the twists and turns of Wednesday

the roads of Dumfries and Galloway

The map says take A702 toward New Galloway, then A713 to Castle Douglas (which isn't really a castle -- it's the name of a town). Well okay, but I see a sign off of A702 that points directly to Castle Douglas, and it's not even close to A713. As in -- fools, ye who follow maps! Come, we'll show you a better way! 

I take this "short cut" and find myself again on a twisty narrow road. Back to third gear and straining my neck to see if anyone is about to head on collide with me. Pastureland borders the road (lane?) and aside from the cows and sheep I see no fewer than four pheasants, in the fields and running across the road.






Clouds come and go, rain drops appear on my windshield then stop the minute I turn on the wipers.

This is my drive in search of the coast.


Castle Douglas that's not really a castle

By the time I pull into Castle Douglas (population: 3900)...





...I am spent. The twists and turns do terrible things to my insides. It is time to sit down with a proper pot of English tea.

I pass any number of people, young and old, as I search out a place to plunk down and exhale.



 















I enter the Designs Gallery and Cafe, which is slightly less lovely than the artsy cafe in Thornhill, but nonetheless brimming with friendly, helpful servers. Most people are eating lunch, but I stick with the tea. Oh, and a scone with jam (otherwise it's not proper).






And I think back toward the morning...



the morning

I wake up to rain.






I expected it. I had plans for it. All week long, the weather maps showed rain on Wednesday. Well now, isn't it wonderful that weather maps can be trusted after all!

Greg prepares a breakfast of eggs (this is after I've already poked at the muesli, fruits and yogurts).






I tell him how ready I am for rain!

And then, not many minutes later, I look outside and I see this:






That is a game changer! The rains have passed us by once again!

I shall go to the coast!

But first, we have a planned visit to Neil and Mary's house. You remember perhaps that these are the people who actually own Three Glens (where I am staying) and plan to retire here. Someday. When he's done sheering sheep and growing his cattle count.



if I were a successful farmer...


Greg climbs into my beautifully cow-dunged Fiat 500 (driving toward the Striding Arches, I picked up the stuff off the road...) and we head toward the real farmstead -- the family home, the place where Neil's parents lived and now where they live, the older house up this driveway:






Mary, whom I meet for the first time, is not at all perturbed by the fact that this American woman barges in on her, camera in hand, questions flowing like candy on Halloween. She is so good at fashioning a welcome that I completely relax and take photos of stuff I would normally feel shy about. For instance, when she shows me the morning suit, laid out and ready for Neil to wear to the Ascot tomorrow. No, no: they're not really Ascot bound, but in Dumfries, they hold a special luncheon tomorrow, minutes before the Ascot race, for the invited few and it is expected that all will be properly attired in Ascot wear. Here's Neil's "morning suit:"






And here's Mary's outfit:






I get a full tour of their home. There are so many rooms! And so many mementos!






In fact, there are too many rooms and Mary has been letting some of them out as B&B's, of a different kind than Three Glen. When she shows the rooms to me, she explains -- frequently, my guests are hunters and fishermen. They're looking for comfortable rather than "smart."

There is a lot of history in the house. A lot! I dare not get it wrong, so let's move outside.






We walk the grounds along with their four dogs: sweet Stanley, the little guy who barks his head off wildly when he is with the other three. Then there are the two Border Collies. Awww... how charming, you say. Well, these collies mean business! They're not your lap dogs with a quaint pedigree. They work the herds and sleep outside. And when the fourth dog comes out -- the lab -- they corner her and stand in menacing fashion until the owner pushes them away and the lab is free again.

But do remember, I'm here mainly to see the house and, too, Mary's garden.

It's a woppingly huge garden -- they grow everything and they have exquisite fencing to keep out predators. I am impressed.



(Greg picks some broccoli and lemon balm for dinner... Mary looks on.)


I feel better when I find out that she has gardening help three times a week.

