Doune Hill and Beinn Eich

Doune Hill looking north-west  to Arrochar Alps

Saturday, 26 February 2023

Luss Hills

Ascent:        859 metres
Distance:     13 kilometres
Time:           3 hours 43 minutes

My third hill walk in four days since returning from London. Gregor was going on holiday the next day and had an injury that prevented him from running in the National Cross Country Championship so we arranged a short day in the Luss hills. I picked him up at the station in Balloch and we made the fifteen-minute journey to Luss and along the eponymous Glen with the intention of climbing the three Grahams at the head of this isolated glen. The narrow single-track road has few passing places and no apparent parking places. I tried to park on a grass verge near Glenmollochan but promptly gave up as the wheels sank into the soft ground. There was a private road ahead so I had to return and found a small space at the foot of the path to Mid Hill. We walked back to Glenmollochan and began the walk up a waterlogged track that had a gentle incline that followed the glen for 3 kilometres. We crossed the burn and began to climb.

The steep slopes of Doune Hill were ahead although the summit was not visible owing to the convex slopes towards the summit. Gregor forged ahead whilst I kept a more sedate pace as I ambled myself towards Hill Fitness. A cold northerly breeze had chilled Gregor who had been waiting at the summit. He set off for Cruachan t-Sithan, the second Graham that required a 250-metre descent and then a climb back to the long ridge that goes southeast from Beinn Lochain to Beinn Eich. 

I decided to forego this extra leg of the walk in the knowledge that Gregor would get to Beinn Eich at the same time as myself. It would also give me ten minutes to have some food by the prominent trig point and take some photos. The view to the northwest was spectacular in the clear conditions and Arran and the Ailsa Craig were visible beyond the Firth of Clyde. These are excellent hills and seem to be free of visitors, whether that is because of their proximity to Glen Douglas or just the difficult access

It was a 220-metre climb to Beinn Eich over a fine grassy ridge, Gregor had caught me as we reached the summit. Loch Lomond was more prominent as we descended down grassy slopes that made for easy walking. A lone female runner was making the ascent of Beinn Eich, the only person we saw all day. The lower slopes were waterlogged and my footing gave way and I made an ungainly slide down the hillside. It was half a kilometre back to the car that remained the only car parked in the glen. I drove Gregor back to Glasgow and after changing from my wet clothes and a coffee I was home by 4:30pm

Glen Mollochan looking towards Doune Hill

Beinn Lochan

Firth of Clyde and Arran from Beinn Lochan

Loch Lomond from Beinn Eich

Ben Ledi

 

Loch Lubnaig from the ascent

Wednesday, 22 February 2023

Ascent:      789 metres

Distance:   10 kilometres

Time:         2 hours 56 minutes

Ben Ledi     878m     1hr 29mins

It had been exactly six months since my last foray into the mountains. After returning from London, I decided to take the initiative and seek solace on the hills. I had previously arranged to walk on Thursday with an old neighbour, Arthur, who had been the piper at our daughter's wedding and at the end of my last Munro round. The conditions were more inviting today so I phoned him and we arranged to climb Ben Ledi, starting at noon.

I was slightly apprehensive having spent a week in London pottering around and lost any hill fitness I had last August. Even my morning sorties up Lime Craig had been far less frequent than normal. But what is normal nowadays? People keep saying that things will begin to feel more normal but life without your partner of 43 years will never be normal. I was using a new rucksack bought last August for the first time, it seemed too large for the spare pair of gloves, a water bottle, a sandwich and an orange. There was no need for waterproofs or winter equipment, the day was bright with excellent visibility but quite cold in the northerly breeze. My insulated jacket was soon to prove too warm as we chatted continuously on the steep path up the lower slopes. Unusually, I had to take a couple of phone calls during the ascent and I halted to avoid losing reception on the forest slopes as Arthur continued to climb.

Ben Ledi is my most climbed Corbett or Munro, being a 15-minute drive from home and for 40 years accessible from the garden of Blairgarry, my wife's parent's cottage on Loch Venachar. The paths are well made and it is probably the most climbed Corbett in Scotland, with only Ben Nevis, Cairngorm and Ben Lomond receiving more visitors. The ridge is reached at 600 metres and thereafter there is a steady climb with several steeper sections before the cross to commemorate Sergeant Harry Lawrie. He was the leader of the mountain rescue team and died in a helicopter crash on Ben More in 1987. I knew quite a few of the team and worked with his son so always reflect on the tragedy that took place on a fine February day similar to today.

