Disturbing frogs and toads

Yesterday I was tramping around on the moors above Talla reservoir in the wild and beautiful Borders. Ostensibly to download groundwater level and temperature data from some loggers that we've got installed in monitoring boreholes there, but really just a good excuse to get out in the glorious March sunshine we've been having. Anyway, leaving one borehole I stumbled across a little bog pool, peaty dark and edged all round by reeds, in which a multitude of frogs were singing and swimming around, clearly getting in the mood for making some frog whoopee. When they caught sight of me looming over their pool, there was much confused splashing, some of them rushing for a hiding place, others stopping for a look at what I was up to, a couple carrying on with their romancing and warbling for a while until they finally noticed what was going on. Eventually they all disappeared, but I hung around for a while to see if they'd come out to play again. Not a ripple. Until one little head poked itself half out of the water to check if I'd gone, gazing stealthily up at me from behind some reeds, till I moved and it ducked back under.  

And while we're on the subject of Anurans (yep, I just looked it up!), this is the very sleepy toad I accidentally dug up in the herb bed at the allotment this afternoon. And which I embarrassingly screamed at when I saw it moving up out of the earth, much to the amusement of my plot neighbour Dave who was passing at the time. Rudely awoken from its winter sleep (the toad, not Dave), but at least not speared on the end of my fork. I dig up about one toad every spring, and thankfully they all survived the experience...

Just another week

It was a funny old week, last week. No major trauma nor major wonder, but still a bit of a rollercoaster of more memorable experiences than most weeks arrive with; mostly good, some bad. Work was stressful. The weather veered from chilly, pea-souper Edinburgh harr to just amazing - the hottest March days in Scotland ever, which is spreading general happiness among the population. J was skiing in Chamonix and persisted in sending me beautiful photos of snowy mountains and glaciers. I went along to my first amateur reading-of-creative-writing event, the Find Your Voice/Ripping Scripts end of term ceilidh - and was impressed and inspired by some of the frankly brilliant things that my fellow scribblers have written. AND I read a poem of my own in public for the first time ever, which turned out to be fun rather than traumatic. I got my haircut at a new place and it was thankfully OK. I caught up with Mum, bonding over weeding my rhubarb bed; and variously over coffee, lunch, wine and dinner with no less than four old friends I don't see often enough - one of them not for about 10 years - which was wonderful. But one shared with me a horrible revelation that's still catching at my heart. And another shared a worry that I hope will come to nothing. I ended up the week down in the allotment digging off a hangover and basking in the sunshine, and feeling a bit more grounded by the signs of the turning season.

Damson tree coming into bud.

A long overdue hillwalk

I hit the hills yesterday for my first walk in an unforgivably long time. There was a time when I used to head out hill walking once every month or two, but life and times change and so do our priorities, and hill walking's been one of the casualties. So it was fantastic to be reminded of the glory of the Scottish hills on a sunny, breezy, snowy spring day.

Cathy and I drove north out of Edinburgh in the sunshine, with the aim of popping up Meall nan Tarmachan and then along the Tarmachan ridge, a lovely walk on the skyline above Killin. It was a sign of how long it's been since I was up that way when we tried to park at the Ben Lawers NTS visitor centre, only to find it's been totally demolished and is a sea of mud reverting back to moorland. Luckily there's a replacement car park across the road which is just about accessible to the careful driver, and a good path linking with the start of the Tarmachan route. We had a nice easy saunter up to the top of the hill, stopping to snack and enjoy the views above the Lochan nan Lairige reservoir (looking very low) and the Lawers Dam, one of the 1950s hydro schemes that brought grand engineering works to so many Scottish valleys.

At the top the wind was howling and a shower blowing through. We ate our peanut butter sandwiches in the swirling cloud and snow and decided that minimising discomfort was the better part of pleasure, and abandoned the ridge walk for a better option. Retracing our steps to the car was as lovely as the ascent, even with a brief exciting interlude when my leg disappeared into a hole while clambering back down a steep snow bank and I nearly slipped head-first down to the heather below. Back in Killin we had coffee and some very nice rhubarb crumble and pottered about at the Falls of Dochart before wending our way back to Edinburgh with the sun setting over the central belt. A perfect day in the hills.

Family dramas and silver linings

Sometimes life swerves off the rails, upsets all your routines, throws drama and emotion at you, and then almost as fast reverts back to normality, leaving you a little bit stunned. And - if you're lucky - with unexpected benefits. Maybe it's as Springsteen sings in the new Jack of all Trades: 'sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood'.

Such has been the last few days. Early on Thursday morning (my brother's birthday, and the day after my birthday), Dad was taken dramatically ill, suffering three big seizures in rapid succession, which left him comatose. The night nurse got the doctor on call, who told Mum there was no hope of him surviving. There were shocking, awful phone calls. We rushed to his bedside. But within a few hours it became clear that he wasn't imminently dying. And by Friday he seemed miraculously back to normal. We were dazed, relieved, happy, and left with an unexpected weekend of family togetherness. We got to be part of my nearly-one year old nephew's first few days of walking. We all stayed in Mum's flat together for the first time in - well, ever, if you include nephew E. We cooked and ate together, played, talked, shopped for guitars, drank lots of coffee. Dad got to see his grandson again. It was great.

It could have been so different. But thankfully, it wasn't.

Photo by Ruairí

Digging

The last two Saturdays I've spent hours digging down at the allotment. It's back-crippling! But satisfying in a physical, visceral - dare I say it, down-to-earth - way. Clearing the ground, turning over the earth, getting it ready for planting and growing and harvesting. The act of digging, as well as laying down good preparation for the coming months, is also making me feel more in touch with the past. I remember my parents digging their enormous vegetable garden in rural Aberdeenshire, and being about 5 years old, following Dad as he dug up piles of potatoes, and helping to collect them in bags for winter eating.

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem called Digging. I think Dad might have shown it to me first; he thought a lot of it. He's about the same age as Heaney and from a similar background, and I think he felt a fellow feeling for the poet. Dad had an urban upbringing and Heaney a very rural one, but both came from in or near Derry; both went to Queen's University Belfast; both were academic and literary with a very non-academic family background. The poem contrasts the cerebral act of writing with the practical, useful, traditional skill of digging, perhaps highlighting a tension that Heaney might have felt between his chosen path and the way his ancestors lived. Dad certainly identified with this, and I've always connected the poem's narrator, and the act of digging, with Dad. And this year I've been making a connection with the more distant past, while starting to try and write down some of the stories about my Irish farmer ancestors, and thinking about how they lived and what they felt and said and did. All of them undoubtedly dug until their backs ached every spring. I'm just following in their (muddy) footsteps.

Here's my little patch of ground dug over and ready.