Meikle Bin

Carron Valley Reservoir from Meikle Bin

Monday, 25 January 2021

Ascent:         380 metres

Distance:     10.5 kilometres

Time:           1 hour 51 minutes

Meikle Bin      570m      58mins

Although the Meikle Bin in the Carron Valley Forest is only 15 miles from home and a Marilyn, I had never climbed it. After walking up the local hills every day this year, I needed a change of scenery and the cold sunny weather of recent days was still with us. I left home after lunch and parked at Todholes. next to the dam of the Carron Valley Reservoir on the B818 road from Fintry. The parking area was a sheet of ice and there were a dozen or so cars already there. As soon as I entered the forest trails beyond the entrance gate, the trails were snow-covered with a good grip. The stillness, crisp cool air and soft underfoot conditions made for perfect walking. As in any forestry plantation, there were numerous trails to follow but there was good signage to Meikle Bin.

I passed the bridge over the River Carron, a mother was walking her two young children and her daughter was attempting to walk on the ice-covered river. I was worried, the river is quite deep and I could see some holes in the ice where stones had been thrown in. I said hello to the girl as I passed and suggested that it was not safe to walk on the ice. Her mother heard me and called her not to walk on the ice but the girl continued to step further so I raised my voice and instructed her to come off. I put my phone and keys into my jacket pocket and was ready to whip it off, President Bartlet style when the girl turned around and skipped up the bank. 

It is a steady climb up the 4 kilometres to the start of the final climb up the west flank of Meikle Bin. I passed another 6 walkers on their return before reaching the path that leaves the trail at the start of the 180-metre ascent to Meikle Bin. The path soon fizzles out and then it is a grassy, but snow-covered today, slope to the summit. There is the odd conifer and although the gradient was steep, my recent spate of hill walks meant that I could keep a good place to the trig point at the summit where four other walkers had arrived and were taking family photos.

On a clear day, the views were most impressive and I began to unscramble in my mind how the Campsies and Gargunnock hills were two separate ranges. The vast coniferous forest was spread out towards the reservoir and the range of distant hills in the Southern Highlands from the Arrochar Alps to Ben Vorlich were easily visible. I understood why Meikle Bin has been lauded as being one of the best viewpoints in the central belt. And it had taken less than an hour from the start  at Todholes. 

The soft snow made it ideal for running down to the main trail and thereafter I kept a good pace apart from a couple of photo stops. There were a couple of parties of walkers coming up the hill, a large husky came charging up to me but in a playful mood, it reached me and turned back to its owners without so much as a bark. They smiled and I was so relieved that I returned the smile whilst uttering "nice dog" as a sign of my relief. The snow was a lot softer on the lower ground and I was back at the car before 4pm and home before nightfall, the days are lengthening.

Snow laden trails in the Carron Valley Forest

Signposts make it difficult to get lost

Looking north over Forth Valley and Stronend

Happy Families

Looking north-west to the Highlands

Carron Valley Reservoir and Earl's Hill Wind Farm

Meikle Bin

Gargunnock Hills

Ben Ledi in the cold days of Covid

Covus Corax 

Saturday, 23 January 2021

Ascent:      835 metres

Distance    12 kilometres

Time:         3 hours 50 minutes

c  Ben Ledi        879 metres          1hr 37mins

It was one of those days that chills you to the core but inflames your sense of adventure. The mercury was languishing at -6°C, the air was still and the sky was so azure that there was only one outcome. Time to dig out my crampons and head for the nearest hill in prime winter conditions. I had not been up Ben Ledi since the week before the first lockdown and whilst not a Munro, it is almost one. The car park was full so I had to park at a lay-by further up the A84. The start of the steep but well-constructed path was an ice rink after quite a few days of freeze-thaw and hundreds of walkers. Once on the path, there was a cover of snow and it was possible to move at a reasonable pace. Even by the time I had reached the crossing of the forestry track at 250 metres, several walkers had passed me on their descent and it was not yet 10:00am.

I held off putting on crampons, although those descending suggested it was necessary for coming down. I kept going up the path until the start of the ridge at 600 metres and stepped aside to absorb the views to the north and west. Two climbers came past and for once I decided not to chase them, I am slowly adapting to my age disadvantage on the hills. A couple of tents were pitched in a basin below the summit and their intrepid occupants seemed to be happy sitting and topping up their vitamin D levels in the bright sunlight. The snow was a lot deeper and powdery so the final couple of hundred metres of ascent were hard work. As I reached the summit the cross erected as a memorial to the policeman, Sgt Harry Lawrie, was glistening like silver. He was in the Mountain Rescue team and killed when a helicopter crashed on Ben More. I had worked with his son for several years and knew several other members of the team, all of whom had found the accident a terrible traumatic experience. 

I reached the summit and there were four skiers about to start their descent and the two climbers having a drink. I found some shelter from the bitter northerly breeze and enjoyed some coffee and a Marathon (Snicker) bar. Two ravens joined me and approached from either side, they had done this before. I finished eating and took some photos before leaving them a couple of morsels from the Marathon bar as a tip. One perched on the trig point and thanked me as I put on a pair of ice cleats that had spent a lot of time in my rucksack but never been used before. I decided to descend to the north towards Ben Vane and see if I could find a route down the Stank Glen.