Even on a midweek February day, the hill was moderately busy with twenty to thirty other walkers. There was no snow cover remaining although the easily visible twin peaks of Ben More and Stob Binnein had retained their cap of snow. We hunkered down amidst some rocks below the summit to eat some food before starting the descent. Arthur has a mountain leadership background and still takes out the occasional group. We both felt our age on the descent, Arthiur's knee was niggling him and my quads could feel the impact of a much longer descent than those of recent months. I was home by 3:45pm for an early bath but, for the first time, there was no fine dining or good company for the evening. That is no longer the norm.

Summit with Arthur

Looking north from the summit to Ben Vane

Solo London

Memorial to Democratic Follies

My first time away from home since last July was to visit the grandchildren during the school holidays. London without Aileen was going to be hard. On our many visits to London over the past fifteen years, it was like being on holiday, we would be together most of the time, with our daughters and the grandchildren or visiting museums, parks, buildings and shops. We would take advantage of cinemas and musical events as well as the multitude of restaurants serving food from all parts of the world. It was different from being at home where we would often be doing things separately whether at work, maintaining the house and garden, watching TV, reading, meeting old colleagues and local friends or book groups, going to French classes, climbing hills, running and blogging.

On my first morning in London Eva and I visited the South Bank with the grandchildren. We entered by the Albert Embankment below the Westminster Bridge. A memorial to the 200,000 people who died of Covid and a reminder of the slow and erratic response to the pandemic by Boris Johnson's government of flibbertigibbets. Across the river, a gleaming Big Ben put to shame the drab and empty Houses of Parliament, a monument to follies committed in recent years. It had hosted four consecutive failed governments that have been the source of the UK's sad demise in the social, economic and environmental structure in recent years.  

The Southbank was mobbed with thousands of other families during the school half-term, a ritual that favours the businesses more than the customers. The crowds included phalanxes of French schoolchildren taking advantage of the devalued £ and feeding the revitalisation of London's tourist businesses. The former Greater London Council County Hall has become a vessel for several dodgy-looking tourist attractions alongside the London Eye. Even the cultural activities we witnessed in the Southbank Centre seemed stale but then beatboxing was never my thing. We returned home and I went cycling with Simon and Kit hurtling over speed bumps and checking out the new play equipment at the Brixton Windmill.

Later in the week, we visited the Lego and dinosaur exhibition at the Horniman Museum with other friends. We made a trip to the impressive new shopping centre that has been squeezed into the Battersea Power Station. The £9bn investment, on a similar level to that at King's Cross, is astounding with the adjacent high-rise flats costing £millions. The whole complex is a different world, the play equipment was at another level. The highlight for me was the sheer scale of the brick-built power station, its battery of 1950s dials in the control room now part of a restaurant. Two nimble fitness instructors were teaching youngsters to use LED hula hoops. £5 for each youngster and about twenty in a class that lasted about fifteen minutes. When I did a similar job as a teenager at discos run by my father, it was free and lasted about 45 minutes, but we didn't have LED hula hoops. My father bought some hosepipes and we stapled eight-foot lengths into a hoop using some dowelling, those were the days when inventive manufacturing was a home industry.

The only thing missing from the refurbished Power Station was a pig flying above the chimneys. The Pink Floyd album, Animals, used the pig as a symbol of people with wealth and power who manipulate the rest of society and encourage them to be viciously competitive and cutthroat, so the pigs can remain powerful. The developers who repurposed Battersea Power Station have taken this Orwellian fantasy literally with pricing policies that are set at a level to keep the proletariat at bay.

