The Witch Report

"There are male witches too, you know"
"Warlocks"
"No, it's true I tell you !"
(copyright Benny Hill 1968 - when will we see his like again?)


Wednesday saw me stravaiging round a favourite little corner where Sheriffmuir kind of melds into the Ochils.
Another walking from the house job with the usual warm-up section through the Mine Woods to the reservoir.. Here I stopped for lunch.

My humble repast

Since I started reading Danny's excellent blog, I now feel completely inadequate in the catering department.


I then walked over to the Heilandmans Well

Not much to see, but it was a favourite place for cattle drovers to water their beasts on the way down to Stirling Bridge and on to Falkirk Tryst.It was also known as the Fairy Well. Now. I'm not saying that there is anything supernatural about the place, but I did see this the last time I was here.

They then set off up the Dumyat path !




On this occasion I took the lower path through this rocky defile

Schoolboys of all ages will recognise this as an ideal place to ambush your mates during games of gay livestock welfare consultants and native Americans, or equal partners in a European political and economic union, or whatever they have to call them these days.

Further along you come to some ruins. At first glance it might look like a an old farm cottage abandoned  during the depopulation of the glens, but this is actually the remains of a mediaeval homestead settlement. The obligatory rowan tree (to keep away the witches!) has been dramatically blasted by lightning.
Do you ever sit in these places, halfclose your eyes, and try to imagine the family living there.- the dramas, the happy times, the crises ? No? Of course, I forgot.- there's probably something good on the i-Pod, and you've another 18 miles to do to make today's target.. Whatever,

Here I turned down into another magic place, Yellowcraig Wood. Privately owned but with unlimited public access. A lot of woodland management is going on without losing the character of the place.How many life forms can you spot in the pic ?

The path goes through a rhododendron tunnel

Carlie, or Witches Craig. According tto local tradition witches were hurled to their death from the top.This is, of course nonsense and suggest that 16 century Scotland was a primitive superstitious, barbaric society.(Plus ca change,eh?). In fact witches were transported to Edinburgh, tortured until they "confessed", tried and then strangled and burnt at the stake.


The religious centre for the area was Logie Kirk.

The Old Kirk is being restored, and for elfin safety reasons, the entire kirkyard is closed to the public ! So I can't show you the 11th century hog back gravestones.

I never had this sort of support organisation when i was restoring covenanters gravestones !

So, I whistled on past and returned home via the coffin road again. Not, perhaps a walk you would want to do on a dark night.





A late added wee bonus for Scott.

Well, that went well !

Regular readers will have been in suspenders since the depressing Backward step post.


The more perceptive among you may have spotted that the blog has been deficient in the Leg ( one in front of the other, alternately, in an upward plane) Department since then, and has been padded out with a higher than usual quotient of childish persiflage
There was some suggestion that the fatigue, breathlessness and tight muscles might have been cardiac related, however it turned out to be a nasty respiratory infection.
Lo and behold, it appeared to be clearing up just as we got into a spell of decent weather. And so it was that yesterday, at the crack of noon on a gorgeous sunny Spring day, I set of to see where I would end up.No transport, no plan, just out the back door and through the village where I grew up, and to which I have returned like the salmon or the elephant

This little park was, apparently to have been the site for the erection of Cleopatra's Needle. (No kiddin'!). You see a little patch of grass - I see an eight year old boy turning away in triumph, single arm raised with the hand gripping the cuff of his top after slamming an unbeatable shot between the piles of jumpers.

The Fountain of Nineveh

Presumably shipped over in a quinquireme! Somebody paid for it to be put up to commemorate something that must have seemed important at the time. So it goes.

This used to be part of the school playground

You see a bit of wall - I see three painted stumps and an eight year old boy, transformed by the passing of a season from Denis Law to Len Hutton, slamming a tennis ball for mighty sixes with a piece of shaped skirting board

The bridge across the Allan Water here was a toll-bridge, and this is one of the support pillars for the old toll bar

Wolf's Hole Quarry

Much of the village was built with sandstone from here. They also found some very rare fossil fish (Cephalapsis) and, close by some fossilised fragments of the tuberous root of a plant of the family Solanaceae.

