In Praise of Micro Hiils

Ben Ledi from Ben Gullipen

Ben Lomond from the Menteith Hills

Ben Ledi from Lime Craig

2020 was the year that disappeared in so many ways. I had plans to complete the Corbetts, go to Ireland to complete the 3000 feet mountains and revisit some of my favourite hills. Over the past thirty years, I have climbed an average of 60 Scottish Munro or Corbett mountains every year. This has usually taken between 20 and 25 days. This year has been very different with a total lockdown between March and July and travel restrictions from October onwards. As a result, I managed only 20 Munros or Corbetts on the 12 days that I escaped to the bigger mountains.

Running has also suffered during the lockdown. The travel limit of 5 miles in Scotland meant only running on tarmac roads with traffic and no pavements was possible, not an enticing prospect. When lockdown eased a knee injury occurred when I began to run again. Since retiring I have averaged 1000 kilometres a year, a reasonable distance but well short of the 2000 - 2500 kilometres a year in my thirties and forties. This year, despite a 9-kilometre recovery run last week, I have not even reached 100 kilometres. 

The consolation has been the realisation that a couple of local hills are perfect outings and can be done most days in a little over an hour. They provide only 300 metres of climbing but are only 10 minutes away from home. They were out of bounds and taped off during the first lockdown and several acquaintances were chastised by the police for attempting to secure some safe space in the great outdoors. The Scottish Government made a mistake as the local hills provided far better social distancing than the parks and streets that we were encouraged to traipse around on our daily exercise. Since then these hills have become the staple way to keep some fitness. I have made over 75 walks up Lime Craig, with an occasional saunter out to the Menteith Hills, and Ben Gullipen. In recent months these outings have become almost daily events. We have been up every day over the last week following the snowfall as the photos below show.

They have also become a local exercise haunt for dozens of others. Aileen has started walking them as well and has become a firm convert. As well as the recuperative effect of clearing the lungs with clean hill air, lots of wildlife are on display from red squirrels to deer, wrens to buzzards, and there are like-minded people. They keep their distance but engage in friendly conversations at a time when normal relationships with family, friends and work colleagues have been suspended. We have met lots of contented active walkers including several old friends. 

Today I went up Ben Gullipen in the afternoon, there were 31 others on the hill including one of Gregor's running friends who holds numerous hill running records. Today, he was towing two young children on a sledge. On the early morning climbs up Lime Craig. I regularly meet Archie, a retired lorry driver who walks for  2 to 3 hours most mornings and often meet Jenni, always happy and  everyday climbs Lime Craig the hard way before jogging down the less steep way with her three dogs. We see Jan, our children's old music teacher, John and Gayle our old neighbours keeping in trim so that they can complete the Munros next year. There are lots of other new acquaintances, all intent on enjoying the freedom, peace and prompting their endorphins on their local hills. 

I have belatedly become a fan of these micro hills. Alan Dawson wrote the definitive book about relative hills including what he termed Marilyns in 1992. Since then there have been several other lists of smaller hills listed including The Hughs a book of Scotland's best wee hills by Andrew Dempster and The Synges, a list of smaller hills in the Lake District. A regular walk up our local micro hills is just as important as the government's hands, face and space mantra to ensure that our physical and mental health are protected during these strange days of the pandemic.

Campsies and Dumgoyne from Menteith Hills

Strathard and Ben Lomond from Menteith Hills

Winter wonderland on Menteith Hills

Looking north west from Menteith Hills

Craig Mhor and Abefoyle from Lime Craig

Ben Vorlich and Ben Ledi from Lime Craig

Ben Venue from Lime Craig

Returning from Lime Craig

Track to Ben Gullipen

Lochan Balloch from Ben Gullipen

Loch Venachar from Ben Gullipen

Ben Ledi and Ben Vorlich from Ben Gullipen

Ben Gullipen summit

 

PM pushes for Pariah State

True

Well. that was the year that was, it's over let it go. As we head towards 2021, the government and their populist press supporters are promising a return to a golden era on the back of new vaccines, a clutch of dodgy trade deals and the sunlit uplands of sovereignty. We have arrived in the land of Michael Gove, where fact and fiction are interchangeable and oscillate with the fiendish duplicity that is the hallmark of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

As optimism has been my lifelong mode, I would love to believe that we have turned the corner and that desperate times are on the wane, but the omens are not convincing.

