Highland Insider

The dreaded midges are back. Today is damp, a wee bit warmer than of late and perfect for the tiny tormentors. It’s the first day this year that they’ve been bad enough to drive us indoors, and from now until October our lives will be permeated by the smell of midgie repellant.

The PL goes for the serious, deet based stuff but I was put off that when I once left a bottle of it on a shelf and it took a ring of varnish off the surface. I prefer the more gentle ‘Wee Beastie’, a gorgeous lavender and citronella spray made by Purdie’s Scottish Soap Company. It’s a pleasure to use, I’m happy to spray it on the dog as well as myself, and I reckon it works just as well as the chemical stuff – which is to say, it’ll put the wee buggers off but won’t keep them all off forever.

Don’t believe anyone who says they have a product that will guarantee you won’t be bitten by a single midge, it just doesn’t exist. It’s well worth using something though, as without any protection you’ll be completely covered in red, furiously itchy bites that get worse the more you scratch. At least with ‘The Wee Beastie’ I know I’ll only get a couple, and around here that’s just something you have to live with.

I used to believe that my husband and I had our relationship on a thoroughly modern, equal footing. Decisions shared, household tasks divvied out, a perfectly balanced partnership. (See this post for proof.) That was until we got a dog. They say you can’t fool a dog and after eighteen months, I have to concede (not without a bit of a grump) that we have a definite Pack Leader, and it’s not me. 

Take yesterday’s traditional New Year’s day walk up to the loch. There we both were, striding out, both interacting with the dog in the calm, assertive manner they taught us in the obedience classes. But does the hairy hound listen to me? Not while he’s around. If it’s just me and the dog  (Nosy Norris), then we get along fine. As soon as the Pack Leader appears, I’m relegated. 

I was thinking about this as we tramped up the hill, past the Wall of Death where Nosy Norris does a vertical run if she’s in one of her dafter moods, past the pebble love heart on the side of the path, left by our romantic neighbour for his wife last summer, past the old hare carcass hanging inexplicably in a tree, all the way up the loch. I realised that I do tend to defer to the Pack Leader quite often. He nearly always decides where we’re going to walk, for example. That seems a bit pathetic now I think about it. Although it is partly to do with my tendency to choose paths that end in thorny thickets or knee-deep bog. I let him decide when we can have an extra boost on the central heating. That seems a bit much, does it not? Mind you, it’s in the interests of keeping the carbon footprint of the Nairnshire below that of the whole of Scandinavia – I’m a right cold tattie. 

So as we skimmed pebbles on the frozen loch, seeing who could make the loudest ping, I decided I’m quite happy with being second in line, up to a point. After fifteen years we’re still laughing so we must be doing something right. I reckon we’ve settled into the natural order of things, and as long as Nosy Norris stays below me in the pecking order, I won’t be challenging for the position of Pack Leader. You can’t fool a dog after all.

Sometimes I long for more variety in the woodlands around here. Most of the hillside is covered in regular, over-crowded pine plantations which, in their denser parts, seem almost dead with dry earth, little light and an eerie lack of noise.

It’s improving though. Four years ago the Estate sent the foresters in and great swathes have been cleared, letting in the light and opening up possibilities. They left wood to decay on the ground, providing homes and shelter for insects and burrowers. The ground was badly churned up by the lorries and tractors, but the damage was soon covered with new growth. The bigger cleared patches are already well covered in bracken and ferns, and some even had a miraculous flowering of foxgloves after the foresters left; the seeds must have been dormant in the ground, and the clearings were awash with purple the season after the trees were cut.

In the clearing nearest us, which I can see from the window as I write, the Estate replaced the pines with saplings of oak and cherry, which will eventually form a patch of the sort of woodland I crave. If they keep doing that as new patches are cleared, Nairnshire might eventually have some woods to be proud of again. The remnants of the old native flora cling on even now, round the edges of the plantations where bluebells and dog violets appear in spring. Given the right conditions they could re-establish themselves like the foxgloves.

In the meantime, we’re noticing more birdsong when we walk up to the loch, which is at the end of a track that used to go through a particularly dark, dense area. Five years ago you could pass through it and barely hear a squeak; just the occasional wren in the undergrowth or a chaffinch or great-tit right up in the treetops. We were there the other day and the difference was audible as well as visible. A flock of coal-tits, a pair of bull-finches, general chattering from the treetops. A nice bonus was a wee gathering of crossbills, although they always did favour the pinewoods.

So, hope springs. But it takes a long time to grow.

It was the moment that marked the start of spring for me. Yesterday, by the loch, back to back with Lee, in sun warm enough for us to be sitting on my rolled-up jacket, watching the water ripple in the wake of a mallard coming in to land.

It was the first time in weeks we’ve seen the loch (almost) free of ice. For a long time it looked more like a snow-covered football pitch, and I’ve missed it. There were consolations, mind you. Two perfect sets of otter prints crossing the surface and continuing across the track into the woods, for example. The old boat that looked even more picturesque half-submerged in white ice. The musical ping that you got when you skimmed a pebble across the frozen surface.

But you can’t beat the sight of the sun filtering through branches onto the dark water, and the plop of a rising fish when the air’s still and mild. You can feel the winter’s worries melting away with the snow.

I can never decide whether the seals at Findhorn bay are friendly, sinister or just plain nosy. As soon as you put a kayak in the lagoon, one will appear, bobbing up nearby just as you’re getting your spray-deck adjusted. By the time you’ve paddled into the channel that links the lagoon with the Moray Firth, there will be four or five shiny snouts appearing and disappearing all round you, apparently taking it in turns to pop up just behind the kayak with a loud huffing noise. When you whip your head round to see it, all that remains is the ring of water where it’s just dived. You wait, slightly nervous the first few times, for it reappear below you and give your boat a playful wallop, but no … it’s disappeared. For now.

