lurg Mhor. We emerged from the cloud and gazed down at our Brocken spectres. Anna was more excited by the temperature inversion and spent the first fifteen minutes at the summit taking photos of the vista of the peaks as the top of the cloud layer descended to reveal a wrap-around horizon of shapely mountains against the hooloovoo blue skyline. It was a photographer's heaven. 

Back in the real world, George ate his lunch and I tidied up the cairn. George was on a mission to get back to Newcastle so it was time for farewells to someone who had been good company, if he reads this, thanks and best wishes for your final Mundo next year. He insisted on taking a photo of us against the parade of mountains emerging from the white cloud. We stayed for a while and had some lunch before beginning the descent to the bealach which was still shrouded in the cloud. The ascent of Bidein a' Choire Sheasgaich was an easy 230 metres of climbing. There was no rush, we had spent 45 minutes on the summit of Lurg Mhor and another half hour on Sheasgaich as we identified the myriad of peaks. Anna had an app that did it for you, she's also fixated on digital technologies apart that is from online maps!? I tried to name them by memory and it prompted some differences that weren't going to be resolved by Anna's map reading.  The main advantage of the app is that you can download the results. (see photo below) There is no cloud for my memory, it is on my hard disc (brain) which is near capacity, and there are no upgrades available yet.

We descended by the southwest ridge to Sail Riabhach facing into the afternoon sun. We occasionally stumbled on a faint path but the direction was obvious along the walk highland route. It was 4 kilometres back to the bikes where we slaked our thirst from a waterfall on the Black Water. There was talk about bathing but it was 5pm and we had a 13-kilometre cycle ride back to Attadale. The cycle to the Black Water Bridge is easy going but there are 3 or 4 kilometres of ascent which involved some pushing before we reached the high point of the track. The descent on the chunky gravel was far too steep for my brakes to hold me and I had no desire to repeat any accidental gymnastics. 

The final few kilometres allowed us to let speed be our friend and we were back at Attadale before 7pm. It had been another wonderful day. In fact, the last five days have given us perfect conditions and visibility.  It was the the longest continuous spell of radiant sun-filled hillwalking days since 1993 when there were 7 consecutive days of sunny conditions as we completed the whole of Knoydart, the Skye Ridge and the Aonach Eagach Ridge on the way home, giving us 25 of the more difficult Munros in the week.

This time as well as the weather and stunning views, it was the more sedate pace and stops to enjoy the moment and the company that made it a special trip. After a year or more of treading water and reflecting on the past, I was inspired to rediscover my free spirit, thinking about the future and the need to get out more. 

We returned to the house elated by what we had achieved in the last few days. Anna now has only 8 Munros to go. She is a force of nature and her iPhone is a digital wand that produces magical photos.

It began to rain as I left for home the next morning after we had cleaned the house. My mood was of huge contentment laced with a melancholy that the jaunt was over. I know from the last thirty years that hillwalking doesn't get any better than what we experienced over the past four or five days,

Sweetie Wives

Yes

Gravel and Gravity

The path up from Loch Calavie

The climb from Loch Calavie, Beinn Dronaig behind

Approaching the summit of Lurg Mhor

Meall Mor, the Lurg Mhor top

Sheasgaich from Lurg Mhor

George having lunch on Lurg Mhor

Cheesecake and the Analogue Princess

Lurg Mhor from Sheasgaich

Sheasgaich summit looking to Torridons

Anna's app that identifies Mountains

Bike shed

Drink time

The long and lonely pedal out past Bendronaig Lodge

Speed Bonnie Bike

Descent from the high point

Golden Day

Looking to the future