Wah? Wah!

Up early last couple of days, today to tinker with the blogger template, hence the proper email and home page links on the right. This stuff really does take time to sort, there no way you could do it in a Cybercafe between a Californian lovie shouting down her mobile and some twitching guy accessing porn. Still missing Edinburgh and the Newington Road - not only could you get home made ice cream from Bratissanis at all hours of the day and night, there were some well wacky shops such as this one....



Yep, Clark Gable and Humphery Bogart. In kilts. Wonder how long they've been there...

I went to Preston yesterday and bought a wah wah pedal.... does this qualify as a banal posting?

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To blog or not to blog?

I have to admit to a week of existential doubt about the whole nature of the blog experience itself. This was mainly prompted by reading Scaryduck, who you'll recall just won the Graun's Best of British Blogs competition.

This is what Scaryduck says under the heading "Why isn't this a conventional Blog?":

"Because conventional blogs are BORING. Check out any blog at random and it's invariably the incredibly dull diary of someone with nothing to write about, but the're going to write pages of it anyway. How they Hate Their Parents, How they Hung Out at the Mall with Weirdo and Spiggy, Aren't Linkin Park Great, and Here's A Kule Site I Found. Arse.

... every now and then, I throw in some dull diary stuff, but I won't swamp you with the minutae of my life. Promise.

Ol Scary has a very valid point here. If I'd blogged every day this week, it could have looked something like this:-

Monday: Creosoted shed. Went to Tescos.
Tuesday: Went to B&Q. Cleaned out gutters.
Wednesday: Painted downstairs back lintels (first coat). Wimped out about climbing Fraser's ladder to do first floor lintels. Watched Tour of Spain. Big trip to Peaches and Green for fruit and veg.
Thursday: Sue has a job! Spent entire day working on new music project! Recorded new version of old song 'All down the Street'! Have invented new musical genre - 'Grungehop'.
Friday: Painted back lintels (second coat). Made hummous. Had flu jab.

Well, I got a bit carried away there with Thursday, but you get the point. I suppose the big point is only to post when there's something interesting to read about - at least something other people might find interesting. For all the talk about how the internet allows anybody the democratic right to publish their thoughts to humanity, the fact is that a lot of this stuff is banal drivel from very dull people. So why am I doing this? Mmm... Well a different set of criteria from Scary, whose great strength is telling past adventures. There's a number of things...

As a personal diary...
To let friends know what I'm doing... Go on, admit it, you've cut and pasted the same story on to two different emails to two separate people... This way, anybody interested gets the lot. This does beg the eternal question of 'is anybody actually reading this stuff?' Now I've got email me links sussed we may find out...

Then there's

The Dorothea Brande Challenge

For reasons that are hard to justify I spent about three years teaching creative writing at the back end of the 1990s. I worked at Glossop Adult Education Centre, with a class of middle-youth somethings whose main motivation for being there was to get off with each other and go to the pub afterwards. I think my classes were darn good, despite the fact that as someone who has never had anything other than a letter to the Graun in print and spent less time writing than most of the students, it was hard to justify my qualification for teaching the course. Being a teacher is the answer; teaching is the fundamental skill, you can always mug up on the subject. Some of what I did in the Creative Writing classes involved recycling ELT ideas, but I also tried other things, like visualisation and relaxation exercises, that I now use in EFL teaching. In fact doing the class was the beginning of the process of realising teaching is what I do well and ultimately returning to the classroom full time. However, the students began to realise that they could cut out the middle man and go straight to the pub for the evening and, to be fair, I started to lose interest and the classes got a bit boring for both sides. At which point it was time to move on to the next thing.

more follows...

The one book I tried to get students to read was Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer. This is a classic, first published in 1934. Brande isn't interested in the tedious stuff about finding a publisher and double-spacing your manuscript, what she writes about is getting into the psychological frame of mind - programming oneself to become a writer. As such what she writes has a lot in common with later stuff like NLP - only sensible.

One of Brande's main training activities involves getting up early every morning and writing a direct stream of consciousness piece:-

rise half an hour earlier than you would normally rise... write anything that comes into your head... last night's dream... a conversation... an examination of conscience...

And then you put it away and don't look at it. I set my Creative Writing class the task of following Brande's advice over a period of two weeks on several occasions. Nobody ever did it.

In fact, setting oneself the Dorothea Brande Challenge and putting it on a blog would be missing the point entirely. The exercise is about training oneself to write, not producing something for other people to read. Brande also talks about keeping ones own council; never tell people about your writing until it's done. Hmm.

Which I suppose is a roundabout way of saying keeping a blog is good writing practice, whether there's anyone out there reading it or not.

