I don’t know why I thought of this column sitting at my desk a while ago, but suddenly the recollection of my old friend Randolph Priddy talking about tadpoles came to me and i recalled that I’d mentioned it in a newspaper column long ago. Here is that column… A rotund man with a bald head and white beard leaned over and watched the tadpoles. 998 of the tiny creatures swam in unison in a clockwise direction around the pond. Two swam the other way. “That’s you and me,” said Prid. Randolph Priddy has been wedged in his grave for some years now. I say wedged because when we buried him in the private, non-Christian cemetery, his cardboard coffin got stuck halfway down the hole – and being cardboard, we didn’t like to jump up and down on it too much. But he was right about the two contrary tadpoles. As press photographer and journalist, he and I made an odd newspaper duo. We were always getting into scrapes. Prid loathed pomposity and his way of dealing with it was to laugh. So when some top-heavy dignitary came our way laden with self-importance, the two of us would get the giggles with the inevitable result that we’d be thrown out of whatever function it was. I remembered all this as I stood in the rain on Plymouth Hoe the other day. I was covering the Queen’s visit and I watched as a file of soldiers marched out of the Citadel to form a guard of honour on the road. As they approached the curb there was a sudden burst of noise. It was so loud it made several of us jump. Obviously it had emanated from a human-being, but the scream sounded as if the person was suffering terrible anguish or pain. For a moment I thought a nutter had been let loose in the crowd. But it wasn’t a nutter. It was the officer barking an order for the marching men to do something or other. Stop, I suppose.  I wondered about the noise he made. He didn’t have to screech in such a volatile way. He could have done a Sergeant Wilson and said, mildly: “I say chaps, would you mind awfully stopping where you are…” But he exploded. Because it’s all part of the rigmarole. It’s the Way Things Are Done. And he was showing off to the crowd. Prid would have dropped his cameras laughing. He used to say: “There is a man in the far-flung forests of Canada, who is paid to shoot bears. When he shoots them he peels off their bottoms with a knife and the bottoms are brought all the way to England. When they arrive a craftsman hammers out the bottoms into a dome shape, puts a strap on them and tucks a little feather just to one side. And then some other men put the bear’s bottoms on their heads. Then they stand bolt upright outside the Queen’s house. Under the big, heavy bear’s bottoms - all through the heat of the day.” When you think of it like that, the famous busby looks utterly, utterly mad. So what was the Queen doing on Plymouth Hoe? She was there to touch a key. And touch it she did. Just fleetingly, but it was enough to please the men in uniform. Don’t ask me what it meant. All I know is that I felt sorry for the young soldier who had to hold this magical key. It wasn’t sort of key you or I would have for our house - it was a blinking great big shiny thing on a wood and velvet plinth. The young man had to stand there, bolt upright (of course), for a long time. After a while I could see him clenching his jaw. Then I saw his arms begin to shake. The guy was in agony. You try holding a big weight without moving for half an hour.  I guess adrenalin kicked in, because he stopped shaking when Her Majesty arrived. And all his mates and other sundry military figures stood  rigid as ramrods. They looked hilarious. But only to me. I realise I’m the tadpole in a minority when it comes to this sort of thing. Meanwhile the rest of Europe was getting on with far less important things. Like manufacturing cars. Like making fast new trains. Like endeavouring not to have traffic jams. Like basking in the sun. But who needs sun and wealth and ease of life when you’ve got magic keys and bears’ bottoms and old ladies in front of whom you must stand rigidly to attention? Sarcastic? Me? Not a bit of it. I like all this fairy tale craziness. We’d probably be no good at building cars anyway. Anyone remember the Austin Allegro? There are times, though, when I wonder about it all. I remember Prid telling me about his one visit to a non-conformist church. It was an evangelical rally and there were only two doors out. Above one was the word SAVED. Above the other was DAMNED. Prid said that, out of all the hundreds of people there, he was the only one who exited through the latter. I too, know that I walk among the damned.

