Cambridge

CC site, Cherry Hinton

February 24-28

Here we go again. I had intended to start at Oxford, but the C & C Club site was very near the Thames and I can't swim. Decent drive up here, around 100 miles, via the M25 and M11.

The site is in an old chalk pit in the side of the only hill in Cambridgeshire. It's pretty much ideal, 3 minutes walk from a bus stop with a bus into the city every 10 minutes, loads of cycle paths in every direction and a massive Tesco a 10-minute bike ride away.

Have made a few trips into the city and walked all over it, including along the Backs. All of the colleges present a closed face to the world, of course. You can walk round any of them if you pay £5, but I demurred. Peering into the little doors let into their massive front gates, I got a strong sense of how Jude the Obscure must have felt as he walked around Oxford; Jude the Excluded. Beautiful architecture, though, especially Kings College chapel. I do struggle a bit, though, with the yellow brick; it reminds me a bit, especially when blackened by usage, of LNER railway architecture.

A high proportion of young oriental people here ( could it be the numerous language schools?) and, on the one seriously dark rainy day, I was reminded of “Blade Runner” by the swarms of bike-riders.

 

King's College

 

Took a picture of ”The Eagle” (formerly “The Eagle and Child”), a boring stone building worth a wonderful history. The plaque outside mentions Crick and Watson, but didn't the Cambridge Five (or is it the Cambridge Ring) booze in here? I didn't go in (what a hero you are, Rog) but I can't imagine they had framed pictures of Burgess, McLean, Philby and Blunt on the walls.

 

The layout of the streets is very eccentric and rather cunning. Streets seem to meet at right-angles but they are slightly off, so, when you imagine you are walking a square you are,in fact, walking in ever-increasing circles.

Walked over Christ's Pieces (3 Hail Marys) but not Parker's Piece as Parker asked me very kindly to leave well alone.

On Wednesday I sat outside and read my book – the First Sit-Out of the year! Just to make up for it, however, we had a gale and a torrent in the night and I had to get up to re-peg the awning more securely.

  

Thursday went to see “The Book Thief” at a very modern Vue cinema in a massive shopping centre. Very sentimental film, but enjoyable story. A sprinkling of wrinklies (including me) in there and the most inappropriate adverts and trailers for them. Spiderman 2, “Noah”, which seemed to be a massive punch-up between Russell Crowe's gang of savages and Ray Winstone's gang of savages (I must re-read my bible) and a really mindless-looking comedy with Emma Thompson, who should know better. Marketing is so sophisticated now you'd think they would know their audience and match the blurb to it. One of the adverts encouraged us to play a quiz game on our smartphones, even though we had been told to switch them off when we entered the auditorium. As for myself, I certainly turned-off my smartphone.

Saw Rory McGrath on his mobile outside Boots. He's even scruffier than me. In fact, HE asked for MY autograph. Just kidding. Also saw Charles Clarke (Home Secretary, I think, for a short while in Gordon Brown's circus)

Now, what about this. I was de-cluttering the van on Wednesday evening and came across a note saying “Brian Aldiss – Supertoys last all summer long”. It jogged my memory that this was the work on which the film “AI” was based. I was going into the City in the morning, so I thought I'd look for it then. In the morning, I turned the radio on to Radio 4Extra and there was a preview of readings next week from................. short stories by Brian Aldiss including “Supertoys last all summer long”. Amazing!

 



32. Blackpool

CC Site
June 6^th, 7^th and 8^th

Fifty-six down the M6, very busy, along the M55 then off at a roundabout, nearly getting killed by a psychopath driving an articulated Cemex lorry who went postal because I got in the correct lane at the roundabout and overtook me on the inside on the roundabout. I counted to ten and retired shaken. Life's too short.

 

Blackpool Tower and Pleasure Beach

Pleasant site here between Blackpool and Lytham St. Anne's, so will try to visit both. The bus service runs only from Monday to Friday, so I may have to cycle in to Blackpool. Lytham, by the way, used to be the home of the headquarters of the Football Association, but I imagine they have moved to Monte Carlo or New York. Appropriately named, the FA. They have delivered our national game into the hands of thieves, precisely by doing sweet FA. Rant over.

"Big Blue"

The day which promised much has now (2pm) clouded over and I hear heavy rain is forecast tomorrow. No problem.

