Highlands Campings - Tasting Autumn

It chucked it down for the 270 mile road trip to the little car park at the end of the track to Callater.

Then it chucked it down some more as we (me, Dawn and LTD) walked up the track past the Lodge and Bothy and pitched at a bonny spot at the head of the loch – about a mile or so from the lodge.

It drizzled on and off all night and partially into the next day when the hills became alive with the sound of a grouse shoot up on the hill. Vehicles could be seen high up the track leading to Carn an Tuirc. I was seized by an irresistable desire to stay in bed and read my improving book (The Seal Woman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson – a cracking read by the way and much in contrast to the dire drabness of BBC Radio 4’s output for the day.) Radio 4 used to be quite interesting. Not sure what happened, but whatever it is, or was, was seems to have become an irritatingly dull background drone which I had to switch off in favour of the sound of the sporadic gunfire coming from the knobs of the hill. Yes folks, I was , in fact, suffering from Bell’s Lassitude. This is marginally more expensive than Whyte and Mackay’s Lassitude or, indeed, Famous Grouse Lassitude. I hate taking proper malt whisky to the hills in case I spill it, and I find that single malts evapourate at a higher rate than yer blended stuff, so the Bell#s lasts longer. And I quite like Bell’s.

Couldn’t get Radio 2 on my liddle radio-set. This is just as well since they’ve started playing music with squeaky noises in and I feel I’m probably drifting out of their age-related target audience.

Day 3 and the shooting had stopped. The rain had stopped too, but there was a cold wind gusting from either the West or the East, depending on which way the glen diverted the prevailing South-Westerly. So, I roused LTD from his Winalot Lassitude and we went off and bagged Carn Dubh – an 800-metre flat-topped grouse moor hidden from Callater but in full view of the Glenshee Ski paraphanalia a jaunt of some 7 miles or so, there and back.

On Day 4, we abandoned Callater, as per The Plan and went to Braemar for Fish and Chips and some light shopping, followed by a short drive to Glen Shee and a showery walk up Glen Taitneach (The Glen of the Many Very Small Potatoes). The showers were heavy and we abandoned the walk up the glen after about three or four miles and set up camp quite near some noisy waterfalls. These were almost noisy enough to drown out the whingeing middle-class Londoners droning on about something or other Quite Important on Radio 4, but not, it seems the lively bollix and adverts with people doing a verbal version of small print concerning the application of Terms and Conditions and Only Available to Over 18’s and Not Available in the Channel Islands or feckin Milngavie in between tracks by Abba or the Beautiful South. much more entertaining, in fact. Kingdom FM (Kingdom of Fife, I suspect, not the Jehovah’s Witnesses)

It rained and blew on and off on Day 5. I received an unexpected bout of Porcine Rissotto Lassitude and fought a sudden addiction to honey-roasted peanuts in between putting the tent pegs back in and chasing ants around Page 183 of Sally Magnusson’s novel with an index finger just for fun. I dreamed of sunny days wandering through the sun-kissed fields and pastures of the Kingdom of Fife whilst seeking out the place where All My Gardening Needs could be met and I could have a cuppa and a fruit scone whilst the weans played on the adventure playground. The waterfall hissed away in the background and deer barked somewhere. LTD snored and farted doggy farts in his lovely sleeping bag…. He acheived his all-time record of 17 hours in bed and was keen to set off on Day 6. Well done, Lucky, there should be some kind of award ceremony or something.

On Day 6 Dawn accompanied me part way up the Glen (actually, it translates roughly as “The pleasant glen” – and very nice it is too.) Me and LTD wandered up to Loch nan Eun and bagged some more 800 metre tops Glas Tulaichean North Top, Carn a Charsaich, Creag Easgaidh and it’s East top – and all very nice, but in a strong and nithering wind emerging from Somewhere Very Cold and causing me not to stop for lunch till I found a really nice comfy spot hidden from the autumn-like gale and furnished with some very comfy bilberry plants. We returned to camp after about three or four hours. The hills, it seems are well populated by some pretty beefy mountain hares and grouse of both the black and red kinds.

I finished the book to a background of car dealership adverts, some kind of phone-in competition, more Abba, Beatles and even Herman’s Hermits. This is the stuff (to quote Lenny Henry)

It really chucked it down from the early hours of Day 7 till the time we took up the wet tents and left for home. I liked the hot weather. I’m missing it already. It seems that the summer has gone and has left without leaving a note as to whether or not it’s just gone shopping or has gone to New Zealand till next June. I’m already planning to rewrite the Gospel According to St Luke in the form of a Lancashire Monologue for a Christmas “do” (The bit about the shepherds)