We had a wonderful day out in Lyme Regis, where my friend the press photographer Richard Austin lives - and here’s the article I wrote about a day out mackerel fishing with him… High-days and holidays used to include an element of food gathering, especially at the seaside - but very few people today go shrimping, winkling or cockling for a family cook-up on the beach. However, one traditional seaside foodie activity that is alive and kicking is the hour-long mackerel fishing trip. The queues on the famous Cobb at Lyme Regis this week were impressive to behold as the dozen or so mackerel boats came and went from the quay. Harry May, the skipper who took the WMN out in his bright red boat, was constantly fielding calls on his mobile phone from hopeful fisherfolk who were booking days ahead.  And, as Harry and other skippers disgorged their freight of happy customers - clutching strings of sparkling and sometimes still-flapping mackerel - so the looks of envy and excitement on the faces of expectant fisherfolk awaiting their turn were a joy to see. Not surprisingly… Because nothing - absolutely nothing - in the sea tastes quite as good as a mackerel that is cooked within an hour or two of being caught. A day old mackerel is a thing of sadness when compared to one that is fresh from the waves - which is why I took my rapid-reaction Lotus Grill, so that photographer Richard Austin and I could enjoy ours on Monmouth Beach just minutes after we’d come ashore.  An act of huge optimism on my part, admittedly - because members of the Hesp family have long held a reputation for being the worst (or the unluckiest) fishermen in the world. I am, however, happy to report that not even our jinx could prevent me from hooking a fine brace of the beautiful fish which have been appearing in numbers in Lyme Bay for the past week or two.   Before that, there was a worrying no-show on the part of the mackerel which, some say, are being sucked out of the ocean in such vast and unsustainable numbers by massive Scottish trawlers, their annual shoals are in terminal decline. Others blame global warming and say the mackerel have gone north in search of cooler waters and are now being caught way up off the coast of Iceland.  If the mackerel are disappearing it will be to the huge disappointment of the many holidaymakers who love to catch them in places like Lyme Regis. Like the Brighton visitor Stephanie Copper who joined us, with her family, on Harry May’s boat… Stephanie had to be helped aboard as she was walking with the aid of crutches, and she told me: “I’ve got a bad back now, but nothing will stop me getting here. We’ve been coming for 20 years - I was even on the boat the day I was due with my youngest.  “We were hoping it (the movement of the boat) would start off my labour, but he was born five days late. Even so, his middle name is Bay, after Lyme Bay - and if he had been born here he would have been called Albert Harry Bay Copper, after Harry May.  “Our 17-year-old son, Toby, first went on the boat when he was a few months old in his buggy.” As for the mackerel fishing trips offered in her own home-seaside-town, she said: “It’s not the same. They have very big boats - 60 people - and they only do long journeys. We don’t go on them. But the first thing we do when we arrive in Lyme Regis is try to work out when we can go mackerel fishing. That’s our priority. I absolutely love it.” It was the same with all the hopefuls waiting on the quay and the successful fisherfolk stepping ashore with their shining prizes: the annual mackerel fishing trip was a must-do part of the family holiday - although I’m guessing not many of them had named their babies after the experience.  As we cruised out to the mackerel grounds about a mile offshore aboard the locally built 24-foot-long Marie F, Harry May told me: “I’ve been doing this job for 45 years, coming out of Lyme Regis harbour. It is most definitely a British tradition. Many people think that - so we don’t want the mackerel going down hill.  “And for the past few years they have been going down hill a bit,” he shrugged. “I think we’ve got global warming and the whitebait and mackerel are in large numbers off Iceland, so they might be moving north.  “But we’ve got some really good sized ones at the moment. The last week or so has been really good, at exactly the right time when there’s loads of people here. Which is really good because people want to barbecue their mackerel.  “Barbecuing mackerel is definitely why they want to come out,” Harry went on. “The fresher you cook a mackerel, the better it is. A lot of people cook them straight away - I even have someone in the fish and chip on the quay who will cook them for you.  “If you’re in a B&B or hotel, or you don’t fancy taking the fish home in your car, I’ve got a man who will fillet them for you and they are whisked off and within ten minutes people are eating their fish with his chips. Six quid the lot!  “But people barbecue them on the beach - and the nice thing is that on Lyme Regis beach you can barbecue your fish. Over at Portland and Weymouth you’re not allowed to - I fancy over the years people have left a right mess there. But here it’s OK. So you can go to the Harbour Inn, buy your drinks, sit on the beach with your beer and barbecue your mackerel.”  Not only did we forgo the beer (I had to drive home to Exmoor), but we also turned our backs on the main beach at Lyme because there was not a single empty square foot to be found on its sands in the heatwave earlier this week. Instead, Richard and I turned left at the top of The Cobb and were instantly on pebbly Monmouth Beach (named after he of the failed Rebellion, who landed there). Harry had given us two extra mackerel to go with the pair I’d caught (we also had to feed my wife and her friend), so I gutted the whole lot standing knee deep in the sea and they were on the Lotus Grill, literally within ten minutes of us landing.  The Lotus (available from the Somerset company Hot Smoked - https://hotsmoked.co.uk) is the ideal portable beach barbecue, by the way, because not only is it lightweight, but it’s got a little electric motor which fans the tiny crucible that contains the charcoal. This means it can be hot enough for cooking fish in a couple of minutes.  And that, in my opinion, is the very best way to cook and eat a fresh mackerel - cooked over hot coals on a beach, with nothing but a lemon and a sprinkle of pepper and salt for company.  The trips still aren’t up and running as I post this article on 15/07/2020 but might well be later as the lockdown restrictions continue to ease - visit http://www.mackerelfishinglymeregis.com/  or phone 07974 753287.

