Ochils: Ben Cleuch

Ben Cleuch from Ben Ever

25 September 2020

Ascent:     955 metres

Distance:  11 kilometres

Time:        3 hours 31 minutes

Ben Ever          622m    1hr   11mins

Ben Cleuch      721m    1hr   37mins

The Law           638m   2hrs  20mins

John had phoned and suggested a walk in the Ochils. He was trying to complete the Donalds, all the hills and their tops between 2000 and 2500 feet south of the Highland boundary fault. He had not climbed The Law during his previous outings in the Ochils because it was only a top but since 2018 the completion of the Donalds has required the tops to be included in the round. Keith Adams was to join us but his car had been assigned to the scrapyard and he was unable to get out from Glasgow. We met at the Ochil Hills Woodland Park. John observed that it was our first walk together in 2020. It would have been the first year we had not climbed together since we had climbed Ben More and Stob Binnein in 1978, starting at Crianlarich and finishing at Inverlochlarig by Balquidder.

There is a footpath from the Woodland Park back to the Silver Glen where it joins a well-made track that zig-zags upwards and then follows the Silver Burn climbing quite steeply, as is the way in the Ochils. At 370 metres we left the track and followed a wide grass path directly to the summit of Ben Ever. The bright skies with a loose cover of high white clouds made for an enjoyable ascent but towards the summit, the strong northerly winds chilled us. The visibility was excellent and Ben Ever was a good viewpoint for the familiar skyline from Ben Lomond round to Ben Chonzie. Tinto Hill was visible to the south, the Forth Estuary to the east and the links of the River Forth with the vast expanse of bonded warehouses at Manor Powis and former MoD site at Bandeath also prominent.

It is an easy saunter across to Ben Cleuch, although another 140 metres of ascent. We passed a group of four hill runners, two men and two women. We reluctantly admitted that now in our seventies, we would not be doing that again. I had run from Dollar to Bridge of Allan on a few occasions twenty odd years ago and that will remain as part of the happy memories of hill running days. At the summit of Ben Cleuch, three women had seven dogs with them in the wind shelter that surrounds the trig point. It would have made a remarkable photo but we retreated down to a sheltered position to sit and have some food, One of the dogs followed us down carrying a large stone that it dropped in front of me. I threw it and the dog retrieved it. This went on for ten minutes or so, John had finished eating and we were still playing. I sat down to have a drink and was promptly barked at for being a wimp. Fortunately, the women were about to leave with the pack of dogs so I finally had some peace. 

We continued the walk over to The Law and passed a dozen or so other walkers, mainly groups of what I assumed were students from Stirling University; skipping their house parties, online lectures and tutorials, and why not. Covid is not just for freshers week! On the steep descent from The Law, we passed the dogs again and I did get a photo but it lacked the group dynamics of the summit shelter. As we entered the Mill Glen and crossed the footbridge we discovered that the footpath back to the Woodland Park was closed owing to a landslip. It meant a diversion to Tillicoultry where we picked up the Hillfoots Diamond Jubilee Way back to the car park. It had been a good, if short, hill walk and a reminder of the well-tended, grassy but steep paths that abound in the Ochils. Looking at the way Covid cases are rising again, we will soon be in lockdown again, I doubt there will be many chances to get further afield this year.

The Law from Ben Ever

Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorlich from Ben Ever

Ben Lomond to Ben Ledi from Ben Ever

The Law from Ben Cleuch

Burnfoot Hill Wind Farm from Ben Cleuch

Ben Cleuch summit

Add caption

Forth Links from The Law

Some dog photos for the benefit of John

Mill Glen above Tillicoultry

 

Covid Six Months On

Autumn

 23 September 2020

It is exactly six months since the PM belatedly announced on 23 March the lockdown of life in the UK because of the COVID pandemic. So many things have changed since then. The initial impact was profound with devastating consequences in the UK as the spread of the virus reached all parts of the country and ravaged the care homes. We were housebound with only the garden, local walks and cycles on empty roads to provide brief interludes of freedom. Food was delivered and for six or seven weeks and we did not venture beyond the five-mile travel limit imposed by the Scottish Government. 

Even in May and only five miles from home, a nasty notice was attached to the car telling us to stay at home when we returned from a walk on a local footpath. The GP surgery was closed as were all social and service facilities. We chatted to neighbours at a distance as we did with people we passed on walks and everyone kept their distance. Most people were very friendly in the village and a sense of community prevailed.  There was no chance of visiting family or friends, our regular July holiday was cancelled although we were still told to pay for it. 