There's a lot of wisdom in Brande's little book, although it is tad of its time. Like so many thinking people in the 1930s she was a bit over influenced by the good Doctors Freud and Jung, and tends to talk about theories of the unconscious as if they were scientific fact rather than metaphors. And she liked Edith Wharton. Ironically Brande doesn't actually seem to be known for publishing anything else apart for this great 'how to' book.

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My class

This graphics thing is going to me head. My last class, as linked from Miguel's site. Also featuring the excellent arched windows... (It's through the arched window...) Graphics as links anybody...

Tescos? Don't make me laugh...

Lots of email to catch up with. Some of my students have been in touch which is great. Miguel has created an Edinburgh 2002 students web page, with a forum where they're all sending messages to each other. It always feels nice to be involved in people starting new friendships.

This particular group had a major running gag about Tescos - there was a little metro store on Nicholson Street where they bought everything - especially including industrial amounts of BEER. When one of the students turned up with a disposable Tescos camera there was major hilarity. Sigy has even created a Tesco beer tribute site...

In living colour

Wow! Sussed! That's how you get piccies on to Blogger! One line of html, pointing to a graphic stored somewhere else! Fine, we're in business visuals wise. This is me at 3AM in Gatwick Airport on my way to Morocco in 1999. It says something this is about the best portrait piccy I've got...

Spor

We went for a short drive, down to Hollingworth to pick up a prescription, up Longdendale, around the Devil's Elbow road, through Glossop, out the other side, over the Monks Road and home via Charlesworth. All along Longdendale there were small new landslips and quite a few fallen walls. Evidence, presumably of the Earthquake...

Well done Scaryduck

I didn't win The Guardian's Best of British Blogs competition or even get into the top thirty (there were only 300 entries). So, time for higher editorial standards (the 'hopeless speller' tag needs to go), groovy graphics and lots more links! There's no excuse now I don't have to blog from the various Cybercaffs up and down the Newington Road. I've had a quick look at the winner, Scaryduck, and very funny it looks indeed - one to follow for sure and lots to learn/ideas to pinch. Laugh out loud stuff - love the free beer offer. Is that a picture of Chesil Beach?

A small space of serenity

We missed the Earthquake on Saturday Night, although we were up watching wall to wall episodes of 'Two Pints of Lager' at the time it happened. Solid, these stone houses. However, other things were shaking the peace of Broadbottom, as there was an armed robbery in The Station - the pub just across the road. Next day Ian the owner and his wife were sitting around outside Fraser's house two doors down, evidently still in a state of shock. The guys had broken in at three in the morning and beaten several kinds of shit out of Ian before threatening him with a knife. Fraser later tells me that The Waggon, half a mile up the road, and The Cheshire Cheese, half a mile down the road, have both been robbed while I've been away, in similar circumstances and probably by the same gang. It has to be said I don't have a lot of time for Ian, who is a bit of a chancer. About a year ago Christina and I did a MidlaneFrost cabaret gig in The Station. It was the night of the last instalment of the first run of Big Brother, and hardly anyone turned up. At the end of the evening Ian wouldn't pay the full amount he'd agreed, since when I've not been back in the pub. By all accounts this was a small example of fairly typical behaviour, so he may have pissed off, as Fraser put it, 'rather harder people' than me. This stuff isn't remotely fun or exciting. Time to move on from Broadbottom.

Sunday Morning (as sung by Nico)

Blogger does seem a tad flaky. I couldn't get the last posting to work at all last night, and I've only just managed to get it on now by using Freenetname, my second choice, paid by the minute, ISP. Hmm. Still, we're with it now. I wonder if it's worth upgrading?

It was 279 miles home by the East Coast yesterday, only 40 further than going down the M6. The mystery of the flexible distance on the other side will, sadly, remain unsolved - maybe next summer....

Arthurs Seat to Broadbottom

So I did. Straight out of Communic-8, across Nicholson and Rankeillor Street, past the Commenwealth Pool and Pollock Halls and on into Holyrood Park. Then stopped, pausing to catch breath and consider the might of Arthurs Seat. Well, it's 230 metres high, so if you went up and down four times consecutively you'd have done a Munro. Wondered whether to attack by the frontal col, then decided to traverse a lateral route leading upwards towards the North East, ie stayed on the road. This took me round the back of the thing where a nice grassy slope led to the summit. Note the great heroism I have shown in not titling this section something on the lines of 'Taken from Behind; the back way up Arthur's Seat'. Fantastic view from the top with a lot of people including a Group of Girl Guides with Brown Owl or whatever she's called handing out badges as the Sun went down. Felt I should feel cathartic - it's exactly half a lifetime since I last climbed up here on my last day in Edinburgh in 1981, and there are echos of my Road to Domestos moment looking down on Athens from Mount Hymettos four or five years later. However, beautiful as the view was, one cannot just turn these things on, and anyway, I wanted a beer. Stumbled down in the gloaming (R Burns etc) and got a carry out tattie an haggis wi a wee bit Chablis. S'awright!