The photograph above was taken by the well known photographer Richard Austin - a man who, over the years, has won every single award press photography has to offer. He sent it to me just now, but for the life of me I cannot recall what the occasion was. It seems that whatever I was writing in the churchyard, it was boring enough to put the cat to sleep. For two decades, Richard and I shared many an adventure working on stories for the Western Morning News - the main daily newspaper in the West Country - and other titles in the group. In way, we represent what is now all but a forgotten era. No media worker gets to do the things we did any longer - the modern job is very different and, believe me, nowhere near as much fun. We were out on the road a great deal - I dread to think the number of miles each of us would amass over a year back in the good old days. When you are covering a patch that stretches from somewhere just west of Bristol right down to the Isles of Scilly, you certainly clock up the miles. Richard and I got along very well together, sharing the same dry - sometimes dark - sense of humour. Laughing a lot - getting along with the countryfolk we used to meet in all manner of places - and understanding the world world in which they lived. The pair of us always used to cover the really big occasions - the Royal visits and even the horrible murders. But often we’d be working on obscure features that I’d dreamed up - mainly (and I can say this in all honesty now that I no longer work for the paper) designed to give me a sense of fun and adventure rather than for any loftier reason. And we did have fun. A lot of laughs, some scrapes and a good many adventures. And the benefit of all this belting about was that we knew everyone - and everyone knew us. That’s one hell of a good thing when it comes to being a journalist. Knowing people - and having them know and trust you - hugely, massively, helps in the level of authentic coverage you can offer. As usual, I am a little pressed for time right now, but will relate some of these Austin-Hesp adventures in different posts over the coming weeks. But in the meantime, to give you a flavour of the sort of man Richard is and the sort of things we used to get up to, I have rescued the following story from my archives, written probably 15 or more years ago… As a roving feature-writer I regularly work with Richard and can report that I have never known a grown man to hurl himself towards terra-firma - muddy or otherwise - with such enthusiastic abandon. I am forever turning around to speak with a colleague who is not there - at eye-level, at least. What I have learned to do is look downwards and there, often as not, I'll find the six-foot-four photographer lying, crawling or sitting depending on the shot. "I like to get on the same level as my subjects," explained Richard, while crawling down Dulverton main-street recently. I had suggested his laundry bills must be huge. "Well, you can get a bit grubby, but it's important to get the right angle, especially with animals. Getting down to their level can make all the difference to a shot. Hey - why am I telling you my secrets?" Later we got to talking about one of the most memorable photos in Animal Magic - the one where four badger cubs are lined up in the footsteps of Nikki Hawkins of Secret World animal centre at East Huntspill, near Bridgwater. You can see the young badgers walking through the buttercups at eye-level: "Seconds after I took that shot a low-flying jet flew over and they scattered to the four corners of the field," recalls Richard. I have never known a snapper like the tireless 48 year-old from Lyme Regis. (Blimey - was he only 48 when i wrote this?) He ducks and weaves around a subject with one of his big Canon digital cameras zapping away as if it is in some way an adjunct of his body. He doesn't so much carry the device, but wear it. When they invent a camera that is fixed permanently inside the photographer's eye, Richard Austin will have one. So, not surprisingly, I had been looking forward to seeing a copy of the now famous book and took the first opportunity I could to sit with Richard and get him to show me some of his favourite shots. "I suppose I should include the two 'gay' swans - if only because I've never spent so long on any subject before," Richard told me. "I knew I could sell the picture far and wide the moment I saw the sign at Abbotsbury explaining how two male swans had set up nest together. As long as I could get the right shot. But it took me four hours to get that picture. I was about to give up so, as a last desperate attempt to get something, I threw a bit of grass in the water and they both grabbed at it together. "I am not the sort of photographer who sits about in hedgerows for hours on end. 20 minutes - that's my normal limit - then I'm off. After all, I am a press photographer, so I don't get that much time." Of course, a good many of Richard's animal subjects are news in their own right, like the rare osprey that was stealing fish from a trout farm near Dartington... "But it was the Jack Russell dog who snatched the headline. There I was, waiting around for the osprey to go fishing, but all it did was sit in a tree. And, suddenly, there was the trout farm owner's terrier wading into the water catching a fish. It stole the show." At other times a seemingly unremarkable shot will hit the front page of a national newspaper - like Richard's picture of a pheasant running through the snow on the Blackdown Hills. Then there are sublime shots where the photographer is in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Not that these occasions necessarily happen by accident. Richard gave me an example by telling me how he'd noticed the way in which blackheaded gulls on the River Axe had developed a unique system for catching small fish. "They sit on the water and then suddenly flip forwards to spear the fish - it's the only place I've seen them do it," said Richard, explaining how he'd captured a fabulous image of one of the birds making the manoeuvre above a mirror-like surface. "Actually, I was a bit unhappy with that shot as I wanted the beak of the real bird to be touching the beak of its reflection, but the camera I was using wasn't my normal one and it was a bit slow." Other shots are purely the result of good fortune, like the one of a seagull pecking at a young man's head. "That was taken at the annual Christmas Day swim at Charmouth - I had a feeling the gull might do something like that. People cuss the gulls, but they are characters - they are the most adaptive birds we have." Other photos are highly planned, but nerve-racking all the same. "Like when Jeff Prince of Secret World released the peregrine falcon he nursed back to health. I went all the way to Cheddar Gorge to get that shot - and it was a once-and-once-only thing. The bird wasn't going to come back for me to do it again." All the equipment Richard uses is digital and all his cameras are manufactured by Canon - a D2000, an EOS 1D and an EOS D30 - for the enthusiasts among you. I asked him if there was some kind of Holy Grail in the animal world - something he has yet to photo, something shy and difficult to shoot... "The kingfisher. I've got pictures of them before, but I reckon getting a superb shot of a kingfisher in action in an English river is far more difficult than shooting lions out in the Serengeti." My guess is that Richard Austin will snap the illusive kingfisher, sooner rather than later. In the meantime he can flick the pages of Animal Magic with enormous pride - it is one of the best collections of animal photographs ever put together in this country let alone this region. As I say, more Richard Austin stories will be on this site soon - in the meantime you can have a look at his website at https://www.richardaustinimages.com/

A year or two ago I took a trip down the Saigon River from Ho Chi Min City. We spent a day out on the Mekong Delta meeting the farmers, visiting little waterside towns and having lunch in the most extraordinary rest-stop on the flat-lands. The trip was run by Les Rives - a specialist excursion company - and it was all very well run. What impressed me most is that they insist on using local people and purchasing local produce which is prepared by local farmers and their wives - which means they bring plenty of employment to what is otherwise a fairly poor area. I’d love to go on another of their excursions - but in the meantime am left in lockdown here in West Somerset wondering how on earth people who live in the shanty towns alongside the river have been faring during the pandemic. When I look it up on the Internet I see that Vietnam has quite low coronavirus numbers compared to many countries - I hope this is an accurate picture but cannot really understand how they do the social distancing thing in some of those cramped places.

