Sunday, June 01, 2008
Midges to the Left of Them, Midges to the Right.
06/01/2008
We Trollaighs have been blessed for generations, too numerous to count, with a direct line to God.
Many of you will be familiar with The Blessed Mary MacKillop-Trollaigh who only requires an attributed miracle or two to achieve total beatification, and we earnestly pray for that day, with the accompanying cash revenue. To be fair, Bruce and Mai-Ling MacKillop of Toowoomba, Queensland, recently relabelling themselves MacKillop-Trollaigh, are up and running with a pack of Sydney Lawyers to scoop the Vatican Contract for St Mary and it would be churlish of yours truly to make a major challenge as dear Great Aunt Mary from Roy Bridge did spend most of her working life in Oz. However we have an even holier contact still in the shape of St Cuthbert of The Glens. References to good old Cuthbert Trollaigh do require a bit of research as he apostatised in the early hundreds AD bringing Christ to the lawless North Argyll Glens and of course you will know that many of his relics are still believed to reside within the Father’s Arch which now forms part of the Long Gallery decorations.
You may wonder what the old fool is wittering on about, and the answer is two-fold; running and midges. Yes, those beggars have arrived with a vengeance, possibly worse than even 1948, so that when the breeze drops it is difficult to see the hay barn from the Tower of Glen Trollaigh through the thick white swirling clouds of the bally bloodsuckers, rendering even the most speedy and simple of outside tasks completely impossible. Of course one has to run when the blighters appear and most of us blokes simply stomp off at a steady pace, saving our energies and relying on the age and thickness of tweed for protection. It has to be noted that the ladies see running in a completely different light, the dears have a lightness of step that is bred from the ballet school, except curiously, dearest Dottie who will Jive, Rock and Fandango with the best of them, yet struggles in the basic running department, with a flat footedness that vibrates along the galleries in the early hours. This is not to say that dearest Dottie cannot run, far from it, there is simply nothing finer than witnessing “herself” running with the concentration of innocence, arms and legs pumping with the anticipation of a startling, skinny dipping, midge avoiding plunge into the River Trollaigh “Witches Pool”! Maybe the midge season is not without its benefits, and certainly warm towels and a dram are on hand for both the plungee and the lazy bystander.
With our direct line to the almighty, we just keep asking for those midge moving breezes. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Blow the Breeches
05/29/2008
Each year there is a magic moment when The Great Beeches of Trollaigh burst into leaf; this miracle usually takes about thirty six hours, when our magnificent stand of Beeches turn from thrashing twigs to wonderful fresh green and copper monarchs. This year it happened on the 6th of May a mere day after we eventually managed to plant our potatoes into above zero soil, It never ceases to amaze me that immediately after the Beech Bonanza the garden treadmill starts, soil warms, one digs in earnest, grass grows at an alarming rate and weeds shoot from spots that have already been blasted with chemical cocktails. Of course the old eye turns to the outside of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh and all hands are needed to scrape and paint the ancient external woodwork. With some reluctance on my part, the traditional “admiralty grey” signature colour of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh which has served generations of Barons, is giving way to paler coastal greens on the advice of some limp wristed designer. My resistance to the colour change was, naturally enough, proved wrong when on the most recent visit from our European Advisor she insisted on photographing the Tower of Glen Trollaigh in its “marvellous new colour” and endlessly praised dearest Dottie on her superb taste. Leaving yours truly to mutter darkly in the library about tradition.
The mention of important visitors and The Great Beeches of Trollaigh brings to mind the spring visit of some Maharajah to my Mother and Father when the governor was briefly in the diplomatic corp. The last Baron had been walking through arboreal monarchs with the afore-said Nabob, whose grasp of English was imperfect and misunderstood the significance of the trees, later referring to my mother as The Great Bitch of Trollaigh, as quick as a flash she retorted; “Your highness, you are mistaken; it is the Trollaigh men who wear The Great Breeches!”
Our visit from the European Advisor proved slightly downbeat as the usual guest list of freeloading MSPs and Councillors backed out to a man following the threat of a slow moving convoy of fuel protestors, although how traffic can become more slow moving I know not. However the protest did not materialise due to a lack of fuel and the senior Minister’s helicopters could not land at Connel as the CAA have still to licence the airport. Lachie was particularly resourceful and managed to pack out the photo opportunities by dishing out free beer and pies to smelly campers, and by hijacking the bemused passengers of a German tour bus which had taken a wrong turning into Glen Trollaigh and was stuck fast on the River Bridge. The jist of the Advisor’s info was that the emphasis on care of the environment is on the wane and food production is the New Way. With Scottish farmland now breaking through £10,000 an acre it sounds as though the big money boys have the same idea, so the polytunnel brochures are spread out and hoes are being sharpened to ride the new subsidy wave. If only there was a rain cloud on the horizon, for three weeks of dry weather have forced a daily early morning climb to check our water supplies which currently can’t cope with watering veggies, hey ho.
Some of you will have heard of the changes in Glen Orchy where the Kerrs have for years hosted my electronic communications. Plans are afoot to improve this service, however for those wanting to avoid the delay of having their messages delivered in the cleft stick of a native jogging over the Long Glen; I can be reached directly at trollaigh@gmail.com . Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.