Finding Al Alvarez

A couple of weeks ago I was in London. A sweltering, tourist crowded, sweaty, dirty London.  I jumped on the number 24 bus at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road and within thirty minutes I reached Hampstead Heath. I have never been before, had only see it on films and TV – Notting Hill, Smiley’s People.  I expected it to be like the other London Parks, manicured and prim but it's not, Hampstead Heath is wild.

I began my walk at Hampstead Railway Station and scuffed by feet uphill through rough stubble and newly cut grass.  Benches perched randomly on the hillside,  left for anyone willing to climb the slope to take in the breadth and beauty of the trees and the odd glimpse of the city.

Two competent dog walkers with twelve dogs between them seemed comfortable with the surroundings so I followed them for a bit then swung low to meet a well-made path. This took me to a causeway where two boys fished in a pond. Notices advised against disturbing the water in respect of the swimmers.

Swimmers?   

At the far end of the pool was a jetty behind which wooden huts huddled.  In the water I noticed a bald head heading toward a string of buoys about twenty five metres from the jetty.  An elderly gentleman, the only one in the water, reached the barrier and hugged it, taking in great whoops of breath. Bravo, I thought and before I had the chance to take out my camera, he was thrashing back the way he came.    This was the Mixed Pool.

The Mixed Pool with old man swimming

From here I climbed Parliament Hill where I was rewarded with the iconic view of London only previously seen on the small screen but I was then saddened to see a dejected English football supporter, draped in his flag, gazing with awe at his green and pleasant land; wondering, no doubt, where all his World Cup dreams had gone.

A poor wee soul on Parliament Hill

I followed the path down to Highgate, toyed with the idea of looking for Karl Marx's grave but in the end caught a bus back to Kings Cross.

Walking is hungry work so I stopped off at The Quakers’ Friends House café for lunch. This decision was impulsive. I had been passing the place every morning for the past week, it was close to my hotel and the menu on the board outside looked tempting.   And they had a bookshop!

The lunch can only be described as OK. A dry scotch egg with salad.  The bookshop was more interesting.  I am not religious but am interested in the different philosophies religions explore. This bookshop had many on offer but one book caught my eye.

Pondlife by Al Alvarez.   

I have been familiar with Al Alvarez’s work for a number of years.  I always believed he was an American climber who was also an excellent writer. I have enjoyed many of his articles, stories and poems in various climbing magazines through the years. He wrote the introduction to the iconic short story collection The GamesClimbers Play.  I vaguely remembered he played poker.

I read the blurb about his previous publications, it turns out he is British and a writer and critic who climbs, how could I have got that so wrong?  The book was subtitled A Swimmers Journal;  he had added another activity to his already full portfolio.

I almost fainted with shock when I read the author’s profile and saw his photo.  The book journals the last few years of the author's swims in pools at Hampstead Heath and charts his slow decline into old age. The photo shows an old man, bald head, and grey moustache above a rather pained smile.  I was convinced the man I saw only an hour before in the mixed pool was Al Alvarez.

The coincidence made me giddy. What made me go to those pools? I had no idea they were there. What made me go to the Quaker House? The only reason I picked up that particular book was I knew the name – I thought he was an American climber!   It was weirder than weird.

Of course I had to buy the book. 

The journals begin in 2002 and charts Alvarez as he stumbles from his home near the Heath to the ponds for his swim. He swims all year round and along with a daily water temperature he lists the birds and the blossom, the changing seasons.  There is a real sense and love of the place. The shifting cast of characters are wonderful, fellow swimmers (mostly ex-athletes) and lifeguards. It is like an old boys club and very companionable. The author is pained by a bad ankle that plagues his walking and as the years spread over the pages he becomes more and more debilitated, suffering a stroke and many falls.  His frustration is heart breaking but I shy from feeling sorry for him because that is what he loathes most. By the end of the book his life is a constant battle against pain and his declining years.  This is an amazing insight into what we all must face one day; this man’s struggles should give us the courage to face it with dignity.

The book only chronicles up to 2011 and by the end I began to doubt whether it was Al Alvarez I saw that day. I hope it was because it means he is still winning.

The hills are alive with the sound of coughing

Morning Sun on the Mont Blanc Massif













Relaxed and refreshed after the holiday - No.

Today is the first day since I came home that I have enough energy to post a blog.

I developed a sore throat and cough just before setting off on a trekking holiday which would take us over passes and through the valleys of the Pays de Mont Blanc. What should have been an action filled, spirits lifting, weight dropping fortnight, turned into a barking trudge up hillsides; sometimes to as high as 2500 meters where I would collapse into hacking, gut ripping, coughing fits.