The two climbers had decided to take the same route and I set off a few minutes behind them. The cleats seemed to be working well on a steepish slope where the wind had polished the hard snow. Reaching the softer snow, I relaxed and noticed that one of the ice cleats had come off, the other one had flipped off earlier and it was a 50-metre climb up the hill to retrieve it. They were confined back to the rucksack. There was not much evidence that the route had been used so I figured that it would be virgin snow for most of the descent. The top of the path was just discernible and I was able to follow the path down, there had been three or four others who had used the route in previous days. Progress was slowed by the depth of snow and further down it did not seem sensible to cross the burn which looked dangerous with rocks punctuating a hard icy surface with a foot or so freezing water gushing below. The alternative was a longer path at the south side of the burn that eventually emerged onto a forestry track.

The track zig-zagged down towards the holiday cabins and I found a more direct path at one point that brought me out by the Callander micro hydroelectric plant. There seemed to be no direct paths to the road leading back to the car park and bridge over the Leny so I headed down through the forest until I made the road. A 95-year-old man was hobbling along the road as part of his daily exercise, I stopped for a chat and asked had he had the vaccine. He had the day before and told me the full story as well as telling me other parts of his life's endeavours. It is the sort of conversation that is all too often in these days when people have few opportunities to meet with friends and family. We wished each other well and it was then an easy walk out for the last mile. I was home at 2pm.

Ben Ledi ridge from the path at 450 metres

Start of the ridge

Overnight campers

Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps

Stuc a; Chroin

Harry Lawrie's memorial

Descending towards Ben Vane

Ben Vane

 

The Making of a Great American Loser

Bigly Daddy and His Dynastic Dream 

MacLeod House and Lodge

Four years ago we awoke to discover to our astonishment that Donald Trump was the new American President. Hilary Clinton had been beaten, not by votes, she won the popular vote by 2.9 million, but by the bizarre American electoral college voting system, she lost. This was only the second time in 118 years that the winner of the popular vote did not become President. Trump was the loser of the popular vote but was inaugurated as the President. A real estate, reality TV narcissist whose track record in tax evasion and misogyny would have disqualified him from most jobs. Admittedly Hillary Clinton had her problems like standing by her man, using private email accounts and an expectation that the presidency somehow stays within family dynasties. 

Donald Trump, the man who had destroyed the sand dunes at Balmedie near Aberdeen despite the dunes being a Site of Special Scientific Interest, was now the most powerful man in the world. He had promised a £1 billion golf resort with a five-star hotel, two golf courses and holiday homes. Most of these promises did not materialise and only 84 jobs have been created with the Macleod House and Lodge, essentially a little house on the prairie, masquerading as his International five-star hotel. It summed up the man perfectly, full of false promises, exaggerated claims of expenditure and with little concern for the little man. It was yet another failed loss-making development and he lost his fight to stop the Council from allowing offshore wind turbines to be erected in the North Sea adjacent to his golf resort. 

He responded by reporting £155m of losses across his two Scottish golf resorts (Balmedie and Turnberry) in 2018, so paid no corporation tax and then received a £1m tax rebate from the Scottish Government. It was bad enough when Alex Salmond caved in to Trump's pressure to overturn the decision of Aberdeenshire Council to refuse permission. The Scottish Government has now been taken for fools again by allowing him tax concessions having failed to deliver his project and bullied local residents who had properties that he wished to demolish. 

Four years later even the tawdry expectations of a Trump Presidency have been grossly exceeded. The USA's image in the world has been besmirched. International organisations have been undermined by his isolationism, human rights and black lives have been denigrated and any trust in politicians has been lost, evaporated through his constant accusations that unwelcome facts are fake news. 

Statesmanship has given way to deal-making, preferably with personal gain involved, and the English Language has been mangled in a bigly way. Having watched the farrago of lies, accusations and abuse for the last four years, the really worrying outcome is that over 70 million Americans voted for his promise of tax cuts, the right to carry arms and Making America Great Again. But he lost by over 7 million votes, the largest margin since John McCain lost to Obama in 2008. Trump said at the time that "He (McCain) lost. He let us down, I don't like losers." Trump was a lucky loser in 2016. This time losing was for real, although he is still trying to sell that as fake news as he stokes up his supporters and charges his lawyers to dispute the democratic truth.

Joe Biden's victory has been greeted with great relief from the international community but he has some job on his hands repurposing American Democracy so that it regains respect and credibility across the world.

Blue Monday

 

Blue Monday walk

What a brawly political and media world we live in. The third Monday in January is supposed to be the nadir of the year for our mental wellbeing. This was far from apparent when reading the morning papers, you would think that we had cracked COVID, Brexit, and Vaccinations and that the future of the UK was rosy. Allegra Stratton, the PM's new press supremo, was on the case creating a word cloud of optimism for the compliant press as she strives to bury the story of the bumbling incompetence of the PM and his ministers and replace it with an uplifting sense of entitlement that they seem to think they deserve. 

