Early Morning Glories

Aberfoyle oak wood SSSI

Ben Ledi from Lime Craig

Waterfalls at the David Marshall Lodge

For the last two days, the cold sharp winter weather has returned and I have fallen back into the routine of climbing a hill before breakfast. The burns and waterfalls were frozen from a hard overnight frost but the still dry air made for the best of walking conditions. It is the perfect way to assail the senses and to appreciate the splendour of deciduous forests of oak and birch.

The icing on the cake this morning was a thin veneer of snow which let me follow the tracks of a fox up to the treeline. The sunlight shafting through the trees angled onto the snow crystals which acted as prisms to create a carpet of snow speckled with all the colours of the rainbow. The views from Lime Craig were sharply focused against the unblemished blue skies apart from a cloud cap over Ben Ledi. To the south, the Forth Valley was shrouded in a hazy white mist.

Orkney

Kirkwall airport

St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall

I have just returned from a week in Orkney carrying out a review of corporate policymaking and the governance of sheltered housing and care homes. It was something that I had spent a lot of time on in the late 1970s when my team had produced many recommendations on special needs housing. I visited all 19 District Councils in Strathclyde to encourage a more diverse range of housing to be built or adapted. It had prompted a much-needed investment in special needs housing.

Orkney was bleak in the cradle of winter, geese were grazing, snow showers blew in intermittently and there was a sighting of the northern lights on Monday evening, which I missed. I was buttressed from the expansive Orkney skylines in a comfortable flat in the centre of Kirkwall. Freshly caught Westray haddock became my staple diet as I became a regular at the Kirkwall Hotel. I worked about 12 hours a day for the first 4 days and completed 35 interviews with residential and care home occupants and staff as well as social work and housing managers and politicians.

On Thursday evening I was invited to visit Alistair and Lorraine for a relaxed evening with the easy hospitality of good Orcadian friends. We had a bit of a blowout with several bottles of wine followed by a bottle of whisky. Alistair and I talked until 3:00 am, by which time a lift back to Kirkwall or a taxi was about as likely as another sighting of the northern lights. I grabbed a few hours of sleep in the spare room and the next morning we had a lift into Kirkwall from a friend of Alistair.

Friday was less productive but I managed another 7 meetings and took the chance at lunchtime to walk around St Magnus Cathedral and to buy a book by George Mackay Brown that I had discussed on Wednesday lunchtime with a couple of intense local animateurs. I completed 42 interviews with a wide cross-section of people and met with 25 older people during the week. It unearthed all sorts of fascinating insights into island life as well as boxing the compass of opinions on the workings of the Council and the concerns of elderly people who felt they had not been consulted about proposed closures to their homes.

Dawn, who had organised my diary all week and chauffeured me hither and thither, extracted me from a debriefing with Alistair at 3:30pm and dropped me at the airport about 20 minutes before departure. I met a group of auditors I knew and we had an interesting discussion about public sector efficiencies before embarking on the 4:00pm plane back to Edinburgh. It was one of the faster commutes home and took just 3 hours door to door. I could get used to this.

February hills not budgets

Ben Lomond from Lime Craig

For the first time in twenty years, I had a February free from the frustrations and bickerings of the annual budget setting. And what a week, a high pressure had settled to the north east and the whole week was pitched below freezing but with crystal blue skies and still air - my favourite weather scheme. So each day at first light I sauntered through the oak woods behind the house and traced new routes to the tops of Lime Craig and Craig Mor. The views were simply stunning and the snow capped munros compassed the skyline - a veritable group photo of old friends.

My right leg was beginning to feel stronger again after the trauma of the trapped sciatic nerve and most days I managed to run for several hundred metres as well as making descents down the steepest slopes I could find. By 10:00am I was usually home with a copy of the Guardian and breakfast to look forward to. The only budget thoughts were watching the continued collapse of the equity markets in the face of the Greek budget deficit.

The rest of each day was spent preparing for my next work project, setting up a company and then an afternoon cycle ride or walk. I landed another 3 bits of work for my portfolio - none of which I had bid for, although 2 of them are unpaid but interesting assignments. I never knew that February could be so pleasant or quite appreciated what a beautiful place the hills and forest of Aberfoyle can be in winter. But then again I have seldom been here in February when it wasn't dark.