RHS Wisley and other Parks

Entrance Terrace and the Laboratory Building

It was a very late Easter and the forecasts were for the hottest on record. We travelled to London to visit the family by train. It was the first time since the east coast mainline had been restored to a public operator following Virgin defaulting on the £2bn in franchise payments. LNER ran on schedule using the old rolling stock and on the return journey, they even offered free tickets to ticket holders who had booked onward journeys from Edinburgh on cancelled Scotrail services. Something that Virgin had refused to do on a previous journey when they had failed to keep to scheduled times. Let us hope that is the last of Virgin on the railways, as well as refusing to honour pension entitlements for staff, they have operated overpriced ticket scams, the trains they leased lack legroom, the seats are not aligned to the windows and the toilets talk at you. 

We made a successful visit to the Royal Horticultural Society Wisley Gardens in Surrey on Good Friday when it was the hottest place in the UK. It is an inaccessible attraction by public transport, and we needed to order an Uber taxi service for the final 4 miles from the West Byfleet station. Apparently, the crowds were as busy as anyone could remember but the gardens absorbed everyone with ease and the whole experience was on a par with Kew Gardens, although without the aircraft noise.

The 100-hectare site is bounded by the river Wey and located in the rich fertile soil of the Thames basin. It had everything from rock gardens, vegetable and fruit gardens with the biggest collection of rhubarb species, a magnificent collection of coniferous trees in lawned areas, glasshouses, several cafes and numerous events for children. You can spend hours just walking through the well tended sections and then there is the opportunity to buy plants from the incredibly well-stocked garden centre. The children found lots of things to attract their attention and expend their energy. The only problem was getting a taxi back to the station. We seemed to be the only visitors who were dependent on public transport and the shuttle buses to the car park were the only concession to their customers. The train back to London and then the bus meant it took almost 2 hours for the 30-mile journey.

Clapham Common was in festival mode with thousands of young people playing games and drinking on a glorious summer-like evening. The weather continued over the rest of the weekend but we restricted ourselves to more local attractions in Dulwich and Brockwell parks so that the children could use their bikes and scooters. An Easter egg hunt was arranged on Easter Monday and it was a treat to see about 15 children between the age of 3 and 8 running at a pace to find eggs after reading the clues. It reminded me that as a boy I spent every Easter Monday in Avenham Park, Preston where we had Pace Egg races down the slopes of the park that was located on the scarp slope to the River Ribble. The eggs were hardboiled and often inedible because they had been smashed and the paint and colouring had been absorbed, today it was pristine chocolate eggs that were smashed and eaten.

I was delighted to see that the local primary school in Brixton had adopted the daily mile by marking out a track around the playground and encouraging children to run fourteen laps to achieve their daily mile. A simple but effective activity introduced by St Ninian's Primary School in Stirling and now embedded throughout the UK. It is a perfect example of how innovation is best achieved through local endeavours rather than centralised diktaks.

Treescapes

And Tiger came too

Entrance

Glasshouse

Forest

Rockery

Water features

Dulwich playpark

Learning to ride

Pace Egg racing in Avenham Park, Preston

The Daily Mile - 14 laps of the school playground

Meall Ghaordaidh

Meall Ghaordaidh from Glen Lochay

Last 200 metres of ascent

Beinn Challuim and Creag Mhor to the south-west

Looking west from the summit to Loch Lyon

Stobbinnein and Ben More to south

Ben Lawers Group from the summit cairn

Descending from the summit looking to the Lawers group

Looking south to Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin

Glen Lochay in spring

Wednesday, 9 April 2019

Ascent:    939 metres

Distance: 10 kilometres

Time:       3 hours 26 minutes

Meall Ghaordaidh       1039m      1hr 58mins

A morning frost meant cobalt skies and sharp visibility, I packed for a short day and left home at 7:30am for the short drive to Glen Lochay. I had decided to climb Meall Ghaordaidh, a shy isolated but massive hill that is hidden from view halfway along this quiet glen. I was attempting to gain some hill fitness for a trip to Skye in a couple of weeks and to break in some new trail shoes that I use for most hill walking trips from April to October. 

Conditions were perfect: cool, sunny and the air absolutely still as I began the walk by the Allt Dhuib Croisg. I had found a parking place about 100 metres west of the farm track that is signed to Meall Ghaordaidh. Sheep were grazing in the lower fields but no lambs yet. There was no need for hat or gloves and I soon stuffed my jacket into the rucksack as I warmed to the climb up the steady grassy slopes, boggy in places but not too difficult to avoid. I took a direct route up a couple of dry gulleys and met the track that had taken a less steep detour. A small cairn marked the start of a path which leads to a broken fence and then climbs steadily to the east end of the bulky ridge. 

Views were opening up to the west to the Mamlorn hills, with Creag Mhor striking a shapely profile. It is a bit of a slog as you progress along the gentle eastern shoulder of the hill before the final 200 metres of ascent. There were still patches of snow to traverse as the path steepened. It is one of those hills that has a series of convex slopes that keep adding another section. The summit has a large cairn that hosts a trig point and provides good views in all directions. It had taken just less than 2 hours, which had been my target, I had kept a steady pace and only had one stop for some water and photos. Checking previous visits tells me that my fastest time was in 2007 when it took 1 hour 26 minutes on an August day when I had already climbed Ben Chonzie.