The grounds on this property are vast and they include a pond (the weeds have taken over! -- she tells me. One year we had us all go in and pull them out!) and a tennis court. This makes me a bit nostalgic for the tennis Ed and I play in our secret court back home. But I brush the thought aside.
 

by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea...

After my tea, I leave Douglas Castle and concentrate on finding the forest where I think I may enjoy a hike. It's hard to find: take  this windy road until you come across this one and after, turn onto this one even if on the map, it looks like you're going straight. Well, I find it.

I'm looking forward to the hike because 1. it offers views to the sea and 2. the forest has some of the tallest trees in Scotland: Douglas firs. You'd think they were Scottish, but they're not. It's a Canadian tree admired by Scottish settlers who then brought seeds back to their home country in the early 19th century, naming the tree after their own -- Douglas.






The forest is "closed." I find a sign by the place where I was to park my car: foresting work in progress. Come back after June 26.

Option number two: take the coastal walk already, damn it!

I'd been saving it for tomorrow -- a promised good weather day, but I'm here, the skies are fine (in their mixed bag fashion), let's go already!

More driving up and down winding roads, after which I swear to myself I will always always choose the super highway (meaning a road with actual room for two cars) over the quaint and narrow.

I leave the car at the edge of the sea.






(Yes, I know it looks threatening out there. Ignore it. You can never tell which way the winds will blow.)



(did you know that the Scottish people were this romantic?)


Oh, you could say I am not done yet: I still have my tribulations over finding the path I am to take for my hike: I went up the wrong road and now I'm parked near the end of the trail rather than the beginning, bla bla bla..

But the fact is, I find the trail.

It's forested and I take lots of deep breaths (that's what I've been taught to do since childhood -- breathe deeply! fresh forest air, take it in!) and I go up up up...






Mostly I am alone, but this is not the barren countryside of yesterday. I am on the coast and here and there I see homes along the estuary and the shore.






Up up up... The literature tells me this is a two out of three star challenge, but I don't buy it. Yesterday's hike convinced me that the British "challenge" is the French person's lazy stroll. What French people call "sportif" I call "impossible." What the British call "demanding" I call "relaxing."

But when I reach the hill's summit, I understand why this is a special spot on the planet.



(if you zoom in, you'll see the windmills out at sea)





(looking inland)



There are many ways to admire views. Ed likes to sit for a while and just look out. I'm not as calm. I jump around, take photos, make sure I have not missed a thing. I do sit, but only for a minute.





I don't think it'll ever change. Even if I didn't have a camera around my neck, or a computer back home, I would be always composing sentences in my head and framing photos with my eye. (This dates back to age 18, so no, it's not a function of blogging.)



a couple of miles up the road

Coming home from any larger excursion inevitably puts me on the road that links Dumfries with Thornhill. There, I make a turn due west and follow the road eight miles toward Moniaive. About half way, I pass the hamlet of Penpoint (population: 400). It's the closest settlement to Moniaive and when I pass it, I always know I'm almost home.

I mention Penpoint, because in fact, the village has been the home of Andy Goldsworthy for the past thirty years. Sure, he travels, but he always comes back to it. It's not surprising, therefore, that there is a Goldsworthy sculpture just outside the village. It's an egg -- made of the same sandstone as his Arches. It sits in the middle of a pasture where you'll sometimes see sheep or cows and when you first go by it, you do a double take: wait, did I just see an egg?





I finally pull over and take a picture of it. And so no matter what I do, coincidentally, each day has had a Goldsworthy encounter here (through his art).


dinner at home


Perhaps you haven't grasped this, but Three Glens is an unusual place to choose for your visit or vacation. You don't just get a lovely room and a breakfast cooked to order.

You get quiet. You get a warm floor (I cannot tell you how many places I will never go back to because the floors are cold and my feet get chilled). You get baby lambs lulling you to sleep each night with their gentle voices.