Why did I come to Blackpool? Well, mainly to confirm what I devoutly hope, that it has improved since the last time I came (and the only time) about twenty years ago. It can't have got worse. I came before on an outing with some colleagues from work (the Mutants, in fact). There is a word, but I don't know what it is, for something that is so bad that it's good. That's how this outing was. It started at a pub near Euston Station. When we left to get the train, a dog had done the most enormous pile of poo just outside the door. We all missed it, but it was an omen and it all went downhill after that. The 'hotel' had a leaky ceiling and a drunken landlady. We couldn't find anything recognisable as a decent pub anywhere and had to settle for a Yates's Wine Lodge, drinking 'Aussie White' wine. We had a Chinese which gave me the worst flatulence I've ever had and which proved nearly fatal to my friends. We ended in a club which was a sort of prefab painted entirely black inside where nothing seemed to happen, where time seemed to stand still and life seemed a distant memory. The next day we went for a healthy walk all along the promenade and admired the sea, which seemed to consist of eighty per cent sewage and in which large lumps could be seen bobbing. Things became bearable only when we found a great pub in a Preston back-street while waiting to change trains on the way home. Sadly, we had time for only one drink. One brave soul had a British Rail curry on the train which consisted of a spoonful of rice, a pool of yellow liquid and a single lump of meat in the middle of it. Of course, it being Stuart Orchard, he wolfed it with relish.

The Tower and "The Albert and the Lion"

I did a good deal of planning with the idea of cycling to the sea-front then right along the promenade to the north side of Blackpool and back again. My route would avoid some of the really vile dual-carriageways I saw yesterday and their homicidal drivers. There don't seem to be any speed limits on these roads. It's a bit like some parts of LA where it's almost illegal to walk anywhere and certainly a sign of insanity. My attempt to walk to Tesco yesterday to catch a bus to town was nerve-racking to say the least, especially the bit where I had to cross two lanes of one of these highways of death. I was also risking drowning in the litter which covered the verges. Tesco had to manage without my custom. I saw the bus I was trying to catch three times, always disappearing round a corner, but I never saw a bus stop. Anyway, I digress. My cycling plans came to nought because it poured with rain nearly all day. It's sunny now (at 18:00) so I'm hopeful for tomorrow. It should be a really enjoyable ride. I've just heard it's forty-four degrees in Montreal. I thought Canada was a cold country; this one certainly is so far this year.


Mmmm, that adds a bit of class

Sunday, my last day here, and a great cycle-ride, thirty-two km., all the way along the seafront from St. Anne's to past the North Pier at Blackpool, mostly off the road on cycle paths and on the promenade. Off to the north was a faint view of hills, presumably in the west of the Lake District and a vast wind-farm out in the sea, off, I should think, Barrow in Furness. The funfair bit about Blackpool is not really my scene, but you have to admire a superlative when you see one. This place has really gone for it and it's pretty awesome. Lots of spectacularly naff buildings, but my favourite was a great art deco block next to the Tower which houses a Weatherspoon's pub called “The Albert and the Lion”. This is named after the Stanley Holloway song about a boy who goes to Blackpool zoo and gets eaten by Wallace the lion.

Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence,

And didn't know what to do next,


Said " Mother! Yon Lion's 'et Albert,"

And Mother said " Well, I am vexed!"

Then Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom,

Quite rightly, when all's said and done,


Complained to the Animal Keeper,

That the Lion had eaten their son.

 

 

This morning, enjoying my shower, I was looking forward to my bike ride and telling myself not to forget to wear my cycling shorts. Oh bliss, no more sore backside. That reminded me about the silly books titles we used to invent at school:-

 

“Cycling from Pole to Pole” by Major Bumsore

“Tragedy on the Cliffs” by Eileen Dover

“My Life as a Lion-Tamer” by Claud Bottom

Ah, simple, innocent pleasures, and we were only eighteen.  

The Albert and the Lion

31. Kendal

CC Site
June 4^th and 5^th

63 mile drive down the M6 to this site south-west of Kendal at Sedgwick. It's in a National Trust deciduous forest and used to be the site of a gunpowder factory. The pitches are just clearings in the forest and from mine I can't see anyone or anything except trees. An ideal situation for catching-up on my e-mails and the Blog. A warm rain fell nearly all day.