We set out in murky January conditions to climb our local hill. Unusually, it was bereft of life and it was a lonely tramp through the icy snow. Everyone else must have shuffled down their duvets to seek some comfort from the lockdown weather and utter futility of life. Then the winds abated, the clouds opened to reveal a rare blue sky above the fast shifting curtain of cloud. Was it a fleeting tantalising glance into future fortunes or just another forlorn promise?

On Tuesday I was able to check the reality of Blue Monday (18 January). COVID deaths were the highest ever recorded at 1610, and that 99,813 COVID deaths had been registered in the UK since the start of the pandemic. The numbers in hospital were also at an all time peak at 38,000. Just to add to the trauma, we then discovered that the number of vaccinations on Blue Monday had dropped to 204,076, a 37% drop from the previous Friday when 324,000 were vaccinated. The BMA claimed that the vaccines were not getting through to the GPs. Finally, the Israeli Health Services have discovered that those receiving only one Pfizer vaccination are still becoming infected with COVID and Pfizer have stated that there is only 51% efficacy with one shot compared to the 90% with two shots. The learning experience  for the UK in these facts is best summed up by Douglas Adams who said "You know that thing that you just did? Don't do that."

Looking for some of this information proved difficult to find on the BBC website, has Allegra Stratton now dragooned Sir David Clementi and Tim Davie, the Chair and Director Genneral of the BBC, into giving the government a break from any reporting that does not give the PM the glowing entitlement that is rightly his? .

Colin Bell

Like any football fan from the 60s and 70s, I was saddened to hear the death of Colin Bell. Out of all the players I have watched live in games, he has been one of my three all-time favourite footballers. The others were Tom Finney and Franz Beckenbauer. All of them could turn a game single-handed but were team players and one-club players, although Colin Bell career at Manchester City followed his teenage years playing for Bury. 

What made him special was his versatility, he could run at defences beating them with speed and fast footwork, shoot with both feet, head and tackle and he had legendary stamina that gave him his nickname of Nijinsky. This was allegedly after the champion horse but it could just as easily have been after the Russian ballet dancer who brought athleticism to ballet. 

I was lucky enough to be at university during Colin Bell's finest years at Machester City from 1966 -1971 and in those days it was easy to go along to games without tickets. I would travel to watch Manchester City at grounds in Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool when they were in their pomp and they won the League, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners Cup in successive seasons. 

Colin Bell didn't have bad games and he always gave 100% unlike some of his teammates. At one end of season game against Sunderland at Maine Road, Mike Summerbee, the spirited right-winger, was selling Cup Final tickets to fans in the crowd. Mike Doyle and Franny Lee could lose their temper and get sent off during any game and Neil Young, the talented but aloof inside left, was so laid back he played wearing his watch. Bell was both the heartbeat of the team and the link player between what we now call the midfield and the forwards. In most teams the no. 8 was the second striker and Bell performed this role, hence his 152 goals for Manchester City. He also created goals in the way that Kevin de Bruyne does today and covered for his defenders when they were out of position. His Opta analytics would have been off the scale..

At school, I had played on the right-wing trying to emulate Tom Finney, it was not possible. At Liverpool University I was a midfielder and captain of my team, trying to play in the mould of Colin Bell, except that my tackling and heading were woeful. My flatmate, Paul, was a rabid Manchester City fan, his father was the town clerk of Knutsford and City season ticket holder. After the five -a-side league on Saturday morning, we would drive to Knutsford for some lunch and then get a lift to Maine Road. Paul was left-footed and played a bit like Neil Young, skilful, scoring lots of goals but not doing much running back to cover. He described me as an amateur Colin Bell because I did all the running for both of us, that was as good a compliment as I was ever likely to get. We did win the University five-a-side league but we were probably helped by having Norge in the team, a Norwegian International goalkeeper.

During this period I only saw two attacking midfielders who could compare with Bell. Gunter Netzer was the West German equivalent and when I watched them beat England at Wembley in1972, it was Netzer who was the most effective player on the field eclipsing both Bell and Beckenbauer. This was mainly because Alan Ball and Martin Peters were playing alongside Bell and none of them provided the defensive cover that was necessary. Netzer's hard running and silky skills were the damage that saw the end of Alf Ramsey.

Similarly, I watched Sheffield United's Tony Currie demoralise other teams on several occasions with the skill and intelligence of Bell and considerable razzmatazz but on some days he did not turn up. Watching Bell play against Manchester United was always enjoyable. United had the superstars: Best, Charlton and Law but Bell could do the things that it took the three of them to provide for United. And Bell never sought nor wallowed in the praise that was lavished on the Manchester United trio, his class was unremitting and underplayed.

It has been heartening to hear how much respect he earned at Manchester City and in the wider world of football. His standing as a complete footballer has remained and his reputation cemented by his humble manner and his dedication to helping others.