And you get the help of the house manager, who focuses his entire being on making your stay as you would want it. (Neil and Mary are lucky to have Greg, who may be a free spirit, but he comes with three years of professional training in hoteliering (is that a word?) and another two decades of hands on experience in the industry. He is not easily phased by demands placed on him. If I write that I liked dinners that had plenty of veggies and not too many fatty meats, gosh darn it, he will see to it that I will have just that.

Tonight, he cooks up a stuffed pepper, followed by a beef casserole, but one with broccoli which he snitched this morning from Mary's garden.






sunlight


Just as I am finishing dinner, Greg tells me to look over my shoulder. Oh!






The skies here -- they always offer up a surprise! It is a glorious evening! And tomorrow? Well, they say it should be partly cloudy, which leads me to suspect that it will pour buckets of rain all day.

Tuesday in (and around) Moniaive

If it's Tuesday and I am in Scotland, then there must be encounters with sheep.

With that in mind, may I suggest some music? I first heard this song exactly six years ago, when Ed and I did our big Scotland exploration. Our b&b host then was a teacher at a school that emphasized the preservation of the old Scottish Gaelic language and culture and he brought back a CD that his students put together of traditional Scottish music. The song "Ca’the yowes tae the knowes" (roughly translated: "call the ewes to the hills") quickly became my favorite and I talked him into selling me the CD so that I could listen to it again and again.

Most people think the song is Irish, which is a terrible insult to the Scotts, because the lyrics are by Robert Burns. You probably know of Robert Burns, but the Scottish people more than know him -- they burn with pride at the mere mention of his name (a couple of years ago, the Scottish TV did a survey on whom the Scotts consider to be the most important Scottish person of all time and the winner was Robert Burns. There wasn't even a close second). He put the poem to a traditional Scottish tune (toward the end of the 18th century). I listened to all the top interpretations available on youtube. None of them are nearly as good as the one on the CD from the school, but this comes closest:

(Translated:)

Call the ewes, to the hills,
Call them where the heather grows,
Call them where the river flows...

Hark the evening thrush sang,
Down among the Clouden woods, (the Clouden is a tributary to the river Nith which runs right through Thornhill!)
Then let us go and gather the sheep...etc.
 
Let's put you in the mood. These lambs and ewes are from farmer Neil's herd and I watched them cavort outside as I ate my breakfast.













The day is misty and gray and though the forecast assured us that there would not be rain until the afternoon, I was not going to trust those words. The weather in Scotland does not conform to what others wish it to be, or will it to be. It does its own thing.

Breakfast this morning is a Scottish rendition of what I have at home: oatmeal with fruit, yogurt and honey. Only it is quite substantial here, and the fruits vary, and the honey comes from the heathered fields of the Highlands.






And now comes the dilemma. The things I want to do here require decent (a low bar indeed!)  weather. Tomorrow is supposed to be wet. Today -- well, you know. Iffy.

Here's the plan: go to the village down the hill -- Moniaive (pronounced "money-I've;" population: 520) and see what it's like. If the skies stay dry, drive the seven miles to the base of the Striding Arches.

What's that? Oh, everyone in the district of Dumfries and Galloway knows about the Arches. And you've seen one too! Remember yesterday's post? There's a small one just outside the Castle grounds, by the river bank. They are made of large sandstone bricks and built to form a standing, self supporting arch. The artist, Andy Goldsworthy, has placed several arches in spots around the globe, but the Striding Arches -- three of them -- on the hilltops just north of Moniaive you could say are closest to his Scottish heart. He spent much of his life in this region. (You can read more about him and his arches here.)

The driving down to village is easy!






It's a wee place and so it takes me five minutes to explore it.









(at the cafe/general store, you glance at the ads on your way out)





(getting ready to pull out on the road... careful! pedestrians use it too!)


The skies remain dry. Good! I turn my car toward the road that takes you to the base of the Striding Arches.

And oh, what a road it is!

I'd say that my tiny Fiat 500 was far too wide for the single lane offered to us! And after a few miles, the pavement disappears and rocky gravel takes over. With holes and pits and flying rocks. And when I pass through pasture fields, cow dung sprays the side of the up-to-now crispy clean cream car.