 

The River Kent in Kendal

The warden lent me a write-up on the gunpowder factory. The first was opened in 1764 and, after it had closed, another on the same site in 1857. The area was a centre for gunpowder production, with readily-available water for power and high-grade charcoal for the process itself. Salt-petre was imported from Chile and sulphur from Italy. The Sedgwick site was particularly suitable because of its dense forest and undulating terrain. The trees were used to test the strength of the gunpowder, missiles being fired at the tree trunks and the depth of penetration observed and the undulating terrain was a safeguard against explosions. I had been surprised by the almost total lack of any ruined factory buildings, but then discovered that the Explosives Act 1875 had stipulated that any gunpowder factory which ceased production had to be destroyed. A fragment of the staff canteen does remain, so this was presumably not seen as being dangerous. The gunpowder produced was used initially solely for military purposes, but in time was used mainly by the mining industry.

 

My own personal forest clearing

Watched England's hilarious performance against Ecuador. Against Peru they were competent but stultifyingly boring, against Ecuador they were shambolic but worth watching. Rooney again seemed to me to be a waste of space, unless you judge him as a defensive midfielder, and the hype following his scoring in an empty net from twelve inches was beyond belief. Milner seemed to be playing (badly) at right back, so, if Wayney must be in the team, why not play him there? Johnson is pretty useless defensively, so he couldn't do any worse. The high point was when Ben Foster came roaring out to save the missing defence again and took a flying hack at an Ecuador forward, just failing to sever his head. All in all, it was great stuff. I hope Roy plays this team in the World Cup. Football can be fun, even when England are playing! Sir Alf had the courage to leave Jimmy Greaves out of the team and I hope Roy will leave Rooney out.



Low Wood Caravan Club site, Kendal



Watched Pointless. They do seem to have more sentient beings on there than on other TV quiz programmes, but two young lads excelled themselves on questions about the Battle of Waterloo. One thought it had occurred in the 1500's, the other that the British commander was Nelson and the first, who was the real star, that the village of Waterloo was in England. Should this sort of ignorance be made an offence? Or what about having forfeits? What was that thing called in Tiswas when people got swamped by green slime? The two lads on it, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, are funny enough anyway, but I'd love to see them trying not to laugh when a plonker was deluged.

Well, Thursday, just a perfect day. Cycled in to Kendal and back, about 20km and very hilly, by way of the A6 on the way (very scary) and by way of country lanes along the valley of the River Kent on the way back (much more enjoyable). Kendal is just a wonderful town, quite easily the best place I have been since I became a man of the road. Mere words are just not enough to describe how great it is, and it got even better when I found in the Oxfam shop six Maigret novels which I didn't have, £1 each and all in mint condition. It's been so long since I found a Maigret in a charity shop that I couldn't believe my eyes or my luck.

The site here is similarly indescribably wonderful. I would need a stroll round it with a video camera to convey to you its perfection. The scent of wild garlic and the sound of trickling streams. If they had seasonal pitches I would definitely take one and stay here as long as I could and cycle in to Kendal whenever I damn well felt like it. The next three days are going to be the most amazing contrast to my stay here.

The site again

Now, here's another article on one of my heroes. My mp3 player was playing 'Fools Rush In' by Ricky Nelson (don't ask), which made me think of Johnny Mercer, who wrote the words. He was also a talented singer himself and went on to found Capitol records. He was a little bald, gap-toothed bloke who wouldn't impress you if you saw him in a Tesco check-out queue. He was the scion of one of the top families of the old South and had a privileged upbringing. His father was a lawyer and property developer in Savannah, Georgia, who lost his money but, rather than declare bankruptcy, worked to pay-off his $1million debts. Mercer himself was an alcoholic, but worked all his life to help pay off his father's debts, because it was the honourable thing to do. When his father died still owing a substantial sum he sold his share in Capitol Records to pay it off. He wrote the words of many great songs, including 'I Remember You', 'That Old Black Magic', 'I'm Old-Fashioned', 'The Shadow of your Smile', 'Laura', ' Autumn Leaves', 'Days of Wine and Roses', 'Moon River' and many more and won four Oscars. He first won my admiration because he coined one of the greatest ever quotes. When asked what he thought of an immensely popular song (can't remember which) he replied “I could eat alphabet soup and shit better lyrics”. Sorry about the language. The BBC still have some footage of him on Parkinson (who greatly admired him) shortly before he died in 1976.