Got up and packed this morning and then went off to the Botanic Gardens. Sue and Maire-Ruth went on the bus while I drove (only space in the car for one passenger) Amazingly we all arrived at the same moment. The gardens were fantastic - if one had to spend a winter in Edinburgh it would be great to drop into the tropical houses from time to time! We said goodbye to Marie-Ruth who has been another great friend this summer - a woman with a wicked sense of humour. Sadly she will be left on her own in the flat with the ghastly Chris, but was off to look for a new flat as she'll be working at QM College from Monday.

And so, with a small diversion round Leith and Portobello, to the road South. For slightly perverse reasons I decided to go down the East Coast; I really didn't want to leave Scotland, so I thought if I could avoid the big 'Welcome to England' sign on the A74 it might be less traumatic. It seems to have worked. Not a bad run down the A1. We stopped in a services in Washington, County Durham; couldn't understand a single word the locals were saying.

And so back to Broadbottom, stopping at Tescos in Stalybridge. The checkout girl doesn't understand what I say to her; it will take a few days for my language to shift slightly into North West English. The Scots 'now', as in 'Thank-you now' will have to go, together with a certain amount of taken-for-granted urban subtlety. I want to get on with stuff now, but I'm not particularly pleased to be back, and the area feels alien; this is not, after all, my home, but then I'm no longer really sure where is. I could easily settle in Scotland, (though maybe my chest couldn't) and can understand why Scots feel relieved to come home - after all, I always toot my horn as I pass the big 'Welcome to Scotland' sign at Gretna with genuine pleasure. I've also very rarely felt uncomfortable because of my Englishness in Scotland; feeling resented because of my Southerness in the Manchester area is fairly common.

I've only been back an hour. Let's see what happens next.

Abroad thoughts from home?

This is it, the very last day. Said goodbye to my nice morning students, cleared up and then took all the posters and stuff down off of the wall of my magical little classroom and left, with something of a lump in my throat. One should get used to only getting to know people temporarliy. I'm going soft in my old age. Sue and I went off to the Botanic Gardens by bus but she felt poorly so we came back home. Writing this in Communic-8 probably for the last time. Sniff. Well, this is the lot of the EFL teacher, a few weeks, months or years in a place and then on to somewhere new. This is what life would have been like if I hadn't had those 12 years out or made the decision to go back to Greece in 1985 (my life in the Third Conditional). Strangely it doesn't seem so appealling now. I'd really like to stay in Edinburgh, but I just couldn't physically cope with a Scottish Winter - I really could do with living somewhere warm for the sake of my health.

On my last day here in 1981 I climbed Arthur's Seat. Off to do that now.

And now, the end is near

It's the very last day but one. Off to the final Celidh - I think I'm getting the routine by now. This will be the fourth time I have had to watch the Social Program lads getting dragged up to do their Kylie routine (Kylie at the Celidh I suppose). I will also probably have to leave when the Japanese kids do their university song... Presentations from afternoon students today included 'Islamic Naming Traditions' 'Island People and Continental People' (slightly weird) and 'A Tour of your Camel' which was excellent. My morning group have been great, the nicest and hardest-working class of the summer, it's been fun teaching them, although sometimes hard to get myself enthousiastic about teaching the same material for the third time in a row.

Had lunch with Fiona. I'm going to miss all my Edinburgh friends.

A Glaswegian walks into a cake shop and says "Hey pal, is that a macaroon or a meringue?" and the guy says, "no, you're right. It is a macaroon".

Coming soon! Reflections on EFL teaching! Gorblimey! Also Fotherington-Thomas. Looking for FT, by a strange coincidence I found the I hate Teaching English page originally sent me by Rob, which is extremely funny. If you're an EFL teacher that is, but then, at the end of the day, who is?

More of the same

Another weekend travelling round the highlands. Stunning weather again. Saw dolphins again. Ate langoustines in a brilliant pub. (with a terrific web page if I maysay so - I must look at these bloody things some time. Oh, it's so predictable. Saw Jimmy Saville powerwalking through Glencoe. Not so predictable, think we'll stick with Dolphins. Stayed in Rua Reidh Lighthouse near Gairloch. Ho hum. Life is so predictable.

I shoudn't joke - except possibly about Jimmy Saville. It's back to the tedium of the real world very soon.