I had looked forward to meeting fellow travellers of different nationalities. But at the end of each day when I wheezed into the refuges, my fellow walkers eyed me with dread, knowing I would keep them off their well earned sleep. I tried in vain to muffle my coughs by burying my head in my sleeping bag, but the only relief I got was the night an elderly man two spaces down kept the whole valley awake with his apnea.

Despite my disability I managed to enjoy the trip. The refuges were clean and the wardens fed us well and soothed my throat with fresh lemon and honey. The mountains and scenery were stunning and the meadow flowers would make Jeremy Clarkson feel guilty about the Mont Blanc Tunnel.





Chamonix in the shadow of the Mont Blanc Summit





Why I Like Chamonix

The big surprise of the holiday was how much I enjoyed visiting Chamonix. My expectations of this tourist trap was of fat hoards splodging about on dog poo covered streets. There are tourists, but they are there for a reason - the mountains.

The hulk of Mont Blanc follows you round every corner of the village. A cool grey glacial river runs between the pristine streets. Everyone looks healthy, there is no smell of chips, no pubs doors decorated with smokers. Beers are served ice cold in small glasses, coffee comes black in even smaller cups and there is not a drop of mayonnaise in sight. Missing is fat men with bellies on proud display, despite the scorching weather. Men and women with defined muscles eat crepes and appropriately dressed salads while they pour over guide books and maps.

Of course there is the climbing poser brigade who jingle jangle off the Aiguille du Midi cable car, exuberant at their morning's climb, but I am assured by Colin that often these poor alpinists just manage to catch a car and may not have time to take the gear off on the way down.

Above the clouds













When we arrived home to Scotland we finished off the holiday with a meal in a local restaurant. We walked along a litter strewn pathway to reach the pub that was bursting with wobbly bellied bodied, glugging down pints and stuffing their faces with grease and sugar laden muck. It's great to be home.




What a difference 14 days makes

My garden was well tended while I was away, but what a sight met me on my return. The New Zealand Flax, which has been cursed as a waste of space by our household's chief grass cutter (not me) has been busy producing flowers. I took this photo last week, I think it has grown another two feet since then. The flowers are burgundy, almost black and the bees and butterflies are having a nectar feeding frenzy; apparently this plant is packed full of the stuff. I wonder if global warming will bring humming birds to Scotland?



New Zealand Flax - The Grass Cutter's Bane

Glittering Prizes

The Proof - Monty Halls' Wilderness on the left, the MOD on the right

A visit to Applecross last week was a welcome break. We found a few changes since last there. The pub, always busy, is over stretched with the increase in traffic since the BBC invasion. What hasn't changed is the MOD's proximity to Monty Halls wilderness paradise and the stunning scenery.

We will go back in November for the unedited local weather, a decent seat in the pub and a chance to chat with the locals once they emerge from their summer hideout.




Food Miles

At the beginning of this year I claimed I would reduce my food miles and I now realise that I haven’t reported any of the things I have been doing.

I am lucky to live in Scotland. Here I have almost all I need within our borders. And Europe is so close that I can almost get away with buying the rest from there.

Here is a list of all the things I have changed this year;

All flour from Aberfeldy Mills
All honey from Dalmiur
All eggs local
All cows milk local
All meat local
All fish Scottish (our local butcher sells fish purchased weekly from Pittenweem)

I now buy only Scottish cheddar, soft cheese I make myself but I have still to get into the practice of doing this weekly. Parmesan from Italy.

I try to only buy Scottish fruit and vegetable, preferably from the farmers market. The big exceptions are bananas and lemons, I can’t do without bananas, but I qualify this by buying only Fair Trade – the lemons I’m still working on.


My garden is now beginning to bear produce so I am buying less and less as summer progresses. All my herbs are home grown.

The wine we drink is either home made or French.


One acquisition to the garden is Champion the Bean. The Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow are currently running an exhibition called This Land is your Land. Part of that project is to give plants away to anyone happy to look after them. I took Champion. They also gave me two chilli plants which I called Cayenne and Abel. The bean was unhappy in its pot but is now thriving in a whisky barrel in the company of an Italian bean and a butternut squash.







Champion the Bean on the right of the barrel. The plastic tub is the beer trap I put out to give the slugs a happy time and keep then off the beans.





Glittering Prizes

Congratulation to James Kelman on winning the Scottish Book of the Year for Kieron Smith,boy. I finished the book last night and can confirm it as a worthy winner.

This novel uses a unique voice to chart the life of a small boy through the ages of five to twelve in post war Glasgow. I heard James Kelman discuss the book a couple of months ago where he stated that this is a book for women to discover how fraught with danger a little boy's life is. The story is touching, heroic and funny. It has been described as Kelman's best book yet.

Capercaillie and Cateran

It isn't every weekend that you share a stage with an international supergroup and then follow in the footsteps of marauding clans and cattle thieves. Not to mention the realisations that I am becoming addicted to Britain's Got Talent.