TGO Challenge - A Walk from Glenuig to Montrose Day 14 - I pretend not to hear I was awoken by lorries roaring up the A90 at 5am, and had half a mind to pack up and head off to Johnshaven which looks an interesting little place with a great name. However, PW and I had vaguely talked about reaching the coast at Nether Warburton, and I’d enjoyed walking with PW the day before so decided to wait for her and fell asleep again to wake at eight. The route today was straightforward enough; cross the main road, which was probably the most dangerous part of the whole trip, over the River North Esk to Gallery, then follow minor roads through rolling farmland past Marymill, where there was a view back to the hills of yesterday, and Stone of Morphie to the coastal main road, where a short lane leads down to the south end of St Cyrus beach at Nether Warburton. There's a very interesting junk shop on the lane down to the beach, just past Sick Man's Shade, but we didn’t have time for that. "Junk Shop at Sick Man's Shade" - there's got to be a blues song in there somewhere. We seemed to be in a nature reserve and taking a raised walkway across the dunes we found ourselves at the top of a sandy beach with the glittering sea beyond. Of course, we had to take shoes and socks off for a paddle. PW mentioned going in for a swim, but I pretended not to hear her……. The day was actually colder than the photos suggest, and the sea was even colder, so our paddles didn't last long. Feeling a bit what-next-ish we wandered back up the lane past the junk shop, meeting Ali, Sue and David on the way. It was odd meeting people who were still doing the Challenge – on the one hand I had actually finished, which felt good, but on the other hand I couldn’t help thinking that it would be better to be still doing the Challenge. And so it was that I decided that I’d better come back next year.

TGO Challenge - A Walk from Glenuig to Montrose Day 13 - Sunshine and company Although there are many ways to get from Tarfside to the coast the usual way is to walk down Glen Esk to Edzell and camp at North water Bridge, and then make the short hop to the coast at St Cyrus or Montrose the next day, and that was my plan. I was up at seven, and had a bit of muesli to keep me going, but I’d made my mind up to have breakfast at The Retreat. PW said she’d like to too, and she’d catch me up. On the road down to The Retreat I found myself walking with a woman I’d exchanged a few words with all the way back at Corrour Station. Val had been walking along the path to Corrour just as I was packing up, but as the path was on the other side of a river to my pitch we’d only been able to swap a few words, but had agreed to meet in Corrour Station café. As it turned out the café had been closed and I hadn’t seen her again. But now it looked like we were to have breakfast in a café together after all. Today the café was packed, but we got a table near the entrance which somebody had just left. PW joined us after a while. Despite my earlier muesli I had a proper breakfast here. It was very good too. PW and Val seemed to know a lot of the people there, and when we set off at 9.45 I found myself walking with PW, Ali Agdon, Sue Oxley and David Albon who I’d chatted briefly to on the minibus to Glenuig. At first we followed the road down the glen, but after a couple of miles we turned down a track, across the River North Esk, and then followed tracks down the SW side of the river. These last two days had always looked like they might be a bit tame, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that if the scenery wasn’t dramatic, it was very pleasant, with rolling moorland dropping down into the wooded glen. The day was also turning out to be quite sunny. Considering the number of people who’d been camped at Tarfside we saw very few other people on the way down, although some people seemed to have made an even later start than ourselves. Suddenly the hills stopped and the glen disgorged us out onto a flattish plain of farmland. I found myself the recipient of seven text messages, surely a record for me. I was just following the others rather than looking at the map, so it was a bit of a surprise to suddenly find myself in the village of Edzell. There was a crowd of Challengers outside the pub, and no doubt many more inside, but we carried on a bit further to the Tuck Inn café where we added our rucksacks to the long line propped up against the cafe wall. Inside seemed to be full of Challengers and we were lucky enough to find a table that would seat five. Somebody suggested scrambled eggs, and I instantly knew that that was just what I wanted. As sometimes happens in Scotland, the food was slightly different to what I would expect, although in this case it was perfectly good. First a plate each piled high with scrambled eggs appeared, and then a few minutes later, after we had already made a good start a plate piled high with toast arrived. Although we’d had a good breakfast that suddenly seemed a long time ago, and conversation subsided whilst we dived in. The way out of Edzell proved to be typically Scottish – a suspension footbridge over the River North Esk. PW and I then pulled ahead of the other three and found ourselves on a long straight road which led past a disused airfield to North Water Bridge campsite. The hills had stopped quite suddenly at Edzell, and when looking at the map whilst planning I’d wondered if this coastal plain would be a bit boring, but in fact, although we were now walking along a straight level road, most of the coastal plain looked pleasant enough – rolling farmland dotted with woodland. It was only £4 a night to camp at North Water Bridge, but it did have the disadvantage of being very near a main road, which made it a bit noisy. There were quite a few tents already pitched, but by nightfall the place was packed. All Challengers except for a few caravaners peeping out from behind curtained windows to watch this strange influx. I was strangely tired and was falling asleep over dinner, so went to bed early.