 

Johnny Mercer

 

 

 

That's all, folks. To-day, Friday, I'm off on the road again.     

30. Carlisle

Dalston Hall, Carlisle
Private site
June 1^st - 3^rd

What a lovely site, run by the most relaxed old bloke in the world. He had sounded great when I spoke to him on the phone, asking my name but not asking for a deposit. When I arrived he shook hands and we had a great old chinwag. He seems to run the little golf course here as well. It's expensive at £20, being a private site, but beautifully laid-out, spotless and the showers are amazingly space-age. The bus to Carlisle stops outside the site entrance and goes into the city every hour. The only drawback is the lack of internet coverage.

The drive down was motorway pretty much all the way until I took the A689 to Workington at Carlisle. Is this the road which goes to Bishop Auckland? What a treat to drive from Workington to Bishop Auckland! Steady now, Rog, you've never actually been to Workington. A real treat is having radio reception again. I've really missed it. At Moffat I got lousy reception but at least I got some, and listened to the England/Sri Lanka 50-over match with great difficulty. I did manage to get reception on Channel 5 to watch the highlights at 19:00, but fell asleep before it came on and missed Jos Buttler's amazing innings!

Cycled into the substantial village of Dalston a mile or so down the road. Just outside it is a huge grey metallic factory which I took to be a feed mill but which, it transpired, was a Nestlé beverage plant. A lady on the bus the next day told me they made Nescafé and Blue Riband biscuits there. I passed the Blue Bell pub as I entered the square. So many pubs in the North are called “The Blue Bell”. They are all named for a blue bell (the kind with a clapper) which is usually on the pub sign, and not the flower. I wonder what it's all about. Outside the Co-Op was a placard from a local paper saying “Robbery bid man demanded 'zombie' haircut”. Bizarre! Unfortunately the shop had sold out so I couldn't read the story.

 

 

Anti-Bulgarian prejudice in Carlisle

On Monday I took the bus into Carlisle, just a couple of miles. What a joy it is to use my bus-pass again and get something for nothing. We passed a big Pirelli tyre factory on the way in. At first sight the city is pretty gruesome, with street after street of horridly run-down terraces and disused warehouses and vacant sites. Once into the centre things get better, but, after Edinburgh and Glasgow, it seems a pretty low-rise sort of a place with little pretension to even the slightest grandeur. After a couple of hours of strolling around, though, I came to like it a lot. The layout is quite eccentric and there are lots of little fiddly bits. Not one of the streets seems able to travel from its start to its end without spawning alleys or ginnels or snecks all over the place, and there are arcades, too. There is even a nice  faux-Georgian crescent. The railway station, splendidly named the “Citadel”, is monumental and there is the daintiest town hall, now the tourist information centre. 

The Town Hall

On 'Start the Week' on Radio Four this morning they were discussing Rod Liddle's new book “Selfish Whining Monkeys”. It sounds great, largely because he agrees a lot with me about stuff and, therefore, must be right! How can I get to read it before 2020, because it's against my principles to buy a book new and I'm sure it won't appear in charity shops until then? Well, I popped into Waterstone's just in case they had it on sale for a fiver or so, but no joy. On the 'Clearance' shelf, though, they had Morrissey's autobiography and a tourist guide to Syria. Mmmm. What I did find was a book by Jon Ronson called 'Frank', which is about a film about Frank Sidebottom which is being released in 2014 starring Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal. I'd certainly be interested in seeing that.

Well, it was last of the current series of “Have I Got News For You” this week and I hope to God it's the last. It's a pale imitation of the programme it was even two years ago and has turned into a second-rate joke show. It was sad to see, like watching a beloved pet dog drag itself from its bed to bark weakly at a visitor. I mean, there was some idiot called Joe Wilkinson on the last show. He said nothing apposite and just made a string of pathetic quips. Who the hell is Joe Wilkinson anyway? Is satire dead? And, while we are at it, what IS the point of Harriet Harman? 

Went into Carlisle again on my last day and had a look at the major architectural features. The cathedral is initially rather unimpressive because, being built from red sandstone, it looks somehow recent. Inside, though, it's a different story. It's quite small compared with, say, Durham or York, but this adds to its attraction.