And then up into the Mine Woods.There are paths all over the shop, but at this time of year you can just wander where the fancy takes you.

You're never very far from one of these in Scotland

Aw. Shame.

Dunblane nestles in the centre of the picture, with the ever lovely Braes O Doune wind farm back right and Ben Vorlich/SAC back left.





What did the paternalistic Victorian mill owners ever do for us ?

Looking over the reservoir to the start of the Ochils

These gates seem to everywhere these days !

Bike Track

Coming down off Black Hill

There were a couple of cars in the carpark with rather shifty looking couples in them, but I'll leave the dogging to Mike and Ken

The Boys are back in town !

This is part of the old coffin road to Logie Kirk - one of the places where I had an "Ice9" problem during the Freeze.

And so back down the hill to the house and a refreshing cup of gunpowder. About 6 miles, about 900 ft. Exactly what was required.

P.S  I have been friggin about for ages trying to manipulate text and images here.I understand there are better alternatives to this Blogger crap, so I shall investigate. "I may be some time"

As birds bring forth the sun

what a lovely sunny day ! And mild.


I mentioned the untimely death of Tam White in response to a comment, and feel the old bugger deserves a bit more.
Google his life story - apprentice stone mason, 60's pop group, solo "pop" career including TOTP, own TV series, acting career including Braveheart, and Godfather of the Scottish Blues Scene for 4 decades.
I particularly associate him with wild nights at the much lamented Preservation Hall down Victoria Street. We would both be in our late-thirties - the age when you are a Master of the Universe.


I found this clip on U-Choob and at first I thought - I was there !. However, the last time I saw yer man was indeed at the String Jam Club (upstairs at the Salmon Inn in Gala), but it must have been more like 2004. His anecdotes ranged from the Galais Palais dancin' in the '60s to Albert King in a club on Beale Street.









Was it the Scottish Disease? Strangely no. He quit the demon many years ago and was a regular at the gym.
Shows tae go ye, eh ?


Whither Scottish blues ?
Looks like Sandy carries the banner forward.

The dog ate my blog.

Honest.


I left my kit on the bus.
 I.ve got a note from my mum saying I am to be excused blogging for a couple of weeks 'cos I've got dyreah.
And also my internet seems to be running as slow as molasses at the moment.


But "I'll be back"


In the meantime, the lovely Avril will pass among you with assorted confectionery and drinks on sticks.


Heres some more hippy shit

Little things...

Can fair cheer ye up, eh.


Found both volumes of Moir's Scottish Hilltracks (Bartholemews 1975) in a charity shop for 49p each.
I have no idea what happened to my original well thumbed copies, but these seem so familiar.
I know there is a revised combined edition, and I could end up in the middle of a reservoir or a motorway using 1974 data, but that's not the point is it ?


Enough to make me go and rescue the boots and the rucksack from the wheelie bin !


Isn't life strange ? (or is it all a Question of Balance ?)







It was at a party in Glasgow,'65. I was trying to impress the knickers off the young ladies present with my my fretboard skills, when the hostess introduced this guy. " This is Iain. He plays the guitar too." Talk about understatement ! Our paths crossed a few times after that. He had everything in those days - the looks, the talent, the vision, the charisma. But he never quite fulfilled the potential - another victim of the Scottish Disease. It's about two years now since he died.

and on a lighter note

Backward steps

I had hoped to be sitting down this evening and regaling both of you with the details of a circuit of 3 or 4 2000 tops. The long awaited weather window had arrived, and the trip was a realistic follow on from my previous post. However it was not to be. Only a few yards up Mill Road and I  realised that it was a "Bad Day".

I tried to "walk it off", but after an hour it had become rather silly so I baled out.

Another precious day wasted.

Bastard.