Christine's walking & birds blog

I'm angry. I'm so angry, I went out into the drizzle and started to chop up the garden trimmings that are waiting to go to the tip - but I was forced back indoors by midges. I'm angry at seeing, for instance, a report of a snow bunting near the summit of a mountain during an "exercise walk", ending with a smug, or perhaps sheepish, exclamation mark. Exercise walk or not, I thought we weren't supposed to be going up mountains. I haven't been going up mountains. Mountain Rescue asked us not to - but, as is usually the weary old case, there's one rule for some and a different rule for others.

Two young people recently drove 60 miles from Glasgow to walk up a Munro. They got into trouble and called MR. The report about the incident stated that they were not adequately equipped for hill-walking. A few days later it was announced that they were being fined. MR then said that it wouldn't be judgemental about people it rescued; but the police were fining them for driving 60 miles - which was actually nothing to do with MR. If there's another statement from MR, I fully expect these two idiots to be declared heroes.

We've entered into the 12th week of lockdown - and still there's no word from Nicola Sturgeon about what's going to happen next. I'm going bonkers. I don't want to go near people - as is usual with me, I prefer to get away from them. I want to walk in the hills - where it's lonely. And I can't. For a start I'm obedient but in any case, if I were to attempt it, I would probably be sent home. Men, as usual, do what they want. There are chaps on motorbikes drifting through the village at weekends - clearly not residents. We've seen a small convoy of boy racers passing through the village. Meanwhile, we, who are residents, have had death stares twice during our permitted walks through the village, presumably after my English accent was heard and we were mistaken for funk-holers.

The trouble with NS is, she's probably never been for a walk in her own countryside. She needs to get those silly heels off and swap 'em for a pair of flatties, and then get out and get some fresh air into her head. Scotland isn't comprised only of Edinburgh and Glasgow.

To put myself in a more positive frame of mind, I looked up the Munro (Beinn a' Chroin) that the lockdown-breaking pair had to be rescued from, and found that I'd been up it in July 2000, on a walk that took in three other Munros. Here's the picture that I'd assumed I'd taken at the summit, with my old Pentax on self-timer mode, in low cloud and drizzle.


The trouble was, the cairn in my picture bears no resemblance to the one shown on The BBC News website. Of course, this was 20 years ago and cairns can change. However, reading up on the hill (of which I have very little memory) I find that there are a couple of tops that can be taken for the highest point on the ridge, with the real summit crowned by a smaller cairn than the lower top. This could be the one. Oh well, I walked the summit ridge so I certainly did the whole hill! Happy days.