Ben Lui and a Chicken Faux Pas

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So, after the successful delivery of the High Seas Hobbit, and with a bank holiday Monday calling. it was decided that a walk up Ben Lui and Beinn a'Chleibh was in order. Once again, as I am wont to do, I consulted the ever-so-accurate weather forecast, which after the weekends mini hurricanes promised settled weather in the west and wonderful views at Munro height.

The start of the day was initiated by a severe scolding from Cathy, as at approx 6.45am, whilst taking a stroll around her garden, coffee in hand, I thought I would contribute to the early morning chores by letting out the chickens from their 'fox-free' coop..    Okay, so I forgot about the rooster...oh...and the neighbours in the village, thus ensuing that I was as welcome as a boy racer with a stereo blasting outside a Womans Institute meeting.

Then it was to the freezer to fill tubs with maggots, to be left in an honesty box outside the Post Office for any fishermen that day. Great excitement to be had there, as the maggot selection available now includes a lurid green variety.

Thus chores done and rucksacks packed, off we headed with the first of the days disagreements starting within 5 minutes, as Cathys amazing sense of direction, which puts a top of the range gps to shame, informed me we were driving in the wrong direction.  After pointing out that she was reading the map upside down, and the resultant huff that followed, I realised I should have let her drive us South to Perth and I could have benefitted from a smug grin on my face.

So....heading in the correct direction, we stopped off at the Green Wellie in Tyndrum and a walk around the shop, where she got annoyed that the prices of their biscuits and jams were double what she sold them for in her Post Office.
From there, it was only a short drive to our start-off point, and the weather did indeed seem to be clearing.

Straight away, we had an equipment failure in the form of Cathys rather expensive walking pole that had seized closed tighter than a pretty boys bum on his first night in Saughton prison, but luckily, my much scorned Lidls specials were up to the job, and we managed to negotiate the stepping stones across the river and start the walk proper.

Within an hour though, tempers were flaring again, as I was on 'point duty', when we encountered the peat bogs.
Amusing as it was to her, the sight of me buried to the thighs in treacly black mud, I could see little excuse for hilarity. Running through my mind, was the thought that in 500 years time, some archaeologist would discover my mummified body with one hand stretched out high, safeguarding my very expensive gps navigation unit to the bitter end.   Learning from my mistake, Cathy of course diverted to a route through some pine trees, and got very little sympathy from me when she complained about a few needles getting down the neck of her fleece.

Emerging from the forest...and bogs...we got our first sight of the 2 mountains, and decided to head for the bealach.
Another tiff....Okay, so I was too busy looking at the gps for the turn off we had to take, and admittedly missed the cairn with the dayglo ribbon on it....

It now transpires that Cathy informs me that she needs vitamin B injections every so often, as neglecting this makes her tired and grumpy...both symptoms which were in tsunami-like full flow, and she had missed the last jab a week ago.  Right...so now I'm stuck halfway up a mountain with a chemically unbalanced companion.  It seems like it may be a long...long day.

Things improved though.  We made good time to the bealach, then struck out for Ben Lui, reaching the summit in under half an hour. There are no pics of this feat, as yet again, in came the cloud and visibility was reduced to zero.  So, back down to the bealach, then off to capture the 2nd Munro, which was free of cloud at the summit.   From this one, the views were fantastic, cuing tiff no.7...or is it 8 by now.  We had a 'discussion' about what other mountains we could name from our elevated perspective, and disagreed on every one except for Ben Nevis, which we likely both got wrong anyway.  She also was of the viewpoint that Ben Lomond, in her opinion had gravitated to the East coast of Scotland rather than the West and was not to be budged on that...

So, eggy sarnies finished, we headed back down and had a lovely walkout, which was helped by knowing how to avoid the peat bogs this time.
Back at the car, I was told in no uncertain terms that due to the muddied state I was in, it was a case of strip to the boxers or walk the 20 miles back to Lochearnhead.     Why was the dog, who was just as muddy as I was, and was ponging due to rolling in sheep poo, not given the same ultimatum??