The Choir roof

There is a large chapel dedicated to the Border Regiment, or, to give it its full name, the King's Own Royal Border Regiment. One of its battle honours is Neuve Chapelle, where my grandfather was killed and was buried. There are many interesting memorial tablets, including one which shows that, in the South African War of 1899-1902 (the Boer War), three times as many men died of disease as were killed in action. How careless of the people in charge who should surely by then have known better. There is also a tablet to a man who was the vicar of Hutton Roof, a small village in south Cumbria, and who was awarded the DSO and the VC. He was also chaplain to the King. How did a padre get involved in action to the extent of winning the DSO and VC? He must have been involved to some extent because he died of wounds in October, 1918. Very strange. The choir is perfect and some bright spark has thought to place a mirror on its back on a table, pointing upwards so that you can look properly at the magnificent vaulted ceiling, heavenly blue with gold stars, without getting a fatal crick in your neck. The cathedral was built in 1133, so the new-looking red sandstone has lasted very well.  

 

The East Window

The station was next and was a cathedral in its own way. It is impressively called Citadel Station. If you can imagine a shoe-box with no lid and no ends; the two sides are of stone, twenty-feet and two storeys high and contain all the station offices, the ticket office, the waiting room, the left luggage office, the station-master's office, the buffet and so on. The shoe-box covers eight railway tracks. Spanning the two sides is a glass roof supported by a cast-iron canopy, surprisingly delicate given the length of the span. Inside, the station is light and airy and has such a pleasant atmosphere I wandered around for probably twenty minutes. As a bonus, the station is the northern terminus of the famous Settle and Carlisle Line, which the powers of evil tried so hard for so many years to close.  

 

Citadel Station

 Carlisle, you know, used to be the home of the state brewery. Yes, you and I, tax-payers, used to own a brewery, complete with its own chain of pubs. It was sold off to Theakston, the Yorkshire brewery and closed by Scottish and Newcastle Breweries after they had taken over Theakston. I had imagined its sale was the first fuhrer directive issued by Maggie as soon as she strapped herself into the Harness of Power in 1979, but, in fact, Grocer Heath was the culprit in 1971.

I thought Carlisle was terrific and congratulate the people who live here.

29 Moffat

“Magical Moffat – Scotland's Wee Gem”
C & CC Site
May 30^th - 31^st

This episode is going to be a bit delayed. When I got to my next stop I found I had no internet coverage with my dongle. It's a pretty boring episode (I slept most of the time) so you won't have missed too much.

After dropping-off for a night's rest at Lochgilpead I moved on to Loch Lomond and had another quick stop at Luss.

 

 My friends the mallards were still around and mobbed me pretty much as soon as I got there. Then quite a long drive (ninety four miles) down along Loch Lomond, over the Erskine Bridge and on to the M74 towards Carlisle. The geography along the way, once free of Glasgow, was pretty much rolling grassy, rocky and heathery fells, sheep and babbling brooks.

Busy site right in the centre of town. Had a walk around the metropolis (pop.2,500) in the afternoon after my usual nap. Nice! Old lady sitting on a seat outside the cemetery having a fag and basking in the sun had a quick chat, saying she could manage if this weather lasted until Christmas. More hotels here than people, because as I discovered, it used to be a popular spa town. Must try to take the waters to-day. Got an interesting Japanese detective novel in Oxfam and asked the ladies there for their opinion of the best fish and chips in town. One had just closed down, possibly to re-open, because the ninety-year-old lady proprietor had died.

Outside the very old, very interesting, but very closed Black Bull Inn was an inscription which left me puzzled. Was it ambiguous or am I being dense?  Also passed the narrowest hotel in the world (it's official, it's in the Guinness Book of Records). A sighting to go with the narrowest snooker hall in the world (not official, though, just my guess) which I had seen in Darlington.

Sat outside in the warm sun and read for the rest of the afternoon. The people in the caravan next to me have a small cat on a lead. I must ask them how they trained it. Katie had phoned me to ask if I wanted a ginger tom cat which her friend was going to have to let go as she was moving flats. Another Mick! It would be interesting, but I think that a female would be better for me as they don't wander like a tom. Another Mick, though!

I had bought a Times as a Friday treat and found a wonderful article on Johnny Wilkinson by Simon Barnes. How about this for journalism?