At least I won't have the problem of transporting my possessions round the world. Marie-Ruth's piccys 'why sea frieght is cheap' are now on my Yahoo photos page...

More about Merigues, the 'I hate teaching English' page and Fotherington-Thomas soon.....

My apologies for the length of the next bit. It's taken three days to write, type up and put links into, then I found blogger wouldn't take all 5000 words at once so I had to cut it into bits. Blogging probably needs to be on a smaller scale than this. Anyway, time to open that beer Rob I would think.


Last adventure of the Summer

At the beginning of the summer I had three expeditions planned. Two involved climbing Munros, Ben Nevis and Liathac. Ben Nevis because it's The Big One; Liathac because I've spent several holidays starring at its forbidding flanks (ooer) from the window of a caravan at Arrinacranachd. However, my one Munro at the start of the summer, Ben Vorlich, rather put me off the idea of further bagging. Not only was it knackering to climb the bugger, but I seem to be developing vertigo in my old age. Apart from that, I couldn't help thinking 'so what when I get up there? Three hours to climb a hill and three hours to climb back down again'. The Bear went over the Mountain stuff. Oh sure, the view was fantastic, but Scotland is full of fabulous views and its as nice to be by the loch looking up at the mountain tops as on them looking down at the loch. I wasn't even in magnificent isolation on Ben Vorlich; that Sunday there was a cast of millions up there.

I did intend to do more Munros, but the weather just hasn't been up to it. This is not me being nesh; Ben Vorlich taught me that going up a Munro is not like a stroll on the South Downs or even a hike in the Peak District. As Cameron McNeish says, every year people die on Scottish Mountains. Setting out up the likes of Ben Lui, Ben Cruachan or, God forbid, Liathac, underequiped and inexperienced, in bad weather, just to prove to oneself one is not a wimp, would just be stoopid. Ben Vorlich also taught me that when Cameron MacNiesh says things like 'climbers will revel in the airy traverse' or 'this route is somewhat exposed' what he means is 'this place is utterly petrifying', or 'the chances of getting killed falling off this thing are not inconsiderable'. So we'll leave Liathac and Ben Nevis for another year, if not another lifetime.

This leaves the third adventure, which I managed to achieve this weekend.

The Gulf of Corryvreckan lies between the islands of Jura and Scarba, off the West Coast. It's no more than a mile wide, but the rocks and the local tidal conditions make it extremely dangerous for shipping, with rip tides rushing between the islands at certain states of the tide. At the west end is something I have wanted to see for ages; the Corryvreckan Whirlpool. The only choice of viewpoint is the north end of Jura. Several weeks ago I was only a few miles away at Toberochy on Luing, the next island north of Scarba. However, given that Scarba is a massive five mile long and 500 metre high lump of non-transparent slate, the whirlpool wasn't in view.

To get to the viewpoint would involve getting on to Jura and driving 'The Long Road' - in fact the only road on the whole island - up the East Coast. Sue and I drove The Long Road last October, thirty miles of single-track highway with passing places - not that there's much other traffic. Towards the top end of the island the road gets progressively worse, passing through gates and the occasional farmyard until eventually a sign in a desolate piece of moorland announces that the road is now private and all vehicles have to stop or turn back. At this point there are still seven miles to go to the viewpoint. A track continues to Kinuachdrachd Farm, the last house on Jura, from where a footpath continues over the cliffs for the last two miles.

My plan was to do a 'Thunderbird 2' operation. You know, Virgil flies in in TB2, drops the pod, Gordon sails off in Thunderbird 4, then Alan or someone swims out the back in scuba gear to finish off the rescue. At each stage of the journey the means of transport gets smaller. A couple of ferries would take me to Jura, I'd drive to the roadhead with my bike on the back of the car, cycle down the track to Kinuachdrachd, and then walk the last bit. There's no longer any direct ferry from the mainland to Jura; you have to get a boat to the neighbouring, much more cosmopolitan (well, compared to Jura anyway) island of Islay, and then risk life and limb on a much smaller boat that crosses the narrow sound between the two islands.

So, Friday lunchtime I set off with just enough time to drive across Scotland and catch the ferry from Kennacraig to Islay. Go to open the bicycle shed where my beast lives next to my student flat. The key doesn't fit!!! The University have changed the locks without telling anyone!!! Argh!!! What a great start!!! Eventually a University maintenance guy comes by with a master key, but I've lost a crucial hour. By the time I've got lost round Stirling while trying to drive up the motorway, read a map and give Sue mobile helpdesk advice on how to use the PC all at the same time, there's no way of getting the evening ferry.