Never mind, we all kissed and made up, ticked off 2 more Munros.  That's Cathy done 96 now, so looking forward to her big 100...

Dog Rescue

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This is not a tale of a dog rescue in the Mountain Rescue sense, but rather a frantic search for Simba, my 'foster dog'.

I must admit, I was negligent to a degree, but the blame must lie firmly at the feet of the author, David Nicholls, who had me wrapped around his little finger with his book, One Day.

I think at the point of the dog disappearance, I was totally engrossed in the story, whilst someone in the house must have been peeling onions as my eyes were leaking a wee bit...

Well, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, after a frantic search of the house and garden, I had to assume the rascal had crawled under the fence, (he's not able to jump it), and soon came across a lovely little old lady with the offending article tucked under her arm going around knocking on doors looking for negligent pet owners.  I then had to go through the process of giving him claps and calling him a 'cheeky wee monkey', when what I really wanted to do was  to boot his butt all the way home. Not that I would when he gives that endearing look of his...

Simba is now locked in the kitchen tighter than Terry Waite on a bad day, although not quite chained to the radiator....yet.  

I'm not sure if that is quite the definition of cruelty to animals, but it may have been worse. I could have went to the pub and left him a Jedward record set on repeat play...

I've been out shopping today for reverse technology.   To explain.  I need new drawings of all the Hobbit range for planning purposes, and after hours of frustration trying Powerpoint and various cad programmes, I hit upon the perfect solution by going analogue rather than digital and am now the proud owner of a schoolboys plastic drawing box, with rulers, angle thingies and an eraser (rather than pressing ctrl z).

As an added bonus, whenever I make a gross error, I can amuse myself by playing 'waste paper basketball' or fashioning paper planes with the failed results.   Can't do that with a laptop Eh!!

Rosehearty delivered.

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Well, what part of setting the alarm clock for 5am did I get wrong?

Suffice to say, that when I heard the 'alarm', it turned out to be Gary sitting outside in the car phoning me and wondering why I wasn't ready.  90 seconds...a world record to get out of bed, brush teeth and on the road.  I guess the only way it could be done quicker would be with an irate husband chasing me with a shotgun.

No matter, off we headed Northwards to Rosehearty and caught up with the Hobbit truck just at the village, so all was ok.  The lift off the truck went splendidly and the base supplied was spot on level, so we were all happy bunnys.

Smiley Faces....

Our new Health and Safety poster shot...

Artistic thistle photo

Kinlochleven Again...

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There were squadrons of midgies about this weekend, so many hours were spent windmilling the arms like a possessed aircraft handler, vainly trying to ward off the 'bite-sized' flying protein.  Sod fashion, I'm going to get me one of those beekeeper hat/net things.

Simba, the dog was not amused with his first foray into the wilds and will not be repeating the camping experience any time soon methinks.

At Glencoe Mountain (looking cool)

The gig at the Ice Factor was touch and go for a while as the laptop decided to melt, but luckily, I had a backup drive, so with a borrowed laptop, we got the music underway and a grand time was had by all.  A particular bonus was that there were 3 other guitarist in the place, so we all took turns at strumming and singing...but of course, I was the only one to get paid.

It's now Monday night, and we have just finished fitting the 'deco' rings to the Highseas Hobbit, and got the bunks completed.  Tomorrow it's doors and window, then off up North for delivery on Thursday.

Oh, a post from an old oilfield chum of mine, but still worth passing on.

"In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.” The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.” He was right — our generation didn’t have The Green Thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Western Australia. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled fountain pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one power point in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person. Remember: Don’t make old people mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off." 

Glencoe, the Lost Valley & Stob Coire Sgreamhach

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I'm going to forgive the weathergirl for a change as she got it reasonably correct on Saturday.

What a nice change it was to go for a climb and actually see the surrounding views.

The targets for the day, were a 'walk-in' to the Lost Valley in Glencoe, followed by the climb to the bealach between  Stob Coire Sgreamhach & Bidean nam Bian.


As is usual, very little went to plan.


The initial hour went swimmingly well with the whole group in an organised chain heading up the approach.