• COVID-19 is spreading at alarming rates following the failure to introduce a lockdown with the advance of the second wave in October and again with the arrival of a new and more contagious English variant. It has led to many countries banning travel from the UK and the closure of the cross-channel routes in the pre-Christmas period until testing could be introduced.
• The daily number of infections and hospital admissions are now higher than the rates during the peak of the first wave in April. The medical profession and scientists are predicting that this will continue apace despite the five-day Christmas bubble fest encouraged by the government being reduced at the last minute. The contrary advice of the scientific advisers was only finally acknowledged and the fest was limited to Christmas day. 
• The NHS no longer can cope, with up to 25% of staff isolating with Covid, beds at full capacity. Essex has declared a major incident and is seeking support from the armed services.
• The euphoria over vaccinations becoming available is losing its tonic effect, as the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine is far slower than expected and getting it to the care homes is proving difficult. NHS staff, the military and possibly teachers have all made claims to be front of the queue and 15,000 care homes have been excluded from receiving the Pfizer vaccine. 
• There have been delays in approval of the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine, which had been expected a couple of weeks before Christmas. and because of its lower efficacy, it is not the vaccine of choice for those who feel entitled. Claims to the contrary by the government may not be persuasive given that they have lost the trust of the public. I doubt it is a vaccine that will be used once others become available
• Food shortages have been predicted by the supermarkets who are usually far better at forecasting than the government.
• The last-minute Brexit deal, announced with the usual bravado by the PM and his inner cabal, (the cabinet seems to be a defunct body), is being dissembled by journalists, economists, businesses, the fishing industry, car manufacturers, and the financial and service sector. It will probably get a lifeboat vote in the Commons but only because of what Mrs Thatcher used to call Tina, (there is no alternative)
• The consequences of leaving the EU are dawning on UK citizens and businesses as travel restrictions, health insurance, customs queues and delays, green cards and a tsunami of red tape are imposed on goods and people.
• UK companies like Ryanair and Easyjet are registering in the EU so that they can continue to gain the benefits of the single market and as a consequence, UK shareholders may lose their voting rights. 
• The escalation of COVID-19 in London and the southeast makes it even less likely that the government's promise to level up will take place. Levelling down at a time of economic decline inevitably means more economic decline for the richer regions and taxpayers. 
• The shortage of 120,000 care workers has been aggravated by Brexit, Covid and the tighter immigration requirements being imposed by the Home Office. 
• The retail and hospitality sectors having been crushed by lockdowns will now have to bear higher costs for goods and the end of furlough before there is any likelihood of a return to a pre-Covid, pre-Brexit economy.
• The UK has a diminished voice on the world stage as the USA seeks to re-establish its links with Europe and foreign investors query the economic sense of investing in the UK. 
• Meanwhile, the government seems to be determined to make every effort to support the UK's tax havens and continue with arms sales to undemocratic regimes. The Department of Trade and Industry has appointed advisers who are on record as claiming that tax haven status will make Britain great again.
• The UK's claims to be leading on climate change have been shown to rest on false promises with less than a quarter of all the claimed proposals having been translated into actions.
• We have yet to factor in the social damage, mental health problems and gross underfunding of public services that will become apparent during Rishi Sunak's next half a dozen budgets.
• Oh, and we are still waiting for the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, a shameful indictment of the government's unwillingness to come clean on its failures. It may give us a clue as to how long it will take to complete the lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic Inquiry. It will not be in the lifetime of this government.

You can't help being stunned at the way PM Boris Johnson has made the UK into a virtual Pariah State in just 18 months. The Daily Express has got it right with their headline, 'he's done the Impossible!' It is a genuine world-beating achievement to wreck the economy, the Health Service and the public trust in this forlorn democracy.

Cruach Ardrain and Beinn Tulaichean

 

Cruach Ardrain

Thursday, 24 December 2020

Ascent:           1366 metres

Distance:        14 kilometres

Time:              4 hours 50 minutes

Beinn Tulaichean      946m       2hrs  8mins

Cruach Ardrain        1046m      3hrs   6mins

At last, a dry day with bright skies was forecast so Gregor and I decided to revisit this pair of Munros from Inverlochlarig at the head of Balquidder Glen. We were in no rush to start, the morning was forecast to have some cloud cover and the northerly winds were to be strong. We parked at the well-made car park and after a brief chat with a walker who was going to climb the pyramidal like Corbett, Stob a' Chroin, we began the walk through Inverlochlarig farm, over the burn and then up the eponymous glen. 

It is never quite clear where the faint path starts for Beinn Tulaichean and as on previous occasions, we just headed north-west up the steep grassy slopes. Gregor was forging ahead as I found a steady pace calibrated to my age and the conditions. There are several rock outcrops to circumnavigate and from about 500 metres the ground became frozen with many patches of black ice to negotiate. I eventually hit the path at about 700 metres and was pleased to see that Gregor was only 10 minutes ahead as he headed into the rock outcrops below the summit. It had been cloudier than we had hoped but the visibility was excellent and the nearby twin peaks of Ben More and Stob Binnein towered above shrouded in their pristine winter whites.