I stay over at Tarbert and the following morning, bleary eyed, I'm on the 7.15 boat out of Kennacraig. As we pull out into West Loch Tarbert, the PA comes on:-

"Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Kenny Hilder welcoming you aboard the MV Isle of Arran, the bow doors are now secure...."

Then it goes dead. A minute later the PA comes on again.

"As I was saying, this is Captain Kenny Hilder. I'm afraid I just got attacked by a wasp. Lost the plot there for a moment. As I was saying, the bow doors are now secure, and we're ready for sea...."

This is the sort of thing that happens up on the West Coast all the time. It really is wonderful to be up here so regularly this summer. I'd considered living here year round, but I'm not sure I could cope with the winters.

It's a pleasant crossing. I tuck into CalMac's dependable breakfast and read 'The Scotsman'.

Back on Islay, my third visit to the Island of Geese and Whisky. I take the ten mile quaky road over the bog from Port Ellen to the island's capital, Bowmore. I spend an hour shopping for essentials and send postcards. Then I pop into the Tourist Information Centre to ask for advice. The woman inside is extraordinarily beautiful, with grey eyes and huge tresses of auburn hair. She suggests I might try ringing a Mr and Mrs. Richardson who organise guided wildlife tours round Jura. It turns out they live at Kinuachdrachd, the last homely house on Jura. The grey eyed lady of the TIC also suggests I stay the night on Jura, as the last ferry back leaves at 6.30.

Back in the car and on to Port Ascaig in a heavy downpour of rain. Ooer. After several attempts I get through to Mrs Richardson. It seems the Land Rover is 'away doing something else today'. This turns out to be just as well, as I later learn that the Richardson's charge £20 each way for their 'Land Rover Taxi' service down the five mile track I was planning to cycle, and this still leaves the last two miles to cover on foot - and this last section proved to be the tough bit.

Coffee in the Port Askaig Hotel, then it's on to the Jura Ferry.

There are three things to know about Jura:-

1 One of the KLF came from here, and they came back to make a video in which they - genuinely - burned £1m in bank notes. There are people who get VERY UPSET ABOUT THIS INDEED. I don't really see why; they weren't going to give it to me, and at least they didn't snort it up their noses. Actually I rather liked the KLF. Like Malcom Maclaren's theory about the Pistols, they seemed to think their contribution to art was showing the gullibility of the music industry, and how no-talented losers can become stars. Well that is, and always has been true, but I don't think they fitted that profile. The KLF made great records - 'The White Room' is a classic album. Justified and Ancient no less. A lot like Jura.

2 George Orwell rented a house here to work on '1984'.

3 Deer outnumber people on Jura by 25 - 1. This last point is most important. The Rough Guide describes Jura as 'a huge land mass' and while, OK it's not exactly the size of Antarctica, at 30 miles long by 7 wide, it's big enough. The west coast is pretty much inaccessible and totally uninhabited, with 'The Long Road' connecting the habitations on the East side. Most of what lies between is boggy deer forest, with the scree-sloped 'Paps of Jura' mountains rising to dominate the southern half of the island. Jura has one pub/hotel, one shop, a tea room and a single petrol pump. Oh, and a distillery. There is only one village, Craighouse in the South. It is, in short, pure Hamish Macbeth.

I booked into the Jura Hotel and then drove on North up The Long Road. Although there weren't many deer about at this time of the morning, there was plenty of other wildlife. Coming round a bend I found myself face to beak with a buzzard, perched on a post just beside the road. Before I could grab my camera he flapped lazily away into a nearby tree. Round the next bend the path road passed over a coll and ran on down a mile or so to a farm next to the sea. But what was this in the passing place? Wow! wow! wow! Like a big tabby cat but with pointier ears. Surely the elusive, though becoming more common, Scottish Wild Cat! I screeched to a halt, snatched up my camera and leapt out of the car, hoping for a shot of the rare beast before it disappeared into the heather, just as happened with a Red Squirrel on Arran the week previously. Hang on though. The grass parted and the beast reappeared, twinned round my legs and nuzzled at my ankles. He sniffed at my hand and marked it; I gave him an introductory stroke. He was in fact, an ordinary cat. A large tabby cat granted, but basically a bog-standard pooser. With pointy ears. After a few more pleasantries we said goodbye and I returned to my exploring and he to his.

Half an hour later I arrived at the road head. No getting away from it now, it was time for the uncomfortable stuff. I packed essentials in my day pack and opted to ride the bike in heavy walking boots, rather than my drop dead sexy red Shimano cycling shoes. This turned out to be A VERY WISE MOVE.