Tomorrow I will be leaving the valley for my first real trip outside West Somerset in 110 days. I began this diary a few days after we began shutting ourselves away for the lockdown - I haven’t been to a supermarket or a pub in at least 100 days - so tomorrow’s trip to south Devon will come as a culture shock. Anyway, it got me thinking about the last time I was somewhere really busy. It was a long time ago as I tend to avoid really overly busy places. However, there’s something about the frenetic energy of South East Asia which makes hugely crowded streets and market places somehow enjoyable. And the last time I was somewhere like that was in Nha Trang… We were staying (thanks to my good friends at Grifco Travel PR) at a new resort near the port of Nha Trang, which is a buzzing city located on the popular southern section of the central coastal zone. Just a couple of years old, The Anam - with its 117 villas, 96 rooms and suites, three swimming pools and spa - is set in a lovely 12-hectare estate next to a long white beach that meets steep sided mountains just half a mile to the north.  It’s an attractive place designed to embrace a theme of colonial chic - which means architecture that fuses old-world colonial architecture with a traditional Vietnamese design that includes Hue-style roofs, lanterns and decorative pools - and it operates under what it calls a philosophy of ‘No Shoes. No News. No Stress’. The place is owned by a wealthy Vietnamese scientist, which is marvellous because it does not follow the weary and uniform “international” format that so many Far Eastern resorts adopt. Instead it goes out of its way to address sustainable tourism and support the local economy. All of the resort’s hardwood interiors, for example, were sourced from sustainable forests while Vietnamese artwork adorns the property’s walls and local artisan-designed tiles line the floors.  The local touch I liked most was the “Mamma’s Night”. The general manager back then (I believe he’s since moved on) became a good friend during our stay. Herbert Laubichier-Pichler told me he’d introduced the concept by asking staff if any of their mums who lived locally could cook well. He then invited these mums to come in and prepare their favourite regional dishes. Now they do so on a regular basis and welcome the pay which they can take home to their families. Which brings me to the fact that although Vietnam is a fast developing country, there are a great many folk who live on a subsistence level. One day Herbert arranged for one of his local managers to take us into the rural hinterland that lies between the resort and the mountains to the west - and you soon see that life on the small farms and villages is not at all like it is in the go-fast neighbouring city of Nha Trang. Rural life in Vietnam is beautiful and scenic, but the people are poor - which is why I applauded the fact that Herbert has plans to develop new working relationships between his resort and local people.   We spent a day in Nha Trang enjoying another of Herbert’s innovations - a tour that took us around the amazingly busy backstreets to meet a handful of Vietnam’s most famous artists. The tour is available to all the resort’s guests, and it was good to meet the artists in their studios. And it was exciting to be driven around the frenetic and rather lovely city on the back of Vespa scooters driven by students who work for a local firm that specialises in such two-wheeled tours.  Little did I know that later that day I was to take charge of a scooter myself, rather than be a passenger. Herbert and his wife had arranged an evening’s entertainment which meant visiting various watering holes via Vespa - the vehicle of choice when dealing with the anarchic Vietnamese traffic.   We visited romantic riverside bars, and dined at a local seafood restaurant where everything was brought to our table alive before being cooked. I shall never forget that meal - unbelievably inexpensive, and superb.  You can see my pal Hubert in the photos below - choosing fish at a fabulous and amazingly cheap restaurant and also with dancing with his wife . We even ended the night 50 floors above the bay in a rooftop nightclub perched atop a skyscraper. It was one of the best nights out I’ve had in years, but I was glad to eventually relax in the back of a taxi which drove us back to the long sandy Camh Ran peninsula, where The Anam is located. I waxed so lyrical about the seafood we’d enjoyed, the staff at The Anam set up a lesson in Vietnamese cookery for me with one of the head chefs. Several Vietnamese spring rolls later, and after a bowl of sweet and sour fish soup, a plate of chicken with lemongrass and a green papaya and beef salad, I felt very full indeed.  Which was fine because I had one of the beautiful villas near the beach across The Anam’s smooth lawns, where I could escape to recline in a lounger by my own private pool. And that, indeed, is exactly the sort of place The Anam is. A shrine to luxury and relaxation.