Doing the Conga

Then it took an interesting turn as the group split, with my 5 taking the valley route towards the Lost Valley whilst the rest opted for the scree slopes which resulted in them doing an about turn and retracing their steps before finding the path again, which left our 5 having a good 45 minutes to ourselves awaiting the catch-up.

We were on our first casualty by this time as one of my group had taken a tumble on the approach, dropping 15ft from a rock on the scramble approach.

Entering the valley

5...soon to become 4

One nice thing we came across was the tame chaffinches who were more than happy to share lunch.

Tame Chaffie

Atop the 'wee hoose' in the valley

After the feeding session, it was onwards and upwards, heading for the bealach. The views from behind were getting better and better as we gained height with Nevis starting to poke its head out from the distant mountains.  After an hour of a nice easy path, we started passing the waterfalls which looked tempting for a mid-walk shower.

Looks tempting for a shower....

Then the slog starts up the zig-zag path, and disaster strikes for me and my left calf muscle takes a hammering, leaving me half crippled and having to start dropping back further and further from the group. Still, I made the bealach and rejoined the others, so we abandoned the rucksacks there and headed off to summit  of Stob Coire Sgreamhach.

Trying to smile through the pain..

The girls are smiling for real..

So, after a brief 2 minutes at the summit, we headed back down to the rucksacks, where I opted to be the bag watcher, whilst the rest headed off to tackle Bidean.  At least I had a nice easy rest and a chance to take in the amazing scenery.

looking down into the valley.

Then it was time for the walkout, and halfway down, the storm clouds gathered, and soon we were in a deluge, but at least on the way back to the bus.

So, today is recovery Sunday and I reckon my walking is goosed for 4 weeks until the muscle tear heals.  Looks like no excuses for not working weekends now.  As for Bidean.....well, it's been there for a long time and will be there again when I decide I'm recovered enough to go finish this route.

Wet Wet Wet

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Once again, the day I decide to head off out leaving Gary to take care of the business, it poured with rain.
Todays stroll was to take in a route from the reservoir at Leslie, head West to John Knox's Pulpit, skirt West Lomond to the Bunnet Stane, uphill to summit West Lomond, then back to the start point.

I had company this time, being big Davie and my nephew Danny, first time up the hill for both of them. After yesterday, it's probably the last....

Approach to the pulpit.

2 very soggy companions

The smart one of the gang...in shelter.

After a wee break at the Pulpit, we skirted the hill and headed towards the Bunnet Stanes.  The intention was to get a photo shot atop the stone itself, but due to the weather and an incredible amount of sheep poo, made the rock far too slippy, and the highlight of the day was watching Danny try crossing the gap and falling 10ft into a pile of sh*t.  We had to settle for a pic of 'the eye' and had lunch inside the cave instead. This also gave us a chance to remove the boots and pour out the water and wring out the socks.

As it should have been.....

As it was.    The Eye at the Bunnet.

Then, it was onward and upwards via a series of zig-zags rather than attempt the more vertical route up through the rock. I thought it was raining again, but it transpired it was just Daves tears when he thought he was at the top and it was a 'false summit'.  

At last reached the top, much to the relief of Davie.

Then, the weirdest bit of luck.   Halfway down the hill, Davie realised he had lost his wedding ring..somewhere.  We backtracked up the slopes, and actually found it.  What are the chances of that??

It's now nice and sunny today, so all the gear outside getting dried off. Funny how the sun always shines on work days..

Summer Hols coming to an end.

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Ah well, it had to happen, and summer holidays are drawing to a close.
At least for the past week, the weather has been rather kind to us up here and the midgies on the hills haven't been as bad as the past few years.

Next week see us into the start of a workshop refurbishment along with a large re-tooling investment in preparation for the upcoming Autumn builds.  

Reports that have been coming in via various customers websites, have been showing that again, the Hobbit Houses have been performing well above expectations this season. 

There has also been indications in the Scottish Parly that land may be opened up via the forestry commission to allow for a more sympathetic approach to allowing huts and cabins to be installed, which is good news for all and sundry.