As is invariably the way, I considered giving up after the first ten minutes. What I had taken to be a piece of rusty farm machinery in the distance turned out to be a small herd of rather fine, henna-coloured cows (it really is time to get some glasses again). I've never been very good with cows. As I approached I dinged the bike bell - so effective with pedestrians crossing The Meadows back in Edinburgh - and the cows started moving. Unfortunately they were moving along the track directly ahead of me. However, as they were moving at the same sped as me this didn't rally matter, apart from there being another, steaming, category of object to avoid riding through. This went on for about ten minutes before the cows finally turned away into the heather. A little further on the track levelled off and then, where it slowly began to drop downhill, a chain was stretched across it and padlocked. Anybody stupid enough to ignore the 'end of the road sign' and try to drive through would have to reverse back from this point, over maybe a mile and a half of rutted track. Not that anything much other than a Land Rover could have negotiated it anyway. That or a mountain bike. A little further three such bikes had been left propped against a shed with helmets and other gear. Clearly I wasn't the only person to be trying to get to Corryvreckan by bike today. But why leave them here? There was a good four miles of cyclable track ahead. Did they know something I didn't?

The track on across the moors was largely featureless. Far from looking at scenery my eyes had to constantly be on the track just ahead, looking for a way around the next big boulder, checking the next puddle - do I go through it and risk there being a deep pothole in the middle, or stick with the crown of the road and risk getting bogged down in mud? Most of the time I elected to splash on on through the puddles, brushing through the high bog grass growing on the sides of the track.

Round the next bend the track ran away steeply to a white-painted farmhouse. This was Barnhill, where Orwell came in 1947 to try farming, get away from London and finish 1984. The guy was in very bad health at the time, with the beginnings of TB. It's hard to imagine a more isolated and remote place than Barnhill in the whole of the British Isles (OK, Kinuachdrachd Farm one mile further is that much further from civilisation). Barnhill is 30 miles from anywhere, and that anywhere is Craighouse, miles down a rutted track that must be totally impassable for weeks on end in winter. If the man wanted solitude, this was the place to come for it. It's hard even now to believe Barnhill is in the same country as Milton Keynes, IKEA, The Millennium Dome and Safeway's 'tear 'n share' foccacia.

If anything the track got worse after Barnhill, with long stretches under bog water. After a bit of this though it dropped to sea level, coming out on an exquisite tiny bay. I stopped to take in the scenery. So far, apart from the morning downpour on Islay, I had been lucky with the weather. Now the sky was a beautiful blue, the sea turquoise and still. Then it was broken at the mouth of the bay by a dorsal fin. Wah? There it was again, and then another one. Two bottle-nosed dolphins, ambling along through the waves together, getting the sun on their back, snorting spray from their blow holes. Wow! Fantastic! Beautiful! Not for the first time I wished I'd brought binoculars.

The path climbed very steeply, and then I was at Kinuachdrachd, home of the Richardson's and their expensive taxi service. Hah! I hadn't needed them, just me and my trusty roadster. Now it was time to leave it for a while so, I chose a spot of the track and parked the bike under a silver birch. After about half a mile of walking up the steep footpath and through bracken I heard voices. It was two men and a woman, the owners of the abandoned bikes I'd seen. They'd cycled the length of the Long Road from Craighouse, and decided to walk the last few miles 'because they were tired'. They had seen the whirlpool, but then one of the guys said "you already missed high tide by ten minutes" and the woman said "and it's still a long walk" and the first guy said "but you'll still see something". Curses! I'd forgotten that the whirlpool was at its most spectacular at high tide and not checked the time. However, I was still expecting something fairly impressive.

I soon realised any idea I might have had of taking the bike over the footpath would have been out of the question. The path wound on, over low hills and through bog after bog, crossing deer fences on 6 foot high stiles on a couple of occasions, often becoming almost impossible to follow. Slowly, the eastern end of the Gulf of Corryvreckan began to come into view as I rounded the northern point of Jura. At last I came to a point where I knew the whole Gulf would be laid out in front of me in a few steps. I counted to ten. Not enough actually, but by the time I got to fifteen there it was; maybe one mile wide and two or three from east to west, with the wild, daunting crags of Scarba directly opposite. There it all was, although in the case of the whirlpool there it wasn't. Well, not a thundering maelstrom anyway. It was possible to see the whirlpool if you knew where to look, and as I had the OS map I could see it, an area of white water about 100m across and roughly circular. The whole gulf was full of areas of white water; without the map it certainly wouldn't have been obvious which the one was.

None of this mattered; I had reached my destination, the Sun was shining, it was a stunningly beautiful l spot and I didn't have to start back for a full half-hour. A long-planned objective had been achieved.

