Kirkcudbright; Growing up by the Magical Sea

I was brought up for a time in Kircudbright, a confused young boy who's parents had split up, but one who felt safe with all his family, and a beloved pet kitten, around him. Kircudbright was, and is, an affluent scallop port on the Dee Estuary, a salmon river leading in to the Solway Firth. It is most famous for the castle that overlooks the harbour, and also the fact that large chunks of the classic 70s horror film “The Wicker Man” were filmed here.

It is a beautiful place.

The Dee upriver from the Harbour, by Andrya Prescott (wikimedia)

Amongst all this was the young me, always hunting for the feral cats who lived in the harbour buildings, smashing my face open on the dodgems at what we called “The Shows” – you can still see the scar – and dancing about to bagpipe music at the summer “Scottish Nights”, where tourists were assailed by the bagpipes for two hours before the musicians retired to “The Steam Packet” to get wasted with the fishermen.

Kirkcudbright harbour, by Anthony O'Neill (wikimedia)

The main out of town beach was known as “The Doon”, a sandy expanse on the west side of the estuary. There was The Bell rock, you could jump off at high tide, and the wreck you could visit at low tide, and aged about 2, I set off for the wreck.

I was fearless then.

I nearly made it, it is a good hundred metres out. But as you got nearer, the mud becomes as thick and gloopy as can be, and I could no longer walk. Besides, my toe felt something both pointy and wriggly in the foothole, and I got scared.

I turned around, took my stripy swimming costume thing off, very nautical, and walked nonchalantly back to the beach trailing it in the mud. My mother probably though I was dead. As dead as the 19^th century barque “The Madras”, whose wreck it was.

The Ross.  A lighthouse bearing island right out in the mouth of the estuary, scene of a murder in the 60s. I went searching for eagles’ nests on the cliffs opposite, and chasing seagulls around. Fearless once again. Rolling painted easter eggs on the castle moat brae, eating them after Speedy, Donald Rudd's mangy dog, had brought them back to me in his mouth. This was bravery without compare.

Ross Island lighthouse, from www.kirkcudbright.com

Unfortunately, I was rather less brave on the water. I'd be taken out, at gunpoint, on various little 15 foot dinghies, and sit terrified amidst the spiders in the little cabin as the wind howled, and the boat rolled in the swell as we seemingly headed miles out past Ross Island. I think if I ever raised a tremulous voice, I was told to keep quiet. All the kids of the experienced sailors must have thought I was a cissie.

They still would have done, for if ever I found myself out on a boat on any of our subsequent holidays after we moved away, it was still a nautical dentist's drill being used without anaesthetic. I still found it miserable, felt off balance, and felt scared.

It was also usually freezing cold and raining on these pleasant little jaunts.

Luckily, by the time we got a little rib, I was happy enough to scoot up and down the Dee as long as we didn't go into the choppy waters beyond Brighouse Bay. I got some courage points back. But I don't think I'll ever be really comfortable on the water.

I'd rather be by the magical sea, than on it.

Copyright Creamcrackerednature 14.11.14

Running through a North Muskham Bird Storm

Today was adventure run time, the runs where I go boldly where I've never run before to see things I've never seen before.

Or more usually, to get muddier than I've ever been before, or get loster.

It was a grey and windy early afternoon, and a very smelly one too; the sugar factory was belching out its sulphide stick aided by an Easterly wind, and every farmer's field had been manured to hell and back. It was an unpretty run until I reached the South Muskham turn, and as ever as I went past the fishing lakes I remembered the coloured sails of the boats, rendered unto sterility by the demands of fishing.

The level crossing is an unlovely spot, but it was here that I spotted red arrows practicing aerobatics in the distance, and nearer to hand a huge number of gulls circling farm buildings. I kept going for now, observing as I went over the A1, before losing sight of them in the village of North Muskham itself.

My main quest for the run was North Muskham lake, still with a few plants in flower to liven up the predominant lush greens of the season. Cormorants were overhead, and on the water, the main species in evidence were tufted ducks, with a few pochard thrown in, their handsome red heads and grey bodies easy to pick out.

No red crested pochard today though, unlike my first visit.