On the last day with children back at school and adults working, I headed for the Olympic Village in Stratford. It had been on my list of visits for years but involved three tube changes and Aileeen was not really interested. The great plans for after use of the site had become a bit of an albatross for the government and consequently, things had been allowed to drift. Boris Johnson's promises rarely come to fruition. And so it proved, the Westfield shopping Centre has none of the razzamatazz of the original Westfield or Battersea. The much-vaunted Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatic Centre is not weathering well with the timber slats looking as if they have a limited life and the landscaping is in terminal decline. The Olympic stadium has been repurposed as West Ham's home ground at a cost to the tax payer of £323m, with West Ham contributing a mere £15m. The stadium has been sadly downgraded and is surrounded by fast food outlets and shipping containers. It has been graffitied with claret and blue signage that demeans the original stadium. A tour costs £20 or £45 with a West Ham legend, unfortunately Julian Dicks was not on duty. Instead I got talking to a group from Murphy Scaffolding who were having a training day in the facilities, they offered me the chance to sneak in with them. Unfortunately, I would not have convinced the doorman as I was too slim, too old and lacked an Essex accent to pass as a scaffolder.

On the way back to Stratford station I was pleased to see that there was a significant development taking place with new buildings under construction for a cultural quarter including the University of the Arts London College of Fashion, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sadler's Wells, and the V&A. Quite a lineup and, hopefully, it will help ensure that the landscaping around the Olympic village is brought back to a reasonable standard. I looked for a place to eat but nothing appealed so I returned to Bond Street on the new Elizabeth line. The over-engineering of the platforms and stations explained why Crossrail had greatly exceeded its budget, £20bn compared to the original estimate of £14.6bn. Bond Street Station alone cost £570m, five times its estimated cost. No wonder there is no cash left for upgrading the rail lines and rolling stock between the northern cities.

I alighted onto Bond Street and was pleased to spot John Lewis across the road. It is one of the few remaining department stores that seem to provide everything including a good cafe for some lunch. I had not been in a shop other than a supermarket since last July so enjoyed the chance to browse on a quiet Monday. I was even enticed into the in-house travel agent where the adviser recommended a holiday in Argentina and Chile, Japan or Costa Rica. On hearing that I would be travelling alone having lost my wife she asked if she could give me a cuddle. Customer care is never knowingly undersold at JL!

The next day I returned home, I had paid £10 extra for a flexible ticket but I had inadvertently booked a train from Euston to Stirling. I had forgotten and taken the tube to King's Cross, which is the usual station for the journey, but by the flexible ticket, I could catch an earlier and faster train that got me to Stirling an hour earlier. There was time to buy some food before the bus home but even better I bumped into an old neighbour. She offered me a lift home and brought me up to date on the news from our old village. I thought it might be difficult returning to an empty house but I felt pleased to be returning home.

Covid Memorial Wall on the Albert Embankment

Battersea Power Station

Statutory Citroen Food Truck in Battersea Power Station

Aquatic Centre has lost its pizzazz

The Olympic Stadium: downsized and debased by West Ham

Scotland's Devolution Stramash

The resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as the first minister of Scotland has elicited strongly polarised responses from the politerati in Scotland and the UK. What is not in doubt is her articulate and passionate commitment, ferocious work rate and recognition as a formidable leader. Her ability to eviscerate Boris Johnson and his ministers in both debate and detailed understanding was palpable. Her values on social justice, equality of opportunity and international development helped her deflate the Scottish Labour Party that had dominated Scottish politics for fifty years. It would be churlish to deny any of these qualities. They made her popular with a majority of the Scottish electorate during her period of office, although her star has been waning of late.

Reading the press and listening to political correspondents would suggest that her resignation was a result of her failure to advance independence since the referendum in 2014. The problems of the NHS in Scotland and social care began during her time as Health Minister. Similarly, she asked to be judged on her record for reducing the gap in educational attainment and this has backfired. Together with unpopular policies on gender recognition and a heavily criticised recycling deposit return scheme she has further eroded trust in her ability to manage public services. Whilst there is some truth in these observations, they fail to convey the underlying flaw in the first minister's leadership style. It is her interpretation of devolution that is her weakness.

Devolution in the mind of the architect of the Scottish Government and its first First Minister, Donald Dewar, was never something that stopped at Holyrood, home of the Scottish Parliament. Devolution was something that cascaded to local democratic councils that were responsible for delivering services as well as to local communities themselves. Holyrood was a halfway house. Nicola Sturgeon, along with her mentor and former first minister, Alex Salmond could not swallow this concept. If independence was to be achieved, they believed that power had to be concentrated in Holyrood. This precluded devolving powers to democratically elected councils. It meant that services diminished by austerity measures from the Westminster Government were further eroded by the Scottish Government taking powers and introducing regulatory measures that significantly undermined local democratic control. The Scottish Government now controls a wide swathe of public services through 111 non-elected national public bodies (quangos) and has the whip hand on the delivery of local services.