 

Turn on your television at teatime and you'll find yourself watching a quiz show. What do the contestants have in common? Ignorance. They grin and guess and hope for questions about Coronation Street and maybe Manchester United. They know nothing. They just want to be on telly.

At lunchtime you can watch random strangers buying antiques to sell at auction, all ignorant of the basic facts of history, without any understanding of craftsmanship and knowing nothing about the antiques market. But they're on telly, famous for the usual length of time. Call it Warholsworth, four to the hour.

Scan the channels and you find talent shows for people without talent and gory revelations about people no-one is interested in. The world is full of people who, with no qualifications such as knowledge, intelligence, understanding, talent or personality, have received a homeopathic dose of fame; fame in the abstract; fame as a kind of basic human right; fame unearned; as ardently sought as it is undeserved. To each such person a Warholsworth. It is part of the way we live.

How about that? He's right, isn't he? How weary he sounds of this dumbing-down awfulness. O Tempora, O mores. Of course he is, like everyone else, just in search of a hero and goes on to talk about Wilkinson, who, because of his temperament, shunned the limelight but in vain because of his tremendous talent. Great article.

And then I saw some good news. Malcolm Glaser has died, the American property developer who bought Manchester United and turned it from one of the richest clubs in the world to one of the most indebted and who is responsible for the club's current malaise. This is a man who, when “his mother Hannah died in 1980, leaving a million dollars, ….assumed all her assets and for the next twenty-four years resisted his sisters' challenge to his mother's will.” He made a fortune from shopping malls and trailer parks and was successfully sued for illegally charging trailer park tenants an extra $3 a week per dog and $5 per baby. This was a bad person, a monster, and now he's dust and has discovered that you really CAN'T take it with you. I'm so glad he's no longer among us. Someone like this should never become owner of a community asset like a football club. The game must protect itself against such animals.

I also found a really funny article (really good value, this Times) about a Wigan footballer who had his wedding rings (he was about to get married) and FA Cup medal stolen and who was quoted as saying “I am devastated, as is my fiancėe. The medal is priceless.” I do hope he is still getting married.

Well, dear reader, your correspondent is ashamed of himself. Saturday was such a beautiful day I spent it sitting in the sun, reading the paper and my Japanese detective mystery, which is very strange. Nothing at all to report, then. Never mind, everyone is entitled to a day off now and then. Onwards! I promise to try harder.

28. Islay and Jura

May 26^th - 28^th

After a short drive I got the ferry from Kennacraig in western Argyll to Port Askaig in Islay. The trip takes two hours, down West Loch Tarbert then across the Sound of Jura into the Sound of Islay, and it's spectacularly beautiful. The sea was like a millpond and the Paps of Jura were prominent over to the north.

 

The Islay ferry at Kennacraig

I had a bite to eat and found myself sitting opposite a middle-aged woman who had been one of the SOAS team (The School of Oriental and African Studies) team which lost in the final of University Challenge this year. She was knitting; now, I don't know a great deal about knitting, but I think she was much better at answering difficult general knowledge questions than she was at knitting. I smiled and she smiled back and she looked quite pleased and surprised to have been recognised, but I didn't ask for her autograph.

Jura, from the Islay ferry

I had planned to go to stay with my cousin Jennifer at her home on Jura, but the ferryman said my van would be damaged by grounding on the slipway at the landing on Jura. (The ferry is very small and looks like an old WWII tank landing craft.) This was a bit of a blow. I drove off into Islay to try to find a caravan site, but without luck until Jennifer's daughter Sarah, who works in the Community Office at Craighouse, the only village on Jura, found one at Port Mhor on the south-west side of the island. Booked in there, but there were no electrical pitches left. Fridge in danger of becoming smelly and no TV or radio. Went to bed early.

The Jura ferry at Port Askaig

The next morning I drove up to Port Askaig, left the van there and got the ferry over to Jura on foot. Jennifer collected me and drove me the nine miles to Craighouse. It was a lovely warm day, and we went for a walk through the village, past the Jura distillery, up the only road on the island, alongside the Sound of Jura, and collected Jennifer's grand-daughter, Ava, from school, having first popped in to see Sarah at work. On the way back I had a look at an exhibition in the church of old photographs of Jura life. It looked harsh. We stopped off to buy ice-creams at the village shop and ate them sitting on the quay. In the afternoon, Jennifer's husband Keith drove us up to the far north of the island. Many deer and few people; there are two hundred people in total on Jura. Sarah and her husband Ronald, who is a native of Jura, live in an old ghillie's cottage, one of a pair, in an otherwise isolated spot. Jura is divided into (I think) six estates, one of which is owned by David Cameron's wife's family. Another is owned by an Australian who is planning to build a golf-course.