TGO Challenge - A Walk from Glenuig to Montrose Day 12 Tuesday _ People I was woken up at about 4am by the appallingly loud noise of grouse and seagulls squabbling. I wouldn’t have had to put up with that at the hotel. The plan for today was to walk over the hill to into Glen Lee, and then walk down Glen Lee into Glen Esk and camp the night at Tarfside, a popular stop-over point for Challengers, and a short day. I was away before eight in thick cloud, and wasn’t to see much of the world for a few hours. I followed the path up the east side of the loch onto Green Hill which was a bigger pull up than I been expecting. From here I followed the track SE as marked on the map, but missed the junction and found myself walking downwards toward Shank of Catstae. I had to go back a little way and turn the GPS on to find the path to Glen Lee. What was confidently marked on the map as a path turned out to be a mere suggestion on the ground. At first it was cairned which was helpful. Obviously it had once been an important through route between Glen Clova and Glen Lee, but I guess it is rarely used now except by a few Challengers every May. I managed to find my way along it quite well, but at the dip between East Cairn and Wester Skuiley it was a bit boggy, and stones for cairns had obviously been in short supply. I took a guess at the right path and found I’d veered off to much to the north, but rather than turn back I skirted some crags and dropped down to the Burn of Inchgrundle joining the path half a mile down the valley. The path took me through Inchgrundle and out onto the flat land at the head of Loch Lee. Off to my left, coming down Glen Lee were little groups of Challengers. I was joining one of the popular Challenge through routes, this one being from Braemar to Tarfside. From here to the coast two days away I would be in the constant company of other Challengers. Where my track met the main through route I was immediately joined by a couple of other Challengers. One, Patrick, a quiet thoughtful chap from London I was to see a few more times, eventually sitting with him at the Challenge dinner on Friday evening. The other Challenger took our meeting as a chance to sit down and take his socks off. I found myself walking with several people in turn on the track, then road, down to Tarfside, but most memorable was a Challenger called Vince who’d heard of the Challenge only three weeks before it started. He certainly had a zest for life, and I found him a very entertaining person to walk with. He’d walked all over the world, and after the Challenge was planning to walk from Braemar to Aviemore, and then The West Highland Way. Eventually Vince and I arrived at Tarfside and he burst into St Drostan’s with an instant all-encompassing friendliness which I could only admire. His enormous personality filled the already busy building. After a cup of tea and one of St Drostan’s famous bacon butties I left to pitch the tent in the Tarfside playing field. There were a few tents pitched here already, and I met Bob and Rose Cartwright who run a lightweight backpacking company, but our conversation was cut short by a shower of rain, and I hurried back to my tent. After sorting things out in the tent I emerged into sunshine and chatted to my next door neighbours who’d arrived in the rain. After pottering around for an hour or so I decided to walk down the road to see what The Retreat was. I’d heard of this establishment and seen signs at the playing field. It turned out to be a community run museum and café. In the café there was one other person, another Challenger who, despite it bing mid-afternoon, was working his way through a three course meal. Humphrey Weightman was a breath of fresh air after eleven days of thinking my own thoughts. It only took the slightest of prodding to get Humphrey to expound on all sorts of unlikely subjects, and I was only too happy to listen, no matter how unlikely the subject. We were only disturbed by the arrival of my Scottish Tea, which consisted of tea, scones, pancakes and home-made rhubarb jam, and then a bit later, getting chucked out at closing time. Humphrey was heading back into the hills, but I would meet him again when we'd reached the coast. Wandering back up to the campsite I found it had filled up considerably, and by evening there were well over fifty tents. It was all very friendly. The Retreat were delivering meals to the campsite, and at about seven some fish and chips which I’d ordered turned up. A bit later on I saw Bob Cartwright talking to the occupants of a tent near me, which had arrived whilst I was at The Retreat. I kept hearing the name “Shirley” (aka PW) so went over and asked the tent if it was Shirley inside. After asking who I was the tent burst open and I was given a friendly hug, a mat to sit on (what a great idea), and a flapjack. Shirley was the only person on the Challenge who I’d met previously, and it was great to see someone I knew. I'd met PW in the Lake District, and her contagious enthusiasm had overcome my lack of confidence about my ability to do the Challenge. I don’t think I’d have been on The Challenge if it wasn’t for her, and this thought hadn’t escaped me when lost on Sgurr na Ba Glaise in the cloud and hail. After a chat we agreed to walk together the next day.