It is not just the number of services that are controlled by government bodies that restrict local knowledge and involvement in shaping policies but the loss of local initiatives and partnerships between councils. local businesses and communities. This is where well-being, innovation and enterprise are nurtured in what was termed the Common Weal. These were the ingredients that made Scotland such a key player in previous periods of enlightenment. They evolved in the municipalities because it was the common understanding and determination to secure change that was the most vital ingredient. Something that is denied when centralisation trumps devolution.

Perhaps the case for independence would have been better served by empowering councils and communities to deliver a true devolution rather than making them responsible for the opprobrium of reduced public expenditure. Prior to 1996, Scottish Councils were responsible for 41% of public expenditure, since it has been reduced to less than 30%. The Scottish Government has been a barrier to true devolution and like its first minister, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Back to Blogging

For the last twelve years, I have blogged about 5 or 6 posts each month. Things stopped abruptly in September last year when my wife was suddenly taken ill. She spent almost 7 weeks in the hospital. Various tests and scans were delayed during two public holidays and whilst she was shuttled between 3 consultants. She then required an emergency operation that diagnosed type 4 cancer. She came home after recovering from the operation and we cared for her for 12 weeks. She had been told immediately after her operation that the condition was terminal and she would have only weeks or months to live. The family were bereft, none of us expected this, she had always looked after herself and imbued the family to follow her example. In most ways, she was in excellent health, enjoying the fruits of her selfless motherhood and planning various trips that she had always dreamt of. 

The daily routine played out against the dark reality of life ticking away. Her stoicism in adversity was remarkable and she kept her irredeemable forebodings to herself to reduce the anxiety and worries of the family. She was true to her lifelong habit of thinking of others first. We had excellent assistance from GPs, district nurses, and carers from the local hospice and the pharmacy. Their commitment and professionalism were outstanding. It was a stark contrast to the stay in the hospital when it took 4 weeks to achieve a diagnosis with numerous delays to tests as well as frequent changes of consultant. It was difficult to establish who in the hospital was responsible or accountable for her treatment. The contrast of patient care between the trusting collaboration of community health practitioners and the hierarchical silos of professionals that run our hospitals could not have been greater.

After Christmas Day, when she briefly came downstairs for the last time, her condition declined rapidly and she was admitted to a local hospice for the last 6 days of her life. Once again the support and care were excellent. The funeral took place last month and we were greatly lifted by the tributes from friends, colleagues and family as well as by a large turnout for the funeral and celebration of her life. She was clearly loved by everyone who got to know her.

After five months during which time I had been a full-time carer and been no further than the hospital, supermarket or hospice, I am trying to rediscover a life without my partner of 45 years. My first journey was today, a train to London for a few days with the grandchildren. The train journey reminded me of all the times we had made the same journey from Scotland to King's Cross over the past twelve years. Our conversations, observations, and places that had held our attention were reprised and added to the melancholy. The complex tapestry of life's journey was now triggering fond memories of our time together that prompted the welling of tears.

Arriving in London, I knew that I had to break past habits and with an hour to fill, I decided to seek out unexplored territories. I dragged my baggage towards the urban redevelopment north of King's Cross station where the canal and old railway buildings have been transformed into a throbbing collage of new offices, shops, housing and squares. The expensive and modern new buildings are interspersed with carefully and splendidly refurbished old industrial buildings to create interest and a well-curated urban landscape. The total cost of £3 billion illustrates the massive private investment availability in London and the scale of public investment required to deliver such redevelopment.

What a contrast to the dilapidated condition of so many of our town centres that have been starved of investment in the years of austerity and the collapse of shopping facilities since Covid interrupted the regeneration of most towns. It was confirmation that levelling up remains an urban myth as the London property market shows no sign of slowing down whilst much of the rest of the country has neither the funding nor the capacity to refurbish or redevelop its urban fabric. Plus ça change.

King's Cross Redevelopment