Jura distillery

 I got the ferry back to Islay, spent another night at Port Mhor, again without electricity, and met Jennifer at Bridgend, at the head of Loch Indaal, the next day. We took the van up to the north-west of the island to an RSPB reserve on Loch Gruinart. Again, it was a beautiful day and we sat outside the van and had a cup of tea. After that we went back to Bridgend and had a drink sitting outside the hotel there. It was a great treat to sit outside in the sun. It's been a long time coming this year. The islands have a relatively mild climate because of the effect of the Gulf Stream.



An old Jura house from the photo exhibition

It was ironic that I visited Islay now that I no longer drink. Islay malts used to be my favourite whisky, particularly Laphroaig. I loved the slightly medicinal tang of the peat and iodine flavour. While searching for a camp site I had seen all the nine distilleries except three and had seen the road-signs pointing to two of the others. The nine are Caol Ila, Bunnahaibhan, Bowmore, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, Kilchoman and Gartbreck (a new one).  Outside the Bruichladdich distillery is a huge disused copper pot still, about fifteen feet high.

I caught the evening ferry back to the mainland and dived into the site at Lochgilpead at about 11:30 . Slept well, despite the smelly fridge.

A view from Jennifer's house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view from Jennifer's house

 

27. Lochgilpead

Private Site
23^rd May - 25^th May

It's my birthday to-day. Happy birthday, Rog. I see I share my birthday with, amongst others, George Osborne(43) (oh dear), Joan Collins (81), Graeme Hick (48), Richard Hill (41), Anatoly Karpov (63), Martin McGuinness (64) and Bob Mortimer (55). Could be worse. If my Mum had hung on for another day I would have been born on the same day as Bob Dylan.

Sixty-seven and I still haven't opened the batting for England at Lord's. Must try harder.

 

Ardrishaig Bowls Club

Quite a long drive (for me) to-day, 58 miles, up Loch Lomond to Tarbet, round the top of Loch Long, through the Argyll Forest Park, past Rest and be Thankful (a place on the map but which I didn't notice on the road) and down the west bank of Loch Fyne past Inveraray to Lochgilpead. I would have liked to go to Crianlarich because I love saying it. Crianlarich, Crianlarich , Crianlarich. There, I said it without even going there. As I set out the sun was shining on Loch Lomond and on the surrounding mountains and things looked great. There was even a bit of snow left on the mountains. The drive was predictably scenic and I passed the Loch Fyne Oyster Centre. It was strange to think of oysters inland, but then, of course, Loch Fyne is a sea loch. There is a huge acreage of sitka spruce planting here on the hillsides along the way and many of the plantations are being harvested. It's a great pity they make such a mess when they fell the trees, leaving a landscape like a World War I battlefield. Inveraray was the only place of any significance and it was totally monochrome, or black and white anyway, and it looked as if it was wearing a uniform. Possibly the whole place is owned by one person, just as most houses in Midhurst have yellow window frames because they are owned by the Cowdray Estate. 

I had a minor disaster with the gears on the bike and so took it into Crinan Cycles on the main street of Lochgilpead. The guy there fixed it for me within the hour, but at the cost of a new derailleur set-up, chain and back wheel. Mmm, expensive, but it goes like a dream now. To punish it I will take it on a long run along the Crinan Canal to the west coast. Not to be left out I fixed my bike computer myself. It's surprising what a difference it makes to know how fast you are going and how far you have travelled, to-day and since the beginning of time. Adds a bit of spice to the legwork.

On Friday night some bad people came, the first I've encountered so far. I was reading in the van when a motorhome came roaring fast past me (the limit is 5mph) and reversed, fast again, to skid to a halt about three feet from me. Three men were in it. I told them they were too close and they seemed amazed. A small old one started getting uppity. They said the warden had told them to pitch close. When I told them again they were too close the old one started getting twitchy and saying “Why?” “Why”? I said “What do you mean 'Why'. You're too close”. Luckily the driver had half a brain and moved over. The old one kept looking in my window and staring. Jesus! I don't need this. This is the trouble with badly-run sites. You don't get this kind of nonsense with Club sites. Thankfully, this morning they had gone. Bad people!