Another day, another cider-related video. This time yet another little film from my trip to Normandy in 1992 when my great pal Tim Bannerman helped me glean all manner of information about the way the French deal with their orchards, their apples and their cider and other fruit-based produce. In this short video Tim and I visited a remarkable farmer who was certainly forward thinking when it came to the politics of the countryside in relation to cider. What he says in the video is still relevant to this day - even more so here in the South West where we could certainly do with learning a few of the examples set by the French. By the way this curious photo of me staring up at Tim stuck in a tree has nothing to do with the video or with orchards or anything else. It’s certainly not an apple tree. It was taken a couple of years ago when we visited the Bannerman's in their Herefordshire home - and I thought somehow that is very loosely fitted in with the theme…

TGO Challenge - A Walk from Glenuig to Montrose Day 11 - Cloud I was amazed to awake to the sound of rain at 3:30am. I’d naturally assumed that the sun was back for good. I was up at seven, looking at maps to see the best route down Glen Isla, connect with my Foul Weather Alternative (FWA) route, and over into Glen Prossen. The rain had obviously set in for the day, and the cloud was very low, and huddled in my tent eating breakfast I wasn’t confident enough to go over Mayar and Driesh. Coming over Glas Maol yesterday had put me high up Glen Isla, and a long way from my FWA. Today’s plan had been to struggle up the side of the glen until I came to the path leading up to Finalty Hill, and from Finalty Hill walk along the sunny tops to Mayar and Driesh, listening to skylarks along the way, and then drop down into Glen Clova. Instead, because of the weather I would walk down Glen Isla, cross over lower hills into Glen Prossen, then camp in the hills between Glen Prossen and Glen Clova. Having packed up, and just as I was mulling over the fact that I was now going to have to cross the river again to get to the track, a text arrived from Helen. I was very surprised that it reached that tucked away corner, but it had taken since yesterday to get there. It cheered me up no end, and as I walked down the glen resigned to connecting up with my FWA I started wondering why I couldn’t go over Mayar and Driesh. After all it was only a bit of wind, rain and cloud, why not give it a go? Looking at the map I could see that the only difficult bit would be finding my way from the point marked 890m across a featureless stretch of moorland to Mayar, but all it would need is a single compass bearing. From Mayar there would certainly be a path as Munros are much frequented. I decided I’d give it a go and walked down to Tulachan Lodge, up the track over Spying Hillock where a herd of forty or so deer passed fifty metres in front of me. Of course I’d sensibly put the camera in the rucksack out of the rain, so no chance of getting a photo of them. In fact the rain made it a day of few photos. I continued on up into the cloud, over Finalty Hill and onto the 890m point, counting paces to give a rough idea of my position along the track. Just before pt 890m I found that a track headed off in more or less the right direction for Mayar, and I decided to follow it as long as it kept heading in the right direction. The track was useful for a mile or so, but as can be expected, I’d drifted rather far of my course before I realised that the track was definitely heading the wrong way. I got the GPS out, retraced my steps a few hundred metres until I was in a good position, found my way across the boggy bealach before Mayar, then made the easy ascent to the summit (928m). I didn’t hang about here as there was nothing to see, it was windy and raining, and the weather was obviously deteriorating. I followed a well defined path down into the gentle dip between Mayar and Driesh. Here a path, the Kilbo Path, comes up the Shank of Drumwhallo from Glen Prossen to drop down the Shank of Drumfollow into Glen Doll. What names! As it had started to hail in an aggressive way I followed the path down rather than take in Driesh, and soon found myself descending a steep ridge (Shank of Drumfollow) into Glen Doll, flanked by dramatic cliffs on either hand. Across the valley water was cascading down the rivers. Looking back up the ridge I could see someone or something crossing the skyline towards Driesh – a hardier Challenger than me I supposed. I knew that camping wasn’t allowed in the upper valley, but wasn’t sure how far down the ban extended, and I had hoped to camp beside Loch Brandy, high on the NE side of the glen. That didn’t seem likely if conditions were like this, and the Clova Hotel, a few miles down the glen, started to seem a highly desirable place to spend a night. It would be nice to get out of this awful weather, dry out and meet a few other people. Reaching the bottom of the glen I took cover in a thick pine forest for a few minutes to get out of a particularly bad shower, and to grab a bite to eat. It wasn’t a very successful lunch spot so I jumped back out onto the track, surprising a couple of other Challengers who were walking down the track. These two turned out to be the people I had looked up at walking across to Driesh. They had spent the night camped a little further up Glen Isla than I had, and seemed to have been a little behind me all morning. I hadn’t seen them either last night or this morning. They kept asking if there was a shed, but didn’t seem happy with the one I pointed out behind them, and they eventually went into the visitor centre whilst I carried on down the glen. Below the forest Glen Doll becomes Glen Clova, and like all these glens, Glen Clova was very much a separate entity and had it’s own character. The pine forests and steep cliffs of Glen Doll gave way to a more open valley with agricultural land. At the Clova Hotel I went into the phone box and phoned Challenge control to let them know I hadn’t been washed away, and Roger Smith enquired where I intended to stay that night. I told him I had intended to camp beside Loch Brandy but had gone off the idea because of the weather, but he put Alan Hardy on the phone, and speaking to Alan I thought “why not?”. The hotel bunkhouse was visible from the phone box, an uncompromising rectangular box with few windows – how bad could camping be? A visit to the hotel was still required however. One thing I had learned on the Challenge was to get some real food and shelter whenever it presented itself. I found myself in a bar at the back of the hotel where a few other Challengers were obviously settling in for the afternoon and evening. Scones and tea appeared and a little later Andrew who I’d met all the way back at Glenfinnan walked in. After my tea, scones and chat I got up and said that I was on my way. This announcement brought comments of surprise and requests to stay, but I assured them I’d prefer to be in my tent and set off into the rain. Another thing the Challenge does is teach you a few things about yourself – I was obviously an idiot. Why not stay in the comfort and companionship of the hotel? Actually I was looking forward to camping at the lochside as it would be my last planned wild camp. The map showed some flattish ground near the outflow of the loch, and on the phone Alan had thought this too. I found a small spot near the SE corner of the loch and managed to put the tent up before the next shower came through. The loch is set in a corrie, and I sat eating my dinner looking out of the tent doorway at curtains of cloud moving first one way then the other across the corrie headwall. Bliss.

