Sunday, April 23, 2006
Different Types Of Swallow
04/23/2006
A couple of brief lines this blustery Sunday morning as my bags are packed and I am off to Orkney via a stay with Islay at Thrumster tonight. I have a kind invitation to The Highland Park distillery who are upset at my constant mention of The Ardbeg. Dearest Dottie and I are also long overdue a visit to The Creel at St Margaret’s Hope. Therefore, a mini-break it is, particularly before the roads are thick with tourists and juice for the poor old motor tops £1.50 a litre. We plan to return in the early hours of Friday the 28th, however, I have not managed to swallow my current mobile and the number remains unchanged.
I am going to use my break wisely as I have been talked into the most super new agricultural idea; namely tobacco crops, so I have a lot of reading and note talking to concentrate on. Apparently, a legal fortune is there for the asking.
The weather remains changeable, but definitely warmer with a high of 15 degrees, although 10 degrees or so is the norm. Our first swallow swoops around the Tower of Glen Trollaigh, skylarks sing their hearts out, lambs cavort and owls hoot. The sap of spring is definitely rising. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Night Vision
04/19/2006
How a day or two can make a difference, the weather is still changeable with rain forecast for the end of the week, however, the temperature has struggled to eleven degrees at last and when the sun appears there is a definite feeling of spring in the air. I have been down to Balvicar ostensibly to help the Kerr’s antifoul their boat although I did seem to end up playing a round at the Isle of Seil golf course followed by a couple of stiffeners, then to be hauled off home by the painty pair. During all this, I saw a swallow possibly en route north, but certainly a day or two ahead of the awaited arrivals in Glen Trollaigh. Now we can expect weeds and midges in their thousands, while Glen Coe hopes to provide skiing for another three weekends!
We have survived the traditional attack of campers and canoeists over the Easter weekend. Fortunately, poor weather kept the numbers down, however, the river Trollaigh did seem to play host to half of the Cardiff University Student’s Union who paddled up and down for five days, becoming increasingly irritating. A couple of camps sites were put under severe pressure by family groups, fathers drinking beer and openly using beach casters to poach the river, whilst mothers and children run about shouting and chopping down trees that the PhD’s with clipboards would have me arrested if I so much as looked at them with a saw in my hand. I am afraid that Lachie and I now grit our teeth at this ignorant behaviour and prepare for a few hours work with bin bags and shovels after the savages have headed off into the sunset, it is certain that we will get no support from the law makers and enforcers who are all on holiday anyway.
Of course, it is not all doom and gloom as the girls come down from the Highburgh house and a few old stalwarts visit for the first time since the end of shooting. We have rather a nice party with hardly a cross word and spend much of the wet weekend tramping about the glen and of course admiring the progress on the new garden. All the guests got together a surprise for yours truly and presented me with a handful of the most wonderful new gizmo. They are little coloured LED lights that can be attached to a dog’s collar so that you can see the brutes in the dark, by varying the colours one can even tell which dog is which. We have great fun watching the pack cavorting around whilst we stayed, Ardbeg in hand, to watch from the safety of the library. Nothing would do but some on the youngsters strapped lights to their wrists and started climbing trees and baying at the moon, all quite batty and an invention with absolutely no practical application that I can see, but that is what I like about them. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.