The lockdown was eased on 5 July, we booked a holiday on the remote Isle of Coll. Everything had changed, the Calmac ferry was operating at only 25% capacity, the dining room in the hotel was spaced out, and only two people at a time were allowed in the local shops. As we returned home, the roads were full of traffic heading for the highlands and islands and pubs and cafes had reopened. Caution was thrown to the wind as the government urged people to return to work, take public transport and eat as much as you can and we'll pay half. Schools reopened and then the universities returned. People were allowed to revisit each other and socialising became close and personal. 

We are now reaping the consequences with the number of cases escalating and the government are dropping anchor on the advice of the scientific and medical advice. With home visiting, holidays, people back at work, school and universities, it is no surprise that the cases have shot up again and in four weeks we already have as many cases per day as back in April. This at the very time when the support to businesses through the furlough scheme is ending and the new support measures are far less generous to business. We are facing a long winter of despair with university students ready to abandon their online teaching, stuck in university accommodation that is locked down for a duration likely to be as long as the PMs ramblings. 

With all these phases of certain uncertainty, I thought it would be useful to describe a typical day in the age of Covid at the cusp of this latest change, which has put all of us on parole to behave. 

My day started when I woke at 6:30am, the habit of a working lifetime, and as usual, I switched on the radio before 7:00am. The skies were bright and air still, there had been the first frost of the autumn. I decided to go for a walk up Lime Craig and left at 8:00am after a cup of coffee. I usually do this walk once a week. I am still hoping to make my 200th run up the hill, it is exactly a year since my 199th run but I am still having to limit running after my knee injury in May. Lime Craig was taped off in April and May but it has become a staple walk for quite a few people since access to the outdoors was relaxed. I parked at Braeval from where there is a good track all the way to the summit. Only one other car was there and no camper vans today, unlike recent weeks when there have been quite a few as Scotland has been besieged by people escaping the cities and more populous parts of the UK.

The conditions were perfect although gloves were needed for the first time since February, I passed a woman and her dog who were descending, she told me the views from the summit were incomparable. I must have benefitted from regular climbs as I kept a good pace all the way to the summit, an ascent of about 1000 feet. I was passed by a pick-up truck just before the summit; it was occupied by a couple of forestry workers arriving to clear the summit of spruce saplings. We had a quick chat at the summit platform where they were tooling up for the day, I had spoken to them a few days ago and since then they had cleared an area that had opened up some fine views to the south. We could see the Arran hills in the distance and the clarity was as good as I can ever remember. 

I was down well within the hour, jogging about half the descent as I try to build up my leg strength. I drove to Aberfoyle to collect a prescription at the pharmacy. Jamie, the pharmacist, lives in Glasgow and is worried about the escalation of COVID cases and feels the new control measures announced by the Scottish Government are necessary. Later in the day, we discovered that the number of new cases had risen to the highest daily rate ever in Scotland with 486 confirmed cases. Students at Glasgow, Dundee and Napier Universities were the main reason. I returned home for some breakfast and caught up on the news, edited a few blog posts and then spent an hour in the garden moving stones and turfs that were left from planting a new hedge at the weekend. 

By the time I came in, I had missed the Politics Live programme that Jo Cockburn presents with 4 or 5 guests from politics, the media and think tanks. It is well moderated and provides far deeper insight than news programmes. We had received an email from a friend Steve, asking if we would like to join them for a walk at Brig o' Turk at the weekend. We agreed and arranged to go on Saturday. 

Lunch was salad and smoked trout followed my daily apple, it set me up for a visit to the Muir Dam. I had been asked by the Council paths co-ordinator to provide a detailed map of the stiles we were intending to replace on the footpath so that I could obtain a grant for materials from the Council. She had also asked me to provide photos of the present dilapidated stiles. I had done all of this in March before lockdown but had been unable to find the list of materials that I had sent to others for checking, I must have inadvertently deleted the email. It took about 75 minutes to survey the path again,  I was surprised how little the path had been used since March, mainly because the stiles are broken. I called in at Richard's house and asked if he could find the email that I had sent giving a list of the materials which I would now revise following my re-examination of the path.