The Findhorn colony has both the big Atlantic grey seals with their long sombre faces, and the smaller, cuter common (harbour) seals. They can all out-stare a dead herring. There’s usually a crowd of a dozen or so hanging out on the sandbanks at low tide, or on the Culbin shore when the water is up. As you get nearer to the group you become aware that there are even more glossy black heads silently accompanying you as you paddle. Every so often one makes a big splash or an extra-loud huff, as if trying to attract your attention, or maybe distract you from the main group.

I reckon they’re acting as bouncers, making sure we don’t get too near the family. They’re big beasties, and amazingly agile in the water. They mean business and I wouldn’t like to annoy them by encroaching too closely. I doubt a novice paddler would perform well against one in a race, and anyway I’ve no wish to disturb them on their home territory. They’ve every right to guard their own.

 But every so often I’m sure I see a gleam in those big dark eyes, just before they duck under and pretend to head for my kayak. They might be seeing us off the premises, but they’re having a laugh while they do it.

Ben Wyvis has its first snowy blanket of the year. It’s more of a delicate white throw than a twenty-five tog duvet, but it’s extremely fetching nonetheless. The hill stands out beautifully with the sun catching the snow, making it appear nearer than usual.

It’s so pretty, it almost makes me want to climb it again. Almost. It’s a straighforward mountain, with a great path and no long walk in, but of all the Munros I’ve climbed this one took the most effort – both times. It felt like there was something in the hill itself draining my energy down into it through my feet. I wouldn’t have made it to the top at all last time if Lee hadn’t bullied me on step by step.

There may be a clue in the name. There are several versions. The Gaelic name, Glas Leathad Mor means ‘big green slope’ which is fairly innocuous. The other meanings recorded are much more sinister, including Terrible Hill and Hill of Terror. Obviously the Big Green Slope version was given by someone who looked up at the hill one sunny summer’s day from a comfy picnic spot down at sea level. Whoever came up with the others had definitely been to the top.

I spent Friday night at Callart View Bed & Breakfast in Glencoe village, and had possibly the most magnificent breakfast of my life. I was ready to be impressed, having already sampled the ‘Bed’ part of the deal: a comfortable warm double with a rich patchwork quilt and spare pillows laid on, in one of the three cosy rooms of this 1920s gardener’s cottage.

My breakfast table was by the window looking out onto Loch Leven with the mountains of Lochaber beyond. The food was going to have to be good to capture my attention with such a panorama in front of me. It was. I noticed none of the other guests in the dining room went for either of the porridge options, and they missed such a treat. They were all from various parts of mainland Europe, where porridge doesn’t seem to be recognised for the superfood it is; I remember a party of German walkers in a youth hostel once being horrified that we were going to eat oats. ‘It’s for horses!’ they insisted.

I chose the creamy porridge with almonds and sultanas, laced with a nip of whisky and it was comforting, invigorating and totally delicious. Lynn Allman, porridge chef and owner of Callart View with her husband Geoff, is from York, which just shows you don’t have to be Scottish to be handy with a spurtle. I feel a return trip to Glencoe won’t be long in coming.

My walking boots are in the kitchen, hosed down and stuffed full of newspaper. Above them the old wooden pulley is festooned with hats, gloves, fleece, trousers, woolly socks, rucksack … in fact just about every item of walking gear I own, apart from my waterproof trousers which had a lovely dry weekend in the wardrobe. The rest of us spent Friday climbing Sgorr Dhonuill, by Ballachulish, with a couple of friends, Ann and Joan, who drove up from south of the border on Thursday.

We spent the entire day in thick cloud, imagining what a fantastic route this must be if only we could see it. It starts in a Forestry Commission carpark in Glen Achulais and winds along great paths up through the conifer plantations and out onto open hillside, following and crossing a steep burn which was spectacularly in spate. Then it’s back into woodland, with a narrow track up through native broadleafs as well as pines this time, with lush bracken, ferns and foxgloves to wade through. With the fine spray from the waterfalls mingling with the misty cloud, there was an almost tropical, rainforest atmosphere. We took a couple of wrong turns when we mistook the track for another burn and went looking for something that didn’t have water gushing down it. On the return leg we’d got wise to that and just splashed our way straight back down, stopping to wring out our socks back at the forestry track.

In between was a boggy ascent to the bealach between Sgorr Dhonuill and Sgorr Dhearg. We had intended to pop up to both peaks that make up Beinn a’ Bheithir but the conditions were so poor we chose one, nipped up to its rocky summit and got back down as fast as we could. Apart from a bashful young roe deer on the edge of the woods, we only met one other soul on the hill all day, a friendly Irish chap who was walking at about twice the speed we were and managed to do both summits in less time than we took to do one.

So, I’ve been to the top of Donald’s Rocky Peak, but, as always when the cloud is down, I don’t feel I’ve really got to know the hill. Bad weather forces an intimate knowledge of the ground under your boots, and, as a by-product, a better knowledge of you own resources, physical, mental and spiritual; but without the view of and from the mountain, you lose the perspective of the height and scale of the mass you’re climbing. That’s why I’ll be back to Glen Achulais some time, on a dry clear day, to get to know the horseshoe ridge of Beinn a’ Bheithir a bit better. Mind you, as the name translates as ‘Hill of the Thunderbolt’, I might have to wait a while.