But the really tricky part is the narrowness of the road. Every half mile, there is a small passing spot, off road, but who should be the one backing up along a narrow road with steep ditches on both sides and how this should be accomplished is beyond me.



(how the cows were laughing... Later I find out that they're farmer Neil's cows...)


The only reason, the only reason I am cool and collected is that I have the good fortune of not encountering a single other vehicle along the entire seven mile stretch of road. This part of Scotland is unbelievably remote. No one comes here. And in this lies at least part of the region's beauty.

At the end of the "road" there is a small parking space (empty, of course) and you have two choices: The first is the easiest: walk up a bit and in ten minutes you see a singular arch that is attached to an old farmstead house. For hundreds of years, the land north of Moniaive was used for herding sheep and cattle until the farmers figured out they could make more money on the timber.

I take this first choice, still keeping an eye on the skies.









(a timed release pic)


Your second option is to take the hike to one of the hilltop arches. The tourist info sheet describes this walk as "strenuous and requiring waterproof footwear." Warnings about changing weather are posted on a billboard. Let someone know of your whereabouts! -- the sign reads.

That sounds pretty ominous, but I tell myself -- I can always turn back if the going gets too rough. My host knows where I am. I don't have waterproof footwear and I forgot my walking stick (tucked nicely into my suitcase where right now it doesn't belong), but this is forested land so there must be sticks and my hiking shoes have seen mud before. Let me try.

After a few minutes, I almost turn back, but not for the danger or the strain of the climb (it's a six mile hike total and you're either ascending or descending the entire time). Instead, I am saddened to see what the lumber industry does to these beautiful forests. Oh, I know -- I use paper like the rest of the world, but honestly, after today, I resolve to use that much fewer paper towels! We already tear the smallest pieces in half; now I'll be tearing them into quarters. A token act, I know, but oh, those beautiful trees look sad when felled to feed our appetites for paper!







But the weather gods have gifted me a day that is perfect for hiking -- near 60F, windy, with a cloud cover that in my mind did not spell "rain," so I persevere.

And oh, am I rewarded!

I reach the summit of the nearest arch on Colt Hill (elevation just under 600 meters, so about 2000 feet -- not too bad a climb).

The last mile of the ascent is already stellar.



(do you see the arch on the next hill? the point is to be able to mark one from the vantage of another)



But at the top -- the views are simply sublime! And the clouds do not stand in the way of the panorama!






You have a 360 degree span of this remote, hilly country. It's unbelievably beautiful.






Here's another selfie (on a timed release) -- to give some perspective to the size of the arch that I find here.






During this entire excursion, I do not see a single human being, but that's not to say I see no living things. The cows,  and, too a fleeing hare,






... a fleeing buck,






... and of course - sheep.






On a smaller scale, I am enchanted by the flowers. There are clusters of buttercups everywhere and, too, flowers whose names I'll never know. But these common forget-me-nots take my breath away for the beauty and purity of their color.






And the rains never came and the winds calmed down (once I was off the summit!) and in all, I could not have had a better hike!

The reward: a lovely pot of tea in the sun room at Three Glens.






Today's dinner is with my host farmer, Neil and his dog, Stanley.  They come over to Three Glens...



(come on, Stanley-- jump up!)





(such a good dog!)



 ... and Greg -- the man who runs the house while Neil is still not retired -- prepares for us a tomato/mozzarella salad and a beef and mushroom risotto, with stewed apples and ice cream for dessert.



(the zucchini and arugula are from Neil and Mary's garden...)



In the course of our meal, I learn a lot about the life of a successful farmer in Scotland. About the progression of events that lead to the expansion or contraction of a farm. About generations of families and how they fit into the future of the business. About optimism. About taking chances, about risks, about happiness.






I'm better for it all, I know that.

Tomorrow -- oh, let's not look ahead. Let's just revel in today.