Our latest conquest

I expect you are wondering which mountain Gail, myself, and our friends M and J ascended this week.

Is it Everest? 

No, I can still breathe.

Kilimanjaro perhaps? 

No, this doesn't seem to be an extinct volcano.

The Matterhorn?

Not pointy enough. 

Ben Nevis?

Er, I don't think you can see the back end of Torry from Scotland's highest peak...

OK, I suspect you're tired of guessing so I'll reveal we were at Baron's Cairn on Tullos Hill, the area known locally as 'The Gramps' on the southern edge of Aberdeen. We reached the grand height of 83 m above sea level and Gail and I traversed a treacherous boulder field to conquer the summit. 

We descended on a path through the yellow gorse-covered hillside, where I'm pleased to say the scent of coconut* was strong enough to overpower any nasty whiffs drifting over from the nearby landfill and waste treatment sites. 

*Fun fact for today: when cycling along a narrow and gorse-fringed lane a few days ago, Gail's well-travelled fellow cyclist Anita observed that whereas gorse shrubs in bloom give off the powerful scent of coconut, there is no such aroma if you are pedalling through an actual coconut plantation! 

It wasn't our finest hour...

On Sunday after lunch, once the rain clouds finally cleared, Gail decided we'd go and explore new territory - footpaths across the farmland north of Glen Tanar.

I will say one thing for my owner. She has a pretty good sense of direction and excellent map reading skills. Possibly, she says, because when she was little, no-one ever suggested to her that these were things girls could not do well.

However, on occasion, the route finding can still go pear-shaped.

Sunday was just such an occasion.

We were not far into the walk when the intended track disappeared and I was being carried across a stone wall capped with a barbed wire fence and into a field of sheep.

We met a lady and an exuberant Labrador with a stick clamped between his jaws. The stick (actually half a small tree) became entangled in my lead while the Lab's owner was pointing across the field and telling Gail that the route over the hill to Glen Tanar was straightforward to find and the going was easy.

Neither of these statements proved true.

Confronted with a bog and then a slope covered in gorse (a coconut-scented but notoriously prickly shrub common in these parts) Gail decided to press on regardless.

If I am looking reproachful in the next photo it is because Gail has just forced her way through particularly dense thicket of gorse, carrying me under one arm (and dropping me more than once) while fending off the thorns with the free hand.

Eventually we made it to a proper track and from thereon in it was plain sailing. 

The sun came out and Gail switched the phone camera to video mode. Please be aware that the wee film below gives a wholly misleading impression of our afternoon's exertions. But why not come for a good brisk walk with me anyway?

And do try to keep up!

Gorse, verse and worse...

Gorse and More

A paucity of gorse is quite unknown

On Aberdeenshire hills in spring.

A plethora of heather later blooms,

(The botanists distinguish Erica and Ling).

And by the sea shore drifts of thrift

Are poised to make the cliffs blush pink again.

In woodland dells, bluebells will soon appear,

And uncontrolled, marsh marigolds seize damp terrain.

***

 

Er, sometimes poems don't turn out quite as one planned.
Happy Nature Friday folks!
Thanks again to our wonderful friends, Arty, Jakey and Rosy, for hosting the blog hop.

Ashentilly Wood: mud, mud, glorious mud...

Well I was so keen to get going with my new AWGV* job, I said to Gail, look we can't wait until it's sunny, after all this is Scotland, we might be waiting, like, forever.


Finally she relented and we went, during a pause between heavy downpours, to investigate Ashentilly Wood, ten miles out of Aberdeen and just off the South Deeside road.

Now some friends have been trying to advise me on how to go about my new role. Advice which I considered and then rejected. (Apparently a friend of Gail's once described her as having an 'advice resistant personality type' and happily this is a trait we share).

Bossy Stella told me to "just try not to get carried away with your opinions". No opinions? Me? Can you imagine? Quite ridiculous. Stella, that's like telling the Tea Party in the USA to try to be tolerant for a change. Or George Osborne telling UK voters that "we're all in it together"....

I want you to know I consider it my role to provide the op-ed counterpart to the boring fact-based report Gail writes on the VisitWoods website. Clear?

Anyway, back to the woods.

I did come close to acting on Deccy's intriguing suggestion to pee only on yellow flowers. Too close in fact. Deccy have you any idea how prickly a gorse bush feels on the bum? Oh you do. It was a practical joke. I get it. Hardy har. Not.


Personally I find that a delicate cluster of wood sorrel provides a more pleasing 'facility'.

A mossy bank by the side of the track is just fine too.


Isn't it strange though, and rather sad, how humans seem to miss out completely on the best aspects of a wood.

One can have so much fun negotiating the muddiest paths ...

And rolling around in the less delicately scented woodland offerings. (Believe me friends, this isn't mud...)

But I absolutely can't agree with Gail that it is a plus point when a wood has a clear running stream just close to the car park...

...where a dog can be immersed in near freezing water and "cleaned up a bit" prior to being transported home.

*AWGV - Assistant Web Guide Volunteer for the VisitWoods project. See also previous post.