Gregor had hunkered down to the south-west of the summit, the wind was blowing chunks of snow and providing true winter conditions. We had a flask of coffee, it was only midday, and took a few photos before setting off into a head-on wind that stopped us in our tracks. I began to think that this was going to make Cruach Ardrain a real challenge. I regretted that we had not brought crampons and lent Gregor one of my walking poles,  The wind dropped as we reached the bealach and I decided to stop and put my shell jacket before what I thought would be a hard fight through the wind on the ridge ahead. The shell jacket had a better hood than my insulated jacket. I saw a handle of a walking pole sticking up from the snow and prised it out of the frozen ground, it had obviously spent some time there given the green growth on the handle. The catches were jammed and it was too short for me but probably worth rescuing for G. 

It had cost me time and Gregor was halfway up Cruach Ardrain. As often happens when you stop to add layers, the weather had changed, the sun was out and the wind had abated. The soft snow made for easy walking and it did not take long to reach the fine summit of Cruach Ardrain, where Gregor was lunching in the sun. It was one of those unexpected pleasures, a chance to relax on the tranquil sun-soaked summit with the panorama of Munros of the southern highlands sprinkled with new snow. Covid had eliminated the magic of Christmas but this was a consolation.

I swapped sticks with Gregor and we began an easy descent to the bealach, five other walkers were on their ascent. At the bealach, we decided to follow a path down to the glen. The path was a frozen stream of black ice but it was easy walking down the grassy slopes on either side. We caught and passed a couple of well-equipped climbers who were wearing crampons on the black ice. The afternoon sun had receded from the glen but it was a pleasant canter down to the farm.

The farmer was in the yard and he gave me a cheery welcome. His father, who is now 88 years old, had once berated me for camping on Beinn a' Chroinn during the lambing season but subsequently, we got to know each other during the building and opening of the local community centre in Balquidder in 1997. He was the chair and had a presence and purpose that helped make the new facility a very successful venture for the community. The farm had had a good year despite COVID and the lamb prices had held up well. I was informed that a Brexit deal had been done but whilst that would be a relief to the upland farms there would be many subsequent issues to be resolved. 

Gregor had gone on ahead and arriving back at the car park, we fell into conversation with the walker who had just returned from Stob a' Chroin, he was working for the government on the implications of Covid for vulnerable children. He seemed familiar and when I asked whether he had been a Director of Finance in the Western Isles, we realised that we had known each other during our careers. Robin Bennie had swapped accountancy for becoming a statistician. He was still hoping to climb all the European 4000-metre peaks but admitted that the Corbetts were proving hard. 

We were home at 4pm, in good time for hot drinks around a neighbour's fire pit. Like the rest of the day, it was bitterly cold but the combination of heat from the stove and the warmth of friends made it a fine way to provide some Christmas cheer.

Ben More and Stob Binnein

Loch Voil, Balquidder

Below summit of Beinn Tulaichean

Ben More and Stob Binnein from Beinn Tulaichean

Beinn Tulaichean sheltering from the wind

Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin from Beinn Tulaichean

Beinn Tulaichean

Ben More and Stob Binnein from bealach

Cruach Ardrain

Beinn Tulaichean and Beinn a' Chroin

Cruach Ardarin summit

G at summit

Looking south

Ben More and Stob Binnein from the summit

Inverlochlarig - the walkout 

Brexit Buccaneers

 "Keep your distance Boris, and then put your mask back on"

When the Prime Minister flew out to Brussels to try and break the deadlock in the trade negotiations, he was probably too late, just like he had been with his two attempts at lockdown. The elegant President of the EU, Ursula Von der Leyen, who speaks impeccable English, had to remind the PM to keep his distance. It is 2 metres until 31 December, after which Boris will probably switch to an imperial measure of 2 feet in the UK. She then instructed him to put his mask back on. The dishevelled PM bumbled a condescending reply "You run a tight ship, Ursula" in hesitant English before shuffling into the dining room behind the President. He was only there for a free meal. It was a suitable metaphor for the last four years. 

Europe has been well-organised and consistent in the negotiations over the past four years. Michel Barnier has been clear about the commitment of the EU to protecting the single market and conciliatory towards achieving a trade agreement but not by failing to observe the quality standards adopted by the 27 EU countries. The UK government has been lackadaisical about what it was looking for, its negotiators cancelled meetings or if they did attend were relatively unprepared. The PM has always assumed that the EU would change its position at the midnight hour and gambled the UK's future prosperity on this happening. 

Both Brexit and the response to Covid 19 have been a learning experience for Boris Johnson and his flim-flam cabinet. Douglas Adams cautioned us about this forty years ago. “A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that." 

Douglas Adams also anticipated the absurd notion of Boris becoming PM on another three counts at least. 

