Monday, June 22, 2020
A general letter from the Scottish government and Scottish NHS arrived this morning in the post - and I had a huge fit of temper. I pushed the furniture back and swabbed the kitchen floor with enormous gusto, which exhausted me physically but left me feeling calmer. (It was long overdue, anyway - swabbing the kitchen floor, I mean.) I couldn't help it, I just lost it. This pointless missive gave me nothing at all to look forward to. It's more of the same blah-blah-blah "spirit of solidarity" blah-blah-blah.
What spirit of solidarity? Like this below? We've accepted we shouldn't go up mountains. But the people in at least one of these cars did precisely that - they went up a blooming mountain (my car on the left).
I'd meant to drive to Ardmair only; but there were so many obvious tourists about - two cars with sleeping bags/bedding bundled up against their back windows, and a couple who parked and went down onto the beach, took a selfie, then furtively messed about round one of those stupid cairns people build everywhere and seemed to be stowing some of the large, flat stones away in their boot (more numbskulls) - that I decided to drive on. WTF! If the police stopped me I had a mouthful of protest ready.
In the event I didn't see any police. After taking my picture, I turned back and drove up to Knockan Crag. The car park was open but the toilets of course were closed. I couldn't see any ring ouzels but meadow pipits, stonechats, and a spotted flycatcher were present.
As I scanned for eagles, I spotted two people on the path descending from Cul Mor - rucksacks, walking poles - yep, hill-walkers. I drove back home, freshly enraged.
A visit to Ardmair a few days ago brought a well-grown ringed plover chick.
A soft, preoccupied "cak-cak-cak" made me look up to see a red-throated diver speeding westwards, over the beach and out to sea.
Presumably, people are hill-walking all across Scotland! Greger and I are too law-abiding for our own good, I reckon. England eased lockdown hugely over a month ago but tomorrow, we'll be entering our 14th week of lockdown with no sign of any relaxing of it and no comfort to be derived from that pointless bloody letter. We're still not to drive our cars more than 5 miles for exercise, which I defied today in my anger, and preferably, we should stay at home. We've stayed at home for 13 sodding weeks! Yeah, I must stay near home while walkers come here from goodness knows where and do the things I'm obediently not doing. It has to, has to stop. By the time we're set free at this rate, the summer will be gone.
// posted by Christine @ 11:46 AM 