Scottish Islands in sunshine have a lot in common with Greek ones; blue water, bare rock, and the thought that no one ever ever visits these lonely shorelines.

However.

As I stood watching, taking in the scene, something almost mocking happened. An orange motor boat entered the Gulf from the East. Well, I'd read that the Royal Navy classifies the Gulf as unnavigable, but this guy clearly didn't. The boat started making its way towards the whirlpool. Maybe it did look serene today, but the Corryvreckan Pool has a frightening reputation. George Orwell capsized in it and only just got onto one of the tiny islands with his infant adopted son and some friends, and were marooned there for several hours before some fishermen picked them up. There's also a story I've been told more than once about a cabin cruiser being sucked down into the whirlpool at some time in the 1950s.

The orange boat powered straight into the centre of the whirlpool and cut its engines. I'd read enough about Corryvreckan to know the guy would only have done this at an extremely benign state of the tide - just my luck I'd got here at the least spectacular time - about one hour after high tide may well be slack water. Anyway, it appeared some point had been proved as the guy started his engines again, sailed away to the north-west, rounded the tip of Scarba and disappeared.

It was a struggle to turn my back and walk away. "Goodbye Corryvreckan" I shouted at the top of my voice "Goodbye Whirlpool", confident that there wasn't a single living human soul within three miles, but feeling a tad Fotherington-Thomas. Several times during my trips around Scotland this summer I've had a mortality thing on the lines of: "I am in this place now and will never ever come here again. This is my once and final visit." Weird but there it is. There must be places you go when you're one year old you'll never revisit, but still this has been my thing the last few months. I got the feeling strongly on the northern bealach coming down Ben Vorlich and it was probably correct; with 283 Munros left to do, I hardly think I'd do Ben Vorlich again (though there is another Ben Vorlich near Arochar...) even if I did want to bag any more. But then again, I never got up the even more terrifying Munro behind Ben V, which you have to climb over to get to, so never say never again I suppose...

I rather think I'll come back to Corryvreckan though. Maybe by the same route - it would be tremendous to camp at the viewpoint, and watch the Sun go down across the Western Isles into the Atlantic - or maybe by sea. A wild idea would be to see the whirlpool from Scarba. Scarba looks to be privately owned, the map shows a house called Kilmory Lodge, and there was another house that looked inhabited visible a few miles away across the Gulf. The map also showed a track along the clifftops opposite. Hmm. Maybe someday.

Onwards

As a lad I learnt a lot about being out and about in the great outdoors from the Boy Scout Handbook. (Not to be confused with 'Scouting for Boys'. Oh no.) One of the things I remember is the warning to stay away from bogs. 'Bogs' it said, 'are identifiable by their lush vegetation'. This is all very well, but the trouble with many parts of he Highlands is that there is nothing but bog. It's no good keeping to high places, I've seen bogs on the tops of hills. Somehow bogs even manage to exist on 45-degree slopes. The only place you can avoid being in a bog is on bare rock, which is very uncommon. At least in the sort of places I want to go. This amt explain the poualrity of winter hiking, when at least all of this gunk is frozen solid. Anyway, so on most of this walking section I was sloshing along, often in ankle deep water.

Whenever I'm in a bog (and isn't that so often my dear?), my thoughts inevitably turn to Carver Doone. This guy is the evil villain in Lorna Doone. At the end of the story Carver is chasing after upright, noble, 'Girt' Jan Ridd, the hero, who is escaping across Exmoor with the lovely Lorna. Just as Carver is about to catch up them and deal out some horrible and bloody revenge, he falls in the bog, gets sucked under and drowns. On Exmoor for gord's sake. Which is not, it has to be said, Jura.

This story of being sucked down into the bog has always given me the screaming heebee geebees. However, I'd long since decided that such things never really happened, certainly not somewhere as benign as Exmoor. 'After all', I thought as I traversed yet another soggy slough of despond, 'bogs aren't that deep, they're made up of solidish vegetable matter, surely nobody ever...'

At that moment the grass gave way beneath my feet and I found myself up to the thigh in freezing water and not touching bottom. My right leg had broken through to some sort of hidden water course but by sheer luck my other leg was on fairly firm ground and I could step straight out, completely waterlogged from the waist down but otherwise OK. As I went in I found myself shouting, 'urg, this is finally it.' After years of doing Stupid Things Outdoors on My Own, I'm amazed I've never had an accident in a remote spot, like the time I spent 17 hours without seeing another human being in the Atlas Mountains, or trekked across the Sahara in open toed sandals at night, both on the same trip. So every time I seriously slip or fall over, I assume I'm about to break a leg miles from anywhere or, in this case, drown. Not this time, I could step straight out again. Bleagh though.