• “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President (PM) should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
• "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." 
• “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”

The PM and his cabinet have insulted their EU partners at every turn and encouraged Murdoch and the right-wing press to connive in demonising the EU as a bloated bureaucracy obsessed with over-regulation. This has played well with little Englanders and staunch Brexiteers who like to see their government throwing brickbats at the EU. The PM, who lacks any moral compass, is a prisoner of the Brexit Buccaneers, formerly known as the European Research Group (ERG). They are still fantasizing about achieving a no-deal Brexit whilst claiming that they want a deal but only on their terms.

Meanwhile, the totally deranged Trade Minister, Liz Truss, is claiming another glorious success as she signs a trade deal with Singapore. It is no surprise that the only deals that she has managed so far are with countries like Japan and Singapore that import far less from the UK than they export. The deals are basically reheated EU trade deals that the UK will have lost by leaving the EU. It almost makes you wish Liam Fox was around to knock off a few easy deals! Liz Truss has also announced that she will be scrapping tariffs on some American goods that were subjected to tariffs from the EU after authorisation from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These were in retaliation for the USA's illegal subsidies to the Boeing Company. The USA wasted no time in pointing out that she couldn't impose tariffs because the UK government had not notified the WTO of their intention to impose them. The mirage of the USA riding in with great trade deals that will compensate for the loss of the EU trade agreement by being part of the single market is more wishful thinking, thunder only happens when its raining.

These are just the early examples of the many hyperbolic claims that will escalate as we leave the EU. So far the media have focused their reporting on images of Kent becoming a massive lorry park or Suffolk sinking into the North Sea with the weight of shipping containers. This does not concern the damaged communities of the North and Midlands who regard this as merely the schadenfreude of Brexit. 

We are now beginning to hear of the other implications of Brexit as European workers begin to depart their jobs in the NHS, banks and universities. Coupled with the restrictions on work permits for agriculture, construction and other lower-paid industries this will slow any recovery from Covid and Brexit. Only now are the tariffs that may be imposed on meat, fish and food exports from the UK or the tariffs on imports of foodstuffs and manufactured items from the EU beginning to worry the wider public. These will inevitably lead to far higher levels of inflation than we have been subjected to over the past twenty years. And who will be blamed? Why Brussels of course, the EU is the institution that never stops giving when our torrid government wants to pass on the blame.

There is no doubt that the UK is on the cusp of an economic and social catastrophe, and all in the name of fake sovereignty. This will not end well.

Croyez-moi, je suis le négociateur en chef de l'UE

Trust me, this will not end well

The past

The future past

Vaccine Euphoria

Understandably, the approval of the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine has provided some cheer after the darkening mood of recent months as the government's dithering over introducing lockdowns, the failure to stock PPE and then to commission products at excessive cost from dubious sources, the total failure of testing and tracing and the lack of transparency about the tiered structures have created a huge mistrust in the government's handling of the pandemic. 

It should have been a joyous day but Matt Hancock claimed Britain was the first to approve the vaccine through the UK Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency and that this was a result of leaving Europe. The vaccine was created in Europe by a collaboration between Turkish scientists and a German company and approved under provisions set by the EU. Matt Hancock, the needy and nerdy health minister, merely reminded us of his propensity to turn every silver lining into a bilious boast that usually results in despair at the dishonesty that pervades government announcements. The fact that his claims have been repeated by Jacob Rees-Mogg and Gavin Williamson simply confirms the lethargy, understanding of facts or diplomacy by this cabal of cabinet ministers,

The broadcasters then began to unpack the announcement and its implications. There will only be sufficient vaccines for 400,000 people initially and because the vaccine has to be kept at -70°C and comes in batches of 975 doses that cannot be split into smaller batches for dispensing in community settings, it can only be stored and administered in hospitals. 

The possibility of vaccinating the most vulnerable in care homes, the carers and those over 80 will have to be deferred and the first recipients will be NHS staff and those patients already in a hospital. The 95% efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine means that it will be the sought-after vaccine by everyone. Already the Oxford vaccine with a 62% efficacy for the two-stage full dose is seen as the one most likely to be used in community settings because there are no storage difficulties and the government has bought 100 million doses. It is not just the anti-vaxxers who will be rejecting this option but the great, the well connected and the professional sports teams who already have acquired a disproportionate share of the Covid tests to date. Levelling up is not for COVID-19 vaccines.

The early rhetoric of both the scientists and pharmaceutical companies was that the distribution of vaccines would be equitable across all countries of the world. A noble intention but the danger is real in the UK that vaccines could become a market commodity. This would not be a world-beating example any more than the dozen or so other mistakes that have been made since the outbreak of the pandemic. 

Amidst all the other adages about Christmas, the one present we would really like is to be able to trust the government to just do it right!