Loch Ard Trails

Osprey above the Duchray

Dragonfly on Lochan Spling

Entrance to trails at Milton

Pike on Lochan Spling

Today was another morning of hard frost with the low-lying mist promising some fine views if you could get above the strath. I ran around some of the rock-hard and icy Loch Ard trails and was ecstatic when I emerged above the mist on one of the ridges and saw the blue skies and mountains surrounding the forest. There are almost 200 miles of trails which have been my gymnasium for the past twenty years. In recent weeks I have been revisiting routes that I have not run for many years; a couple of new bridges built at Braeval and Milton six years ago had diverted me from the trails that go deeper into the forest south of Loch Ard. This morning I ran 8 miles returning via Lochan Spling and arrived home for breakfast inspired.

I had noticed one of Rob Mulholland's sculptures of an Osprey a few months ago and passed it again looking almost real in the mist this morning.  I decided to return with the camera once the mist had been burnt off. Rob is locally based, a keen cyclist and a nice guy, and has produced fine public art over recent years. I had encouraged the Council to support some public art in the city after I had negotiated some money for city development. It got lost in the bureaucracy required to satisfy the Scottish Government. Disappointed with the lethargy of my own organisation in failing to fund public art, and having seen the fine sculptures that Forestry Enterprise had built in Grizedale forest in the Lake District, I raised commissioning some public art along the forest trails with Forestry Enterprise.  I was delighted a few years ago when they began to open up the trails with good signing, public art and new plantings which restored the indigenous trees instead of banks of spruce along the edge of the trails.

At lunchtime, I set out for a bike ride that took me around Loch Ard and then across the river Duchray by one of the new bridges and back around to Lochan Spling. I took in three of Rob's sculptures which were magnificent in the bright angled light of February. I met a curmudgeonly neighbour who told me that he didn't like them which I took as an even stronger endorsement.

I recalled that after retiring two years ago February was my favourite month for cycling and running. I had thought at the time it was simply escaping the annual budget setting which was always unnecessarily time-consuming and fraught with pointless political jousting. I know better now that February days can be just sublime, pity there are only 28 days apart from the years of the special ones.