Here is another video related to Tim Bannerman’s excellent Cider Chronicles. We shot this footage 28 years ago at the annual Lisieux Tree Fair where Tim was hoping to add to the family orchard - and we follow him as he manages to purchase some cider apple trees.

TGO Challenge - A Walk from Glenuig to Montrose Day 10 Sunday I woke up at 1:30 to find heavy condensation in the tent. In my hurry to put it up before the rain I’d forgotten to open both end vents which I’d partly closed at the windy Blair Atholl campsite. I was awake again at seven, and lay in bed planning my route for the next couple of days, listening to the sound of occasional showers drumming on the tent a few inches above my head. Today’s planned route was to walk east across over the low hills to Spittal of Glenshee, and then head NE to camp in Glen Brighty. But as was becoming the habit, this isn’t what I did, instead diverting from Glenshee over the Munros Creag Leacach and Glas Maol, and dropping down into upper Glen Isla to camp. This was part of my resolve to make things more exciting where I could. A couple of backpackers were walking up the slope from the corner of the wood as I went out for water. Some people from one of the houses I’d passed in the glen yesterday had come up to the loch to fish. I was away at nine, following in the footsteps of the backpackers I’d seen earlier. A fence ran in the right direction and a little higher up I found the day looked increasingly promising. It had been a bit dark and humid at my campsite under the trees. Cutting down behind Elrig I found myself on a track heading north up a glen and set off up it, but I hadn’t gone more than a few metres when a building appeared around the corner. This was too good an offer to miss, so I stopped for a bite to eat. Looking in the guest book on the table I found that Irene and Les, the couple I'd met a few days ago near Loch Rannoch, had looked in thirty minutes before me, and over a hundred years before them Queen Victoria had stopped for a snack. Gorp and flapjack? A pleasant stream-side pull up the glen to An Lairig (The Pass) followed, and then a new scene opened up – the Spittall of Glenshee and it’s surrounding hills. I hurried down and went into the hotel just as Irene and Les were coming out. We had a chat, and as we were continually running into each other we compared routes ahead, they were heading further south than me so I probably wouldn’t see them again. In fact I saw them at Montrose where they had arrived a few minutes before me. I had a good look at my maps whilst enjoying hot chocolate and carrot cake in the hotel. As the weather was improving I decided to divert over the Munros to the north of Spittal of Glenshee – Craig Leacach and Glas Maol – and then drop down to the rugged looking upper Glen Isla. I’d been following the Cateran Trail since the Upper Lunch Hut, but at the ominous sounding Tomb (actually a rather nice cottage) I turned north, following a track then a path up to the bealach between Carn Chomh-Stri and Carn Aig Mhala, where I stopped for lunch whist still reasonably sheltered from the cold east wind that was blowing. At least it was sunny now, with large clouds racing by a little higher up. Lunch was a rolls, ham, cheese and coleslaw, bought in the shop in Blair Atholl yesterday. I had wondered about getting an early lunch in the hotel at Spittal of Glenshee, but this was much better. Massive views to the south and west. A final pull up steeper slopes brought me to Craig Leacach at 4pm. From here it was gentle slopes to the higher Glas Maol. A man made object attracted my attention near the summit, and walking over I found what looked like a crashed microlight. The summit cairn is a semi-circular wind shelter, unfortunately facing the wrong way for today’s easterly. I took a photo of myself on the cairn at 5pm..... …..and then headed off down to the SE to pick up the track to Monega Hill. Looking down the cliffs into Caenlochan Glen was surprisingly dramatic. Once down into the glen I turned north up the glen to have a look at Bessies cairn and then found a place to camp at 6:30pm. I couldn’t see the bridge marked on the map so waded across the river to a good looking spot. Being on the east side of the river would put me in a good position to ascend Finalty Hill tomorrow. I had a risotto for dinner followed by cups of tea, but although I still had the 100g gas canister I’d bought in Blair, I knew I’d better not use too much gas. Maybe it was overpriced, but another 100g canister would have made life a bit more pleasant. I was feeling quite pleased with myself for taking advantage of the good weather and coming over the hills to end up in this dramatic glen and I was also now well placed to go over Mayar and Driesh the next day.