Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Heatwave

06/12/2007

The Baronial knees, bruised and battered by frequent contact with the gunnels of expensive racing yachts a week or so ago, have hardly started to lose their purple and yellow hues, when a new colour assaults the old corps. The phsyog has a bright and deep pink swath from the outer corners of each eye across the cheeks to the nose. I clearly saw the smirks behind gloved hands at yesterday’s Communion Sunday service hinting that yours truly should make more of an effort to turn up sober for the sacrament. However I can assure one and all that the new flush is caused by a severe chewing from the summer midge. The temperature has soared into the eighties, the wind dropped, the sky clouded over, so that any outside task becomes a painful struggle to retain the outer layer of any exposed skin. Mind you one can only think that such an organic and natural exfoliation could become a marketable treatment, a thousand times safer than acid peels and botox.

Despite the unceasing demands of estate and garden maintenance, dearest Dottie and I have managed to slip away to visit an old friend in Aberdeenshire for a small spree. Unexpectedly this turned into a bit of a trip down memory lane as we spent a day walking the mutts and bird watching around the Ythan, Forvie and north to Cruden Bay. My father in response to some ancient fad set aside his Wm Greener shooters in favour of a set of Auchterlonie golf clubs, and then dragged us to Cruden for a year or two of hols on the links. While he lost many half crown bets slashing his way through the famous rough with local hustlers, the rest of us ran wild on the mile long beaches, dangerous cliff tops and secret harbours. God alone knows what pranks we got up to with rods and air rifles, persuading the local salmon netters to take us out in their Cobbles in the early hours; I can still see the fabulous runs of silver Sea Trout in the shallow sandy river mouths. In those distant days the family put up at the Kilmarnock Arms, and it was thence that Dottie and I repaired for lunch which, although the vino was far too dry, was better than average. However the fields that I remember surrounding the pub with chickens and pigs that both recycled and supplied “The Killie” have been built over with hundreds of houses, part of the Aberdeen commuter belt. None-the-less the harbour area remains largely unchanged and I was able to wander down a close or two that seemed still to ring with our childish shouts.

Back home at The Tower of Glen Trollaigh, after a lengthy rattle in the aging motor, we swelter in the unseasonable muggy weather, scratching our insect bights, looking to the south from whence our forecast salvation of cool breezes and showers are due any day. Glen Trollaigh is in the grip of summer, how can I give a toss about the mania of Paris Hilton, when I have just seen my first Dragon Fly hovering in the Bog Myrtle and each night Stags in Velvet drink at the darkened Alt Trollaigh while the midnight after-glow of a deep Atlantic sunset tints the ridges high above them. Pity about those bloody midges! Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.