As I was walking back through the village, I dropped in at Dykes who sell and maintain agriculture and garden machinery to ask if they could look at a Hyundai petrol strimmer that had not worked since I bought it last year. It had to be returned to the agent to replace the gearbox and then proved difficult to start. Dykes asked me to drop it in and I returned with it immediately. Two or three minutes with a screwdriver and it was going, no charge just a suggestion that I buy the latest Husquana automatic lawnmower which would save me three hours a week in summer. It was tempting but not for this year, another two cuts and that should be the end of the lawn cutting. 

I returned home and began to cut the lawn next to the new hedge that we had spent most of the weekend planting, mainly because I had to dig out 75 willow trees that I had planted last winter. The neighbours appeared and we had a half-hour discussion about the latest developments in lockdown 2.0. I collected a couple of barrow loads of sand, for the path next to the burn and spread it on the path that I have been constructing. I spread some fine gravel over it before returning all the garden stuff to the shed and retired for a shower.

We were having spaghetti bolognese made with Quorn tonight, we switched to a meat-free diet about a year ago when Gregor came to stay with us and have continued since he moved to a new flat in June. We watched the tail end of the Scottish News and then the Channel 4 News. We have mainly given up on the BBC News, which has pandered to populism, there is seldom any in-depth analysis and the BBC seem unwilling to call out the government when it fails to deliver its promises on tackling the COVID pandemic.

There was a Community Council meeting on Zoom, the first since lockdown and we had received an invite to join, primarily for the debate on a planning application for 70 houses, which would increase the size of the village by 20%. There were about half a dozen other people tuned in to watch the deliberations about whether the Community Council could hold an AGM online and then various reports from the Council and other agencies, all of which were about delays to projects. There was no real debate about the planning application other than how to deal with it given that it not yet been submitted. The would-be developers were seeking to have a discussion with the community in advance of the application, mainly it would seem to tick this box before making a submission. We baled out of the meeting early.

John called asking if I would like to walk Ochils with him and my former hill running partner, Keith Adams, on Friday. Keith had been in Essex when lockdown happened and had stayed there with a cycling friend ever since. I am surprised he survived, he has spent more time in the hills than anyone I know and Essex is one of the very few counties that doesn't have any hills over 500 feet. It will be good to catch up with them both, we have climbed hundreds of hills together since our first outing on the Ben Lui Munros in December 1990. 

Richard had found my email and forwarded it to me so I could revise the requirements for materials to repair the stiles, that would be the top priority for tomorrow. 

I checked the football results, Preston had lost 2-0 to Brighton. When they were relegated from the old Division 1 in 1960, Brighton and Hove Albion were in Division 3 South. I had assumed we would soon return and I have attended playoff finals for promotion but it increasingly looks like a return is unlikely in my lifetime. This despite the potential crowd probably being greater than Bournemouth, Blackpool, Watford, Burnley, Wigan, Huddersfield, and one or two other clubs that have made it to the premier league in recent years.

There was nothing worth watching on TV so I had a bowl of cereal before retiring for the night at 10:45pm.

Pine near the summit of Lime Craig

Looking west from Lime Craig

Ben Ledi

Stob Binnein and Ben More

Campsies

Path along the Cessintully Burn

Tony Abbott is not the Suppository of all Wisdom

Several friends have made comments in recent weeks about being embarrassed to be British. I share their pain as we watch the government's shambolic attempt to manage the pandemic with a little help from their friends. Friends like Dido Harding, companies like Serco and G4S and those private companies, many with financial links to the Conservative Party, that have secured £5bn of contracts for PPE under a loophole that allows normal tendering procedures to be abandoned during an emergency.

Meanwhile, the organisations with the skills and knowledge to deal with the pandemic, like Public Health England and the local Councils have been kept at a distance from the government's centralised control operation. New schemes and proposals emerge without any underlying strategy, lots of money has been wasted on unfulfilled promises by companies with little experience, no accountability to the public and without any outcome agreements. 

And now to add insult to these indiscretions we are told that the controversial ex-Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is to be hired as a Trade Advisor. His CV was extensively exposed by his predecessor as Australian PM Julia Gillard as seen in this much-watched video.

These accusations seem to be bourne out by the experience of my feisty Australian cousin who tells me, "My daughter was manning the Greens stall in Manly when Abbott arrived and starting yelling at her, she was 17. The mother tiger in me took over and gave him the tongue lashing he deserved." Knowing how articulate and assertive my cousin can be I'm not surprised that he has sought asylum in the UK, or that Priti Patel has allowed him in, he has the values and lack of relevant experience that the government seem to cherish.