It was a long slog back, but I was just about drying off when I got back to Kinuachdrachd and the bike. I set off, dripping but glad to be back in the saddle and looking forward to an hour's ride back to the car and dry gear. Like 90% of mountain bike owners, I rarely take mine anywhere near a mountain, and this was about the longest off road expedition me and bike had ever done. As I rode off round the Dolphin Bay and up the hill back to Barnhill, I congratulated myself on how reliable my old bike was, how it had risen to the challenge, how the big fat tyres rolled over boulders, and how fond I was of the bugger. Then there was a wobble and the left pedal crank fell off. Oh shit. Nothing was actually broken but the bolt securing the crank to the bike had fallen off. I walked back a few yards down the trail but there was no point. The bolt could have come off any time up to a few hours ago and it would have taken a while for the crank to work loose. It could have been round the next bend. Or it could have been at the bottom of a puddle five miles away. At any rate, although I had a full tyre repair kit, I didn't have anything like the sort of socket spanner I'd need to replace the bolt.

I pushed the crank back on, but it came off every third revolution or so of the pedals. There was nothing left but to push the bike, freewheeling down hills. Unfortunately, as I'd noticed on the way in, most of the way back was uphill.

If this sounds like a catalogue of disaster, I really didn't care. I had achieved a long held objective, got to the Corryvreckan viewpoint, seen the whirlpool, seen Dolphins and other amazing wildlife (and a nice tabby cat) and been out in some spectacularly beautiful countryside that I'd had virtually to myself. OK, I was wet and knackered, and pushing my bike rather than riding, but I'd had a fantastic experience and somewhere ahead of me was a Pint and a Large Dinner in a Warm Hotel. And it could have been considerably worse. I'd only encountered one short shower as I came out onto the Gulf, and that had been over in twenty minutes. At the same moment that day the East Coast of Scotland was experiencing incredibly heavy rain, with flooding in Inverness. If that lot had hit me I'd have been well stuffed.

As I crested the rise above Barnhill a pristine white Land Rover heaved painstakingly round the bend, driven by a woman in her thirties with a short, 'county lady' type of hairstyle. Mrs. Richardson I presumed. She didn't speak and gave me the barest half smile as she drove past. It occurred to me I must look like someone who had just fallen in a bog.

And so at last back to the car. I'd told the Hotel I'd be back by 8.30. Thanks though to the failed pedal crank, it was quarter past by the time I'd changed into dry shoes and clothing. I'd got thirty miles to drive back, although I thought it unlikely the pleasantly laid back staff of the Jura Hotel would be calling out rescue people just yet.

As I rode back the outline of the Paps of Jura filled the sky. I first saw these mountains on my first ever visit to Scotland in 1974, which was also my last ever holiday with my parents. They say you always remember that last holiday. My parents wanted to revisit Machrihanish, where they both were in the war. If this was to be a romantic visit, God knows why they took me. We spent two weeks doing zilch in Campbeltown, bumhole of the universe, down at the end of the Mull of Kintyre and miles from anywhere else. I think of those two weeks as 'the last two weeks at the end of the Earth.' Anyway, on the trip my Dad pointed out the Paps of Jura to me, but didn't mention that 'paps' actually means 'breasts'. This is not actually unreasonable; given that the Paps of Jura as seen from the coast of Argyle or from the sea consist of three mountains rather than two; so boobies do not automatically spring to mind. But from this angle though you see two hill, now in silhouete. And there they are, a splendid pair, Beinn an Oir at 785 metres and Beinn Shaintaidh at 757, a perfectly shaped 39 million double Ds pertly peaked. Fworr!

It's possible I had been out there to long.

Back at the Hotel they weren't remotely concerned about me being lost, but had kept the kitchen open so I could get fed. That's what I call a sense of priority. Venison pie and a couple of pints in front of a warm fire. Bliss.

Home to Edinburgh by a maritime route the following day - ferry from Jura to Islay, drove to Port Ellen, ferry from there to Kinnacraig, drove to Tarbert, ferry from there to Portavadie, drove across the spectacular Cowel Peninsula to Dunnoon on the Clyde, yet another ferry to Gourock, and so home crossing Greater Glasgow and on up the motorway back to the flat in Newington.

OK, so this was not the greatest adventure Man has ever taken, but I got a real buzz and sense of achievement from doing what I set out to do, and more I suspect than I'd have got if I'd toiled up a couple of Munros. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it, I've enjoyed writing about it (I started longhand on the Islay Ferry) and I hope you've enjoyed reading about it.

One out of three ain't bad.