It was not yet 10:30am so I spent 15 minutes enjoying the summit views before starting the descent. The first section on the steeper slopes was through some snow and ice that was melting quickly and extremely slippery in my trail shoes. Below 750 metres it became an easy stroll down the grassy slopes, good for reflecting on what the year ahead holds. I had been concerned that I had lost my fitness as I was running far less than at any time since 1981 but the walk had gone well. I was back at the car by midday and home by 1pm.

Days like this are almost perfect and are given as they say in Shetland. It had created a sense of anticipation for the months ahead. Last year had been the best weather for walking in May, June and July that I can ever remember but I was too busy selling and moving houses to reap the full benefit. This year will be an attempt to finally complete the 222 Corbetts but they are all in the far north and scattered about so it will require at least half a dozen trips, some with a bike. There is only the trying. 

Venice: escaping Brexit

Doges Palace

Grand Canal from San Maria Della Salute

Doges Palace, evening crowds

Parade of Army and Navy in San Marko

From the Campanile at San Giorgio Maggiore

Grand Canal From Accademia Bridge

Academia Bridge

Aileen's favourite place

What can you say about Venice that has not been said already? It was my fourth visit, the first one a day trip from the Dolomites in the 1970s when the snow conditions had made skiing impossible. The next two trips were to celebrate special occasions with Aileen in the 1990s so we knew the lie of the land. This short break worked out perfectly including the flights and timing. We had four days of bright March sunshine with temperatures cool enough for walking but warm enough for ice cream. Aileen was in her favourite city and that gave us the license to celebrate everything about being European.

There were queues for St Mark's Basilica but the rest of Venice's crowds were comparatively modest, which meant quiet museums, tables at cafes and space on the vaporetto. Our hotel was well located between the Rialto and San Marco, it was a modern refit of an old palace, providing comfortable rooms, good breakfasts and excellent service. We were even given a room upgrade. I had booked with less than a week to go to escape the agonies of the planned Brexit day of 29 March. Never had a short holiday been so perfectly pitched, we both wanted to be in Europe not the broken UK that the government had carelessly curated.

We did not wish to be in the UK on such a day, although as the time approached, Mrs May had managed to delay the event by three months to give her a last chance to negotiate a deal that could get through parliament. As we ambled along the sun-soaked canals of Venice, I reflected "through the window of my eyes, to gaze on the rain-drenched streets of .. England" where life as we have known it is in grave peril. Many other disgruntled Brits had the same idea. We are Europeans at heart, it's all about geography (and history) really, something that PM May would understand if her geography degree had been at a less cerebral university than Oxford. Voters have been distracted and diffused by the appalling mess that the government has made by calling a referendum and not having a Scooby about what to do next.

Apart from the usual jaunts around St Mark's several times a day and two hours in the Doges Palace, one of my favourite buildings, we explored the quieter locations. We escaped the crowds by taking a short trip on the vaporetto past the aircraft carrier moored opposite the Doges Palace to San Giorgio Maggiore. It provided the best viewpoint in Venice by taking the lift up the Campanile. We lingered in the piazza, walked around the yacht moorings, and the Qwalala glass sculpture and visited the Borges gardens.

We spent two afternoons walking through the Dorsoduro District, the location of the second-best viewpoint at Santa Maria Della Salute. The largest art collection at the Gallerie Dell' Accademia disappointed us, with a major refurbishment taking place. However, the nearby museum at Ca' Rezzonico was a revelation for its exhibits of baroque paintings, carved ebony furniture, chandeliers and magnificent rooms adjacent to the Grand Canal. I extolled the virtues of Giandomenico Tiepolo's anti-portrait painting, New World, to another UK visitor. Aileen was greatly amused and told me later that my listener was Harriet Walter, the Shakespearian actor who recently played Clementine Churchhill in The Crown. I am immune to the offerings of Netflix and seldom manage to go to the theatre so my ignorance was genuine.

The best of Venice is the absence of traffic. The haphazard streets are dissected with canals, and crossed by elegant bridges, the buildings are decorated with sublime features, and the urban fabric oozes diverse charm. The Austrian urban theorist, Camillo Sitte, has always fired my imagination with his advocacy of piazzas enclosed by buildings on all sides and the art of urban design on a human scale. Attributes that are sadly missing in most of the UK's towns and cities.

In Venice, there are examples of what he meant around every turn as you meander through the city. Glorious piazzas appear as unexpected treats with statues, carvings, and materials in subtle colours. They take precedence over the usual urban hotch-potch of advertisements, signage and standardised street furniture. The piazzas have an abundance of inviting tables, ice cream parlours, benches, fountains and small shops with wonderful window displays. The sounds of the city are not vehicles but the contented voices of residents and visitors from all parts of the world. Exploring the live history of Venice is a vibrant and inspiring experience. It is perplexing why we have forsaken this aspect of life on a human scale to accommodate the intrusion of the car into the hallowed centres of our built environment.

St Mark's Basilica 

Gondolas at San Marco

Inside the Doges Palace

San Marco from San Giorgo Maggiore

 Qwalala Glass Sculptures

Tiepolo's New World at Ca' Rezzonico

Rialto Bridge

Relaxing in the Dorsoduro District