The weekend began at the Fintry Music Festival. The traditional music group I am a member of, Get Reel, was asked a while ago if we could support Capercaille. Unlikely you would think but a fact. Under the able instruction of our tutors Mike (Malinky) Vass and Barry (Spad)Reid we learned three sets to perform. This was our fifteen minute happening.

Karen Matheson passed through our rehearsal area back stage a couple of times and gave us smiles and hellos. I think she probably felt sorry for us as we screeched and droned.
At 8.00pm on Friday night we walked out into the stage in front of the packed hall of Fintry Sports Club and played our wee hearts out. The audience clapped along and gave us a massive applause. The Capercaille show was pretty fine too.

I have heard the bookings are now flooding in.


The Cateran Trail

I found a flyer in a magazine about a new walking trail in Perth and Angus. The circular trail starts and finishes in Blairgowrie. It follows the paths that the Caterans used and takes about five days to complete. Colin and I only had a couple of days so we opted for short sections.

The first section was from Bridge of Cally to Blairgowrie. The track takes a high route over the Cochrage Muir and give the walker wide landscapes of clean ploughed fields and up close and personal access to the many nestling birds in the area. At one point we were surrounded by lapwing mothers flapping over their youngsters, while the fledgling flustered round ground nests wondering what all the fuss was about.

We completed the section in a couple of hours and caught a taxi back to the Bridge of Cally Hotel where we enjoyed a well prepared and presented meal.

The Dalhenzean Lodge B&B, just up the road, was clean, comfortable and gave us the biggest cooked breakfast I have eaten in years. It was just the job to see us off on our next trip.

This time we opted for a variation on the Cateran trail so we could enjoy a circular route. This route took us past Loch Beanie where a fledgling oystercatcher was chirping and birlin in circles like one of those wind up toys you see in Chinese markets, the only difference was this little bird never ran out of spin.

Part of the walk took us on road but it didn't spoil the enjoyment too much. The thousands of lambs we encountered brought back to mind that age old puzzle - Why do such cute lambs turn into ugly sheep? It isn't right somehow.

One lamb made friends with us, I was tempted to stick him in my rucksack but in the end sent him back to his mother.

One lamb trying to make his escape

Poor Neglected Blog

The Clutha Vaults - The only place to be seen on a Friday night in Glasgow.

I can't believe it is almost a month since I last created a post. I have been delivering four new courses into the community and the preparation and teaching time have elbowed everything else into the background.

The courses, Excel, Kitchen Gardening X 2 and Creative Writing, are all going well. I am finished with the Excel and one Kitchen Gardening this week and hope this will free up some time to push me out into my own garden and reintroduce myself to my novel.

But it hasn't all been work. Colin won a weekend for two at the Jury's Glasgow Hotel and we thought we would combine it with the Bob Dylan concert.

We came into town on Friday night and had dinner at an old style Glasgow restaurant. It was at one time the place to be seen. We had eaten there before, on Valentine's night, but like all Valentine meals, we were disappointed. This time would be different, I was sure.

But it wasn't. I was served over cooked scallops to start. They were no match for the succulent fresh beasts dished up at the Applecross Inn. There they are so fresh you pass them on the way in still sloshing about in the fisherman's bucket.

The main course of swordfish wasn't too bad, but it wasn't that great either. The most startling thing about the restaurant was the clientele. They all looked like gangsters; old guys trying to impress young straightner-straight-haired women. It was a bizarre experience.

We needed brought back to earth, so we went for a drink in The Scotia Bar, an old Glasgow institution. A live Blues band was belting out many decibels, but a couple of old guys in the corner told me The Clutha Vaults, across the road, was better. And it was. Another live band was playing, this time seventies and eighties rock. Before I knew what was happening I was up on the floor dancing with four women from Pollock. They don't make pubs like that anymore.





After that Saturday night at the SECC could have been a let down, but Sir Bob came up with a show. He played a mixture of old and new material and his band were excellent. I hate Bob Dylan's new staccato singing style, but it was an honour to see what was billed as The Poet Laureate of Rock.





Congratulations to Carol Anne Duffy on becoming the new Poet Laureate. Let's hope she will continue with the excellent work Andrew Motion began with the Poetry Archive.

Chill out time

Eilean Shona - Scotland in miniature

Colin and I have just come back from a week’s holiday on Eilean Shona, a wee island off the west coast of Scotland. The ferry (small rubber dingy) picked us off the mainland at 5.00pm on Saturday, we were walked to our cottage and left to enjoy the peace. We had enough food, drink and books for a week.
Eilean Shona is a sort of mini Scotland. It has some reasonable hills to climb, a diverse international forest, lochs, fine walking, history, wildlife and a fabulous white sandy beach.




