It’s now been 3 weeks since my accident, and the joys of Netflix are wearing thin. When I can comfortably sit I have finally managed to start playing catch up on sorting out years worth of photos and videos which I’ve taken but never got round to sorting. The photo above is of my pass certificate for my Army MAPRIC course which I attended in 1997 at Hermitage, near Newbury in Berkshire. If I can’t get out and about I can always take a trip down memory lane…
I had a week off work coming up and had started to make plans for next week for either a multi-day walk or a cycle, locations as yet undecided. Life, however, has other plans and while cycling to work yesterday I came off my bike on Gorgie Road in Edinburgh. I’m now in hospital in Edinburgh, having had surgery last night for a broken hip. Thankfully, the surgeons were able to repair my own hip rather than give me a total hip replacement, and I’m now facing at least six weeks of gentle recovery before I can head for the hills again.
My Bontrager cycle helmet took the impact that my head would have received and is now dented and headed for the bin. I’ve had a few falls from the bike over the years, and in most cases, there has been head/road contact. I know that the wearing of cycle helmets often causes arguments, but as someone who has been on the sharp end, I do recommend wearing one.
Finally, I’d like to thank the kind people who came to my aid at the scene of the accident, including truck driver Connor for stopping traffic, Davie for his first-aid and cycle recovery service, and Doctor Freya for her medical assistance, as well as the other folk who waited with me until the ambulance crew arrived. In addition, all the staff here at the Royal Infirmary have been fantasic and very friendly. Thank goodness for the NHS. Long may it continue.
Video from my most recent camping trip, Am Binnean and Cruben Beag, with a wild camp at Loch Caoldair.
Just as a wee follow on to my post from a while back regarding the Deposit Return Scheme, here’s a compilation of just a fraction of the many photos I have taken while reporting rubbish and fly-tipping over the last few years. I have spent hours clearing some of these sites, but as one person against a sea of detritus, this is an impossible task, and there is far more rubbish being dumped than I could ever hope to clear, but I will still try to make a positive impact where I can.
All roads lead to Dalwhinnie. With all of Scotland to choose from, I wonder why I am always drawn back here? A friend of mine had tipped me off to a campsite which he’d seen while on one of his many TGO challenges, the coast to coast Scottish walk organised by TGO magazine. The campsite is only a few miles from the road, and it’s a long drive for such a short walk, so when a mate fancied a camp without a long walk in I thought this would be ideal.
Full trip report at the link below:
Normally I sound off about politics on my Independent Scotsman blog, but sometimes politics and the outdoors cross paths, sometimes in the most bizarre of fashions. A few nights back while on a break at work in Edinburgh, I took a walk around Edinburgh, and why not, the nights at present are light, the weather is pleasant, and it helps keep me fit.
On this occasion I headed up the High Street towards the Castle, down to the Grassmarket them up the Vennel, before returning via Pleasance and down Holyrood Road. As the Pleasance joins Holyrood Road I took a set of steps down past the Holyrood Restaurant, a location which I had reported a while back due to the accumulation of litter. It had been cleared up, and I wondered if the council were still keeping it clean, or whether it had been cleared once and forgotten. It turned out to be the latter…
There’s a political hoo-haa going on at the moment in Scotland with Scottish Government plans to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). As I understand it, a surcharge would be applied to certain items (plastic drinks bottles, cans and glass bottles) which would be refunded when the items are returned. This is currently being blocked by the UK government for a number of reasons, one of which is the inclusion of glass bottles. This is despite the UK Government supporting a similar scheme in Wales – which also includes glass bottles. As someone who was brought up in the 1970’s, when milk was delivered by electric vehicles using recyclable bottles, or when “ginger bottles” came with a deposit and were used as “glass cheques”, I’m quite comfortable with a DRS being introduced.
Some years back I was a Ranger with SUSTRANS, and I spent hours of my own time, using my own resources, to clean up NCN 75, removing bags of discarded rubbish, mainly bottles and cans, from the cycle path. One of the worst areas was on the route to my old secondary school, and each day saw a trail of detritus from the chip shop to the school, much of it tossed over the bridge onto the path below. I’ve carried out litter picks in the local countryside, far beyond where the bin-men normally go, bagging rubbish and reporting it for collection. I’ve spent hours clearing up fly-tipping hot-spots, gathering tyres and other garbage and reporting it so that it can be removed. I’ve spent hours in my local community clearing the local kids playpark, and when I lived in Edinburgh I spent many a happy hour removing cans, bottles and bags of dog-sh*t from the Ferry Road cyclepath.
I tweeted the picture of the discarded rubbish (See Tweet here) and tagged in the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, who have been very vocal in supporting the introduction of the DRS. In addition I tagged the First Minister Humza Yousaf, and two Green politicians, Lorna Slater and Ross Greer. As I type the tweet has had 16,000 views and has been shared 136 times, generating 69 comments on that tweet, and many more on the retweets. I was made aware that there were a few abusive comments on there, so I checked them out.
