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Wednesday 25 February 2015

Today's Walk - Clunie






Loch Clunie - again.  A very dreich day, and I was tired, so didn't walk round it as I usually do.  I admired the masses of snowdrops, which will be superceded by an even better display of bluebells as Spring progresses.  Unfortunately my present camera is very basic and can't do them justice.
Good views of Castle Hill (flat-topped mound on the far side) and of the island, with the Bishop of Dunkeld's house.  Obviously it doesn't belong to the Bishop of Dunkeld any more - and hasn't for a couple of hundred years, as I remember.  It's a shell now.  What a shame.  It must have been a great place to hole up in on a wild and stormy night...the only access by boat...looking out at the churning black waters of the loch from an upper window, while sipping a glass of best brandy and gnawing a peacock's leg (or your own, if supplies were low), and driftwood smouldered in the stone fireplace...
The house did actually burn down in the 1950s, but I'm unsure why.
Wildlife spotted today included a herd of about a dozen roe deer in a field (unusual to see such a large group in the open), flocks of geese (greylags I think...) and cormorants on the trees on the island.  Mallards and tufted ducks on the loch.  Various small birds such as blackies, robins, coal tits and wrens active in the surrounding woods.
I've written about Loch Clunie several times before.  Please click on the links below if you wish to see the posts.

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Fart fart fart &c.., oh - and higher selves...


http://seapenguin-thecurioussheep.blogspot.co.uk/

'FART FART FART OWF DE AUTOBAN.  FART FART FART OWF DE AUTOBAN. FART FART FART OWF.....'
'No, he's not cured yet.  Put him back in, and give him an extra knee rug,'  I shouted to Geoffrey, through the hole in the wall.  I shouted because I was on the settee, with my feet up, picking my nose and reading the letters page of the 'Daily Bugle', and Geoffrey was Outside, by the Ersatz Sweat Lodge, which we'd built by the Old Midden, from a kit we'd bought from Val Nark's eco-health-shop.
'Right-oh.'
'And turn the dial up to 'red'.'
'Okey-doke.'
'And make sure you close the door properly this time.  We don't want any heat to leak out, like it did before.'  Not to mention his tiresome singing, I thought to myself.  But I didn't say it out loud. Which is unusual for me.
'Like it did before, when it was YOUR turn to close it by the way.  Anything else?'
'Pick up a barrel of best brandy, three pounds of baccy, some tea-bags and a bag of jellybabies when you're passing the tunnels.  Oh, and a pint of milk.  Make that two.  And a tin of Campbell's meatballs - I feel like having something different for tea.  I'm going to curry them.'
Anyway.  As you'll have gathered, if you've been following things recently,  Tuppence has been suffering from an intractable fever and pickled onion flavr Monster Munch addiction after his stay in gaol; on the advice of Val Nark we built an Ersatz sweat lodge for him to stay in till he's cured.
So far there's been no change in his condition, except that he keeps singing any Kraftwerk song which includes the word FAHRT,  phonetically, in a heavy and terrible German accent.
We're not sure how long the cure is supposed to take - there was nothing in the instructions and Val was a bit vague time-scale-wise. 'Just till he's better, for God's sake!" she barked.  "Now go away and use your common sense.  I WOULD say consult your 'higher selves' using hazel rod divining twigs, but I know you've not got those.   Higher selves, that is, not the twigs.   The twigs are available to buy in my shop, prices starting from £10.99 per individual twig.  You two idiots, with your persistently oafish refusal to address your vile processed meat, alcohol, salty snax and baccy predilections will probably remain on the basest, crudest and most repulsive level for the rest of your unnatural lives.  Anyway I've sixty pallets of flapjacks to ship to North America and I need to focus.'
'Level?  Level of what?'
'Spiritual development, of course. An ability to commune with your higher selves.  Me and Dave do that all the time, of course, what with us being vegan and having an eco-business and living in yurts and all.  But you two never, ever will.  Be able to, that is.  Now sod off and let me get on.'
Oh dear.  Higher selves though?  I was intrigued...
'Just get me the Monster Munches and I'll be right as rain,'  a thin voice wailed as Geoffrey secured the flaps and thumped the pegs into the ground with a mallet. 'I'm bored in here.  I know it's meant to be hot and dark and sweaty and it's all for my own good but I'm fed up now - please let me out.  And if you don't let me out, rest assured that I'll wreak a horrible revenge...you know I will....'

Next time....Tuppence finally gets out of the sweat lodge, and Geoffrey and I run away from him and his wrath, on the pretext of setting off to find our higher selves.....

Friday 13 February 2015

Jock Mckay Aka Jack Mckay (1930)





My late father had a habit of saying 'Aye aye, Jock Mackay' during lulls in conversation.  I'd no idea that there really ever was a Jock Mackay, but good grief here he is on Youtube, in the 'flesh', and wearing a delightful 'double tartan' outfit that I can imagine might appeal to the Tupfinder General.  Someone kind on Twitter pointed it out to me.