The Perfect Red Cottage

The island has a number of holiday cottages. We were staying in Red Cottage which was up a hill on the edge of a forest. There was so much storm damaged dead wood lying around we were encouraged to have a camp fire, which we delighted in doing most evenings.



Afternoon tea at the cottage

Being a mad recycler I was keen to keep the rubbish we produced and left behind to a minimum. The new estate managers, Rose and Ali, had told me that they hoped to create a vegetable garden. I asked if they had a compost heap for my vegetable scrapes, not yet but they had something better. Three pigs who were employed as environmental rotivators, churning up the vegetable patch and grateful for anything you threw at them.



The Three Composters


We failed to see the promised wildlife of pine martin, otter and sea eagle, but we did manage to see deer and grey seals and plenty birds. And we brought some wildlife back with us; the walk to the beach had us wading through some pretty long heather. As a result of this heather bashing both Colin and I have been plucking tics out of our skin ever since. I thought April would have been too early for Scotland’s nasties, but apparently not.



The sun sparkled beach - was it really April? Yes, that's why I still wore my hillwalking boots on the sand


WWF Earth Hour

Just because I was on holiday did not mean I forgot a very important appointment. At 8.30pm on Saturday the 28th of March, Colin and I sat in our wee Red Cottage and watched our wood burning stove glow while we turn off the lights for an hour.


Earth hour - check out how the rest of the country spent the hour

Monty Halls’ Great big illusion-delusion

Sand Beach on the Applecross Peninsula - like Monty Halls, Colin left the MOD submarine base out of the picture.(photo Colin Baird)


It is no secret that one of my favourite places in the world is Applecross in the North West of Scotland. Colin and I had a house there for four years and know the area well. Imagine our delight on finding a programme made there. We watched it with interest last week and again this week. However after the first week my enjoyment was derived not only from the scenery and seeing old pals but also trying to spot how many distortions the BBC can cram into the show.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the show, Monty Hall has moved to a derelict shed on a deserted beach in the wilderness of Applecross, with the desire to live like a crofter. He was able to entice the local population into helping make the shed habitable, this included a guy who was impossible to get hold of when we were there. What the programme fails to point out is that the beach, Sand, is the busiest beach on the Applecross Peninsula and the ‘remote shed’ is only about 200 metres from a MOD submarine base. Like some alien movie the existence of this base has been evaporated and erased from the world of Monty Halls. Those are the most obvious fibs, there are loads of others. I will never believe another thing on the telly again. The programme is worth watch despite Monty Halls believing real life crofters have solar panels to power their iPods and seems to be incapable of catching mackerel with a full kit of high tech fishing gear. Maybe the friendly locals omitted to mention to him that if he drove his landrover four miles down the road to Toscaig Pier and stood with a rod for a couple of hour he would catch loads of mackerel.

Strange Phenomenon

I don’t know why it happens but it does. After years and weeks of managing to completely avoid the X Factor I always seem to end up compelled to watch the final. Is it because it is on a couple of weeks before Christmas and I am so knackered by the time Saturday comes round I just want collapse in a heap and be drip fed red wine and dross TV?

This year I have to be honest and say I did have a tiny motive. I had heard that Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was to be the X Factor single. I guess many purists will be horrified, but poor Leo’s retirement fund has been ripped off so he needs the cash. This is one of my favourite songs and I was curious to see how brutal the murder would be. Alexandra, the girl who won with a little help from Beyoncé, did an OK job of the classic but it wasn’t a patch on the Jeff Buckley version.

I have been trying to play and sing the song since last week and have been failing at every F, it is full of them!




Leonard depends more on his songwriting skills than his singing style.



Guilty Pleasures

As the night progressed I threw out the last of my street cred (if I had any to begin with) into the recycle bin and watched and enjoyed The Girls’ Aloud Party. I had forgotten what a Saturday night was for, but I will make sure I have other plans organised for next week or I might end up watching the final of Strictly Come Dancing.

Food for Free but no vitamin D

One of my few sunflowers not felled under the weight of August's rain.

Experts said on the radio yesterday that the people of Scotland suffer from a vitamin D deficiency because the sun's rays refuse to shine here. Looking at the weather today I can see their point but there is so much more going for us that we forget to look beyond what the experts tell us.

Last night's full moon could not been seen through the rain clouds, but I knew it was there. I am inclined to call this the Harvest Moon although that technically is not correct; the Harvest Moon is the moon after the first frost and miraculously we haven’t had a frost yet. But harvesting is what I did most of the weekend. The wet summer means the hedgerows are dripping with produce and there is enough for me and the birds. The day was dry and bright on Sunday and Colin and I stepped just outside our door and foraged for sloe berries, rowan berries and brambles