I ran back in along the river, past hardy fishermen, and along a path back onto the South Muskham road by the flyover once again. And now the cirle of gulls had become a storm, a tornado. Hundreds of birds were circling overhead, and it wasn't just gulls. Among them were smaller birds lower down, probably feeding off loose grain, numbering perhaps a thousand. I don't know what they were, the formation was like a starling murmuration, but it was too early in the day, and also the birds had a markedly pale underside.

Perhaps pigeons? I have no idea. I was too far away. But the sense of this "storm" was incredible, two circulations of birds, one high and languid, one low and frantic. I'm delighted I managed to get some kind of photographs of the event, that I can share with you.

Overall I ran 15.7km, and my legs are now really rather stiff!

Cars going same way in both directions, note. There had been an accident

Shaggy ink cap bursting through gravel drive

North Muskham Lake

Still a drop of colour around

White campion

Pretty in pink

Distant ducks

Holme across the river

Muskham ferry

Vehicles of interest

Gull storm

Crazy skies

Starlings

South Muskham church

Sugar factory smell farm

Green Boots and the Ghosts of Everest

Once again I find myself tapped behind glass at work, and find myself having to look upwards and outwards with the eyes behind my eyes; I'm imagining and daydreaming again.

I've been thinking a lot about "Green Boots". Green Boots lives high in a cave, on the North-East Ridge of Mount Everest, and has done so since 1996. He greets every Everest climber heading for the summit by the North-East Ridge direct or North Col routes, recognisable to all at the staggering altitude of 8500 metres. A landmark of legend.

The Northern Aspect of Everest, the North East ridge leading from the left of the summit. Picture from wikimedia commons, credited to Carsten Nebel

"Live" of course is a misleading term. "Green Boots" is thought to be an Indian climber called Tselwang Paljor, who died after summiting the Mountain on an Indian-Tibetan Police Expedition. No-one is totally certain about this, and his body at that altitude is unrecoverable. He lies forever in his little cave, his clothes perfectly preserved, as bright and shiny as the day they were bought.

Including his bright green boots, that give him his name.

Over 200 people have died on the various Everest routes since the 1920s, and most of those bodies will still lie where they died, be it of a fall, avalanche or sheer cold. On some parts of the mountain, the lie of the land and prevailing winds has created small "cemeteries" - George Mallory, the most famous body found on the mountain, apparently lies in one of these. Other well known bodies, like those of Joe Tasker and Mick Burke, have never been found.

I can imagine that their families were devastated at having no remains to bury, but I wonder how the men and women themselves would have felt. Do their spirits roam the cols and snow fields in an endless unrest, or do they take in the unbelievable vistas, and think themselves privileged to have been able to visit such an incredible part of the world, and feel no sadness about remaining a part of it?

I can only envy them, and the people who survived the climb. For they have seen things a landlocked lubber such as myself, riddled with vertigo and prone to agonising pain in his hands in only a moderate Northern breeze, can't even dream of.

All text copyright Cream Crackered Nature 09.11.14 - picture credited.

Is Going Green Really a Goer?

I've been studying an Oceanography course with Futurelearn the last couple of weeks, and unsurprisingly lively discussions have come up over certain "Green" elements of the course; use of tidal power to generate green energy, and the effect glacial and polar melting has on ocean currents and thus climate.

General concensus - tidal power better than windfarms but must be lagoon based rather than barriers, and whatever happens with Arctic ice melt, it won't be like "The Day After Tomorrow."

And so, after a roundabout, ocean current like voyage through the recesses of my brain, thoughts on the Green Party's recent failure to get on next year's UK General Election TV debates arrive on this blog.

Now I'm no sort of political analyst whatsoever, but traditionally the Greens always had this sort of super-earnest, organo-bearded perception problem in the eyes of the public at large;

In Green-Land in days of yore, the above would often be found stuck on the back of the below

This carries on into the present day. I suspect the real reason the Greens are not getting in on the election debates, or on television is not to do with their perceived lack of support compared to UKIP - see this link on the "green party surge", but more the case that they just "don't make good television."

In other words, Farage and his ilk are good for getting people watching with all their soundbite friendly, whatever they actually are, policies that enrage or enliven depending on which sort of person you are. People who love UKIP watch them. People who hate UKIP watch them.

