Hill, history, myth and adventure

Mount Brandon. Standing 952 m high on the edge of Europe, from the top on a clear day you can see all the way to America. Well, almost. St Brendan the Navigator thought he could. Allegedly he climbed this hill before setting off in a leather coracle, sometime around 530 AD, for the Isles of the Blessed. Or Paradise. Or, as many people have believed since, possibly the North American continent. In the 1970s one believer, Tim Severin, a sequential re-creater of ancient voyages, built his own coracle out of wood and ox hides, sealed with grease from sheep's wool, and sailed the Brendan 7,250 km from Kerry to Newfoundland. Not proving that St Brendan and his merry band of monks were the first Europeans to set foot in the New World; just that they could have been. 


Mount Brandon. It's not just a hill keeping watch over the Atlantic from green and wild west Kerry. It's a whole story in itself. Now walkers follow a white-posted and crossed pilgrim's track, the Saint's Road, up to a crucifix on the summit, but the wondrous views probably aren't very different to what Brendan looked out over, a millennium and a half ago.  

Family wedding

I just got back from a week in county Kerry, Ireland. First for my cousin's wedding and then a few days tagged-on holiday. My extended family is quite small, but we don't meet up very often. This was, in fact, the first time my brothers, myself and my cousins had all been together in at least 20 years. Not to mention our other halfs, my Mum and aunt, and the four little ones in the next generation. So all in all it was a fantastic and happy few days. A beautiful wedding, smiling relaxed people, gorgeous location in the fabulous Parknasilla spa hotel on the shores of the Atlantic, and even some sunshine. Why don't people get married more often? Thank you, Paul & Wayne!

Weekend escape

A weekend in Lochcarron in beautiful Wester Ross. Lochs, mountains, a beautiful cottage belonging to friends, down by the water. Beach games, fresh seafood, one of the most stunning drives in the country over the Bealach na Ba to Applecross, paddling a kayak around Lochcarron, doing jigsaws, watching Wimbledon, knitting. Just stepping back from life for a couple of days - fabulous.

The cottage is on the Stromeferry road - helpfully signposted to avoid confusion since the ferry stopped in the 1970s. Although sometimes there is a ferry, like earlier this year when landslides closed the A890 for months, and Highland Council pressed a cruise boat and the Glenelg ferry into service for the 10 minute crossing that saved a 140 mile road detour. I love the Highlands.

  

Nature red

This is the beautiful fox who came into my allotment recently. But one of her back legs was completely useless, and she was emaciated and clearly starving. She was so ill she could barely jump over a knee-high fence, and she cared so little about our presence that she just sat down to rest quite close to us, in the middle of my lettuce seedlings. I felt so sad for her. It wasn't quite a dying polar bear on Frozen Planet, but it's not often that you see so close up the apparent cruelty of nature. Of course, it's not really cruelty, is it. It's just how it is.