After a warmish, wet winter, it was now spring and at last Jack Frost had been on bonus. Drawing the curtains at first light created a dilemma. Did I nip downstairs to make a coffee and some cereal so I could read in bed or should I go for an early morning jaunt up Lime Craig? The forecasts all this week have carried weather warnings for exceptionally cold conditions with strong northerly winds and a prospect of snow. Challenge accepted, I jumped in the car and made the 12-minute journey to Braeval. I was immediately reminded how good a spell of cold weather can be: it was freeze-dried air, pure azure skies and a clarity of light that makes you blink at the beauty. I managed to make three pre-breakfast visits this week. It sets you up for the day.
I was home by 8:15am this morning with my energy levels restored and my list of actions was tackled with gusto. The old cross trainer that had cluttered the garage for years was collected by a woman with a truck and a wonderful back story as an academic. Hedges and fruit canes were planted, emails were sent and my car of the last 9 years was sold within 24 hours of it going on sale. I was sorry to lose it, the best of the 15 cars I have owned but not Ultra Low Emission Zone compliant and Glasgow and Edinburgh are both due to introduce them in a couple of months. It had also done 80,000 miles.
Lime Craig is my gymnasium, I have climbed it over 400 times since the start of COVID and I have run it up and down exactly 199 times. It is a 300-metre climb on a couple of miles of a good track to the top, now besmirched with a telephone mast. There are lots of smaller paths to provide variations through the forest: a mixture of native birch, oak and scots pine with spruce and larch plantations that are currently being felled. The views from the top are a 360° panorama of Scotland: the Campsies, Kilpatricks, Ben Lomond, the Trossachs, Ben More and Stobbinnein, Ben Ledi, Ben Vorlich and the Forth Valley to Stirling and even the Pentlands on days like today. It encompasses my daily world for the past fifty years. Despite being the first week of spring, the clarity this week has been that of a cold sunny winter, the very best time to be in the hills.
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| Campsies |
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| Ben Venue and oncoming snow |
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| Pine skyline |
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| Ben Lomond and Ben Venue |
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| Ben Ledi |
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