It’s been too long (ten years ashore, five since we got the boat under cover and four since serious restoration work started and stalled again), but I’m back at work on Fly at last! No doubt I’d have got going on all those old screw holes round the window apertures sooner had I known that Blakes Finefill (still my filler of choice) was not discontinued per se but now sold as Hempel Epoxy Filler, but better late than never. So last week I took advantage of the continuing (now discontinued!) fine weather to get this double set of redundant holes cleaned out with the drill and filled, and now we’re ready for Twig to come up with the new windows (a little bigger all round so we can drill new holes in solid material) and be able to discard that hated mixed blessing of a tarp for good… (more…)
22 October 2015
21 October 2015
Graham Tops of Beinn a’ Chrulaiste
Today’s ascent of Beinn a’ Chrulaiste was my third of this splendidly-situated Corbett opposite the Buachaille Etive Mor, but I’d never done its eastern Graham Tops before and it all seemed like a good idea when I set out on a rainy afternoon with real wind forecast for tomorrow… (more…)
15 October 2015
Together and alone
This is not a new story, but a two-year-old tale I meant to tell back then and just couldn’t. Which is why there’s a great, big, Daddy-sized hole in my blog posts from September 2013 (when my father died on 16 September) to May 2014 (when I appear to have started writing again)… (more…)
11 October 2015
Being me
So you’re back on your most-trodden ground of the Mamores for a Corbett Top (Meall a’ Chaorainn) you’ve surely done but can’t quite remember doing? This is what it’s like to be me!
Clockwise today, and my two-month streak of meeting no-one on the hills finally came to an end on Stob Ban.
5 October 2015
Surprising solitude on Sron, Stob and Sgorr
So I managed to go over a Glen Coe Munro and still meet no-one… on a Saturday! Then repeat the experience (if spotting a few walkers at distances beyond practical communication is still admissible?) on Beinn a’ Bheithir on the Sunday, bringing my run of ‘lonely’ days to ten. So perhaps it’s all in the timing? Or the routes? Who knows, but you’d have thought the combination of Munros, Glen Coe and the weekend meant sure-fire ‘company’ when it’s all been Corbetts and Grahams since my last on-hill encounters on the Mamores on 11 August… (more…)