My cycling helmet has been a bit sloppy since I had my hair cut very expensively, and I looked for a towelling headband to take-up the slack. To great amusement I tried a hunting, shooting, fishing sort of shop. I said that I didn't think fishermen wore such a thing and the good-natured shopkeeper said “No we make sure we don't sweat”. I like a bit of craic on a Saturday morning.   

 

Towards Crinan

The Crinan Canal was built in the late 18^th century. James Watt was, among others, involved in the project, but he was better at steam engines and there were many problems. It was dug through peat bog (the Moine Mhor, one of the largest areas of raised peat bog in Britain) and the walls collapsed, flooding the surrounding land. The help of Thomas Telford, a real engineer, was enlisted in 1811 and, after six years, the canal re-opened in 1817 and has been just fine since. Talk to the engineer, not the oily rag! The purpose of the canal was to save ships rounding the treacherous Mull of Kintyre when heading for the Outer Hebrides. Ships could sail down the Clyde, round the Sound of Bute, up into Loch Fyne to Lochgilpead then through the canal to Crinan on the western shore of Kintyre and into the Sound of Jura.

The Crinan Canal for me

I don't like the wild raging sea

Them big foamin' breakers

Wad gie ye the shakers

The Crinan Canal for me.

Small cargo vessels called 'Clyde Puffers' made many of these trips, laden with coal and general necessities for the isolated communites of the West. One of these splendid little boats is preserved and moored in the basin at Ardrishaig at the eastern end of the canal.

 

The last Clyde Puffer

 

I cycled from Lochgilpead to the northern end at Crinan, all the way along the towpath. On the way I overtook a woman cycling with a small black and tan terrier. Suddenly, a fish rose, and the dog leaped into the canal and swam after the ripples. Finding no fish he swam back to the bank with a look of total bliss on his little face. Somebody's day made!

Also on the way I passed Moine Mhor (The Big Bog), where the Dalriada lived on rocky outcrops when they migrated from Ireland 1500 years ago. The water in the canal is black, presumably from the peat surroundings, black, black as a banker's heart. (Sorry, I watched The Fast Show last night).

Also on the way I heard my first cuckoo of the year, loud and clear, calling from the wooded hill overlooking the canal.

The Cuckoo comes in April

He sings his song in May

In June he dines on roast beef

In July goes away

That's an old one, but I think I got the third line wrong.

Crinan itself is just a basin on the canal and a sea-loch on Loch Crinan, an offshoot of the Sound of Jura. There is a bar there and a coffee shop and a small lighthouse. I had a rest, looked out at the hills and mountains surrounding the water and started back for the eastern end at Ardrishaig. It was a really enjoyable trip and amounted to exactly twenty miles. My knees were humming by the end and I'm a bit stiff now. In fact, I was too tired to have the barbecue I had planned. Although my strength was sapped by losing about three pints of blood to the midges, I should be fitter then this. Another twenty miles on Sunday! The bike went beautifully.

 

The Basin at Crinan

Talking of midges; they are omni-present here (plenty of water) and very persistent but not nearly as vicious as the West of Ireland midges. Those blighters were really voracious and you could feel them boring into you. Sometimes a bite would actually make you jump, and you couldn't stay outside amongst them when they were in full attack mode. Someone I know made some anti-midge protection lotion from a recipe on the Internet. It worked really well, but when she went back to the site to make some more she found it was intended for horses!

Talking of engineers and oily rags reminds me of a previous life working on contract for an insurance company in Croydon in the 'Eighties. A team of six of us had risen to the exciting challenge of migrating data from the old underwriting computer system to the new one, hopefully due to go live at some time in the not too distant future. Starting out as The Migration Team we became The Mutants, because the quality of the data was so poor that we had to mutate it, and, indeed, make most of it up to turn it into information to populate the new system. It was a dark and lonely job, totally without glamour or kudos, and we were all Oily Rags. I remember going up to the City to a meeting with our team leader, and he stopped off at Victoria Station to print some business cards for himself with the legend “Nick Hallett – Oily Rag”. He was a bit of a character.