“Angelina Bee” demanded that I “pick it up then” instead of taking photos. Much as I would like to, I’d have been late back to work. As the local authority has the resources and manpower to remove it, it’s often easier to take a photo, make them aware and let them deal with it, especially when you are just passing and don’t actually live there.
Bruced VIII (Possibly not his real name) exhorted me to “get a job”, and he smelled “bullsh*t”. Someone else who smelled bullsh*t was a chap called Blair Bowman, who is apparently a “Whisky Consultant and Broker” whatever that may be, who is one of the chief critics of the DRS is Scotland. He had retweeted my photo, where he observes the excellent condition of the litter I had spotted, with “mint condition” cans on display. This tinfoil hatted nonsense generated it’s own little universe of responses from his faithful audience, who apparently believe this is staged, and that the litter will be reused in other staged photo shoots elsewhere.
At a time when Scotland is drowning in litter, at a time when we really need to be doing something about ensuring our resources are conserved and reused, the level of debate has hit the gutter.
Bill Cowan engaged in talking through his Crystal Boll*cks when he stated that “not one” item would have been returned. I guess we’ll never know, as we’d require a wormhole to an alternative parallel universe where a DRS was in place to find that out. That, as The Dude once opined “is just your opinion, man”. His other opinion, that the DRS is “ill thought out” may have some truth in it, but in a debate where there’s more heat than light, all I see is a piece of legislation which is being opposed by many groups for their own reasons. Some claim they want it to work, but only on their terms – in reality I’m seeing no groups suggesting how to improve it. I want it to work because Scotland is drowning in garbage. Do I think this is the magic bullet which will end littering and landfill? No, there’s no such thing. Do I think it is required as part of a range of measures to reduce the demand for “disposable” containers? Absolutely.
The same industry voices who say they will support the scheme if it is a UK wide one are the same ones who will fight it when the UK government proposes its own version for England. The same politicians who switched positions on the inclusion of glass after a large donation was made to their party will be the same ones selling us the UK wide version some way down the line – but hey, when you can make political capital today and get a bung in the process, what’s not to like?
For the sake of clarity, I’ve included a screenshot of my walk from Strava and the details of the photo, both from 31st May 2023. To the tinfoil hat wearing element out there, yes, I have a job. Yes, I pay tax. No, I don’t carry a sack of pristine, washed litter and suspiciously unbranded coffee cups to stage fake litter incidents. Scotland has enough real litter to be going on with. I’ll continue to report litter to the relevant local authorities, highlighting their failures to deal with the growing problems of littering and fly-tipping, using the Fix My Street website, where at time of writing I have 503 logged reports for flytipping, etc. Also for the sake of clarity, I’m not a member of either the SNP or the Greens, nor do I vote for them, but I can only wish that they get this scheme up and running sooner rather than later, not easy in the face of profit related industry opposition backed by unscrupulous politicians who are taking part in a pile-on for short term gain, and a relentless media who are happy to bash the Scottish Government with whatever stick comes to hand.
A favourite haunt of mine is Forrestburn Reservoir. I’ve walked, kayaked and cycled there, and it was also part of my Five Lochs Trail route. I’ve even been lucky enough to see an Osprey there. I recently took the drone up while I wandered round with my Grandson, and put this together for him, as he wants to be a “Youtuber”! Enjoy.
Last week I headed off for a mountain bike ride in to Culra Bothy with an overnight camp nearby. It was my first trip to the bothy in years. Sad to see it cold and empty…
Some time back I posted my review of the OEX Tacana stove. This review should have been accompanied by a video review, but some of the footage wasn’t up to scratch, so had to be redone. Around the same time I received a few British Army ration packs, and thought I’d do a review of them as well. I ended up combining my review of the ration packs and the stove in the one video, and it is now live on Youtube. The written review of the stove is at the blue link above, and the written review of the ration packs can be found HERE.
I’ve suffered with my feet. For many years I had various ailments and irregularities, caused by wearing crap shoes. Plantar fasciitis was one such problem. After buying one pair of outdoor shoes which looked the part, but were anything but, I resolved to never buy cheap shoes again. Since then I’ve returned to one brand, time and time again. I’ve found Scarpa shoes to be supportive, durable, comfortable straight from the box, and they look not bad too, on or off the hills. The latest addition to my expanding collection is the Scarpa Mescalito. I bought these online from Alpinetrek, and at £135 they were around £50 under RRP. I keep an eye on Go Outdoors for Scarpa bargains, but with Scarpa being imported from Italy, I’ve noticed that offers have been few and far between since Brexit. Scarpa boots aren’t as kind to my feet, but the shoes most certainly are, and given that I get years of use from them, the high outlay pays off in the long run.
The Airdrie Rambler 