Complex, rational policies on subjects like science that don't fit easily into Zoo TV formats do not get an airing. This is where the Greens lose out. Tidal lagoons are less fun than booting out foreigners for a brighter tomorrow.

I have long thought that the UK political scene needs an injection from a secular, science and knowledge based party, with high profile media friendly backers. I thought it would have to be a new party, called "Reason" or some such thing, with some big name TV science types on board.

Nowadays I think the Greens could be the answer, being a party that at least is coming in from a scientific and knowledge background. But they need to get snappier, get a higher profile, and target seats stuffed with students and educated types. Policies like opposition to nuclear energy have got to be rethought - no more stickers on 2CVs - and if they believe in the NHS, and renationalising things like the rail network, make an unashamed big thing about it.

After all, plenty of other people share these beliefs.

But a lot of the brown rice policy has got to go. Talk of doubling tax on beer and cigarettes won't gallup in this economy. Talk instead of new hi-tech industries and spaceports, the sort of stuff that the 1984 Conservatives ought to have looked at before deciding replacing our dying old industries with the financial sector. Look where that got us. Be secular. Give our kids a proper education, and encourage a culture of learning and reading at home.

Obviously, no more David Icke types. But why shouldn't the Greens look for defectors like UKIP did?

Given the state of the country, and the fluxious state of UK politics, a party like the Greens could end up being heavily influential if they only end up with three or four seats.

Like many people, I want a new politics. But not one that involves pretending to cry at poppies.

Now, my Barnby Adventure!

I did my Barnby run today, on a crisp morning with a chill Northerly keeping hungry kestrFor once, I was glad of my windproof.

The run to Barnby in the Willows is a long flat deceptive drag after the crossroads. Fields of cabbages keep a clear horizon and you can see all the way across to Claypole and beyond.

Horse liveries are everywhere, complete with old school road mirrors.

Runner reflection not included

As I approached the village, a big echelon of probably pink footed geese, perhaps a hundred strong, went overhead on a southerly heading. Many of these birds have been seen on the move today; perhaps these birds are the same as some seen over Mansfield Wodehouse earlier in the morning.

A kestrel too was on view, hunting in the wind, absolutely effortless.

I ran through the village, and paused in the churchyard for photographs.

Barnby Church

The entrance under the sun

The tower

An old grave stone

A Barnby in the Willows willow

I then crossed the River With an, into unknown lands. Hell, a sign told me I was now in a different county.

River Witham

I'd run into a different county!

I ran along the Witham a little way to the next bridge. I paused to photograph a pair of mute swans, and as I did so I was thrilled to see a kingfisher fly out from
me, quite a cold blue in the bright light and easily seen against the dark, clear water.

The Witham is full of pike, but I saw none today.

Swans. And somewhere in this view is a kingfisher

Instead of trying to follow the river and getting lost in the tangled muddy banks, I headed along farm tracks to haybarns, disappointed to see no redwing or fieldfare around.

Haybarn

I was going to turn round here, but kept on after spotting blue flowers through the low hedge line. This was chicory, and a very late honeybee was having a feed. Is this the last bee I'll see this year?

Chicory flower

I hate retracing steps, but I had to turn round to avoid ending up in Claypole or Brant Broughton. I did get lost in the manor house grounds. Terribly sorry!

In all, by the time I was back in Newark I'd covered 15.97km. And my legs felt every one of them!

Not the Barnby Adventure...

...but a lovely early evening run around to Coddington and back. I figured I'd lose the light before getting back if I went out to Barnby

The runner casts a long shadow

Gorse in flower near the Barnby Lane crossroads

View from near the windmill, Coddington

A parallax of nature and construction, Beacon Hill Park

Currently a road to nowhere

Golden fields before industry

Sun setting over Beacon Hill Park

Bindweed and fuschia close to home

Owls in Newark Today

Kilton raptor rescue visited the town centre, in Halloween get up, and brought some beautiful raptors once again for us to enjoy.

Today's birds were mainly owls, and a glorious collection they were too.

Some form of long eared owl, I think

Tawny owl?

OK, I'm not an owl. I'm a buzzard

Grey scopps owl. Don't touch his mouse

Barn owl

Great grey owl, with his dish face enhancing hearing, he can hear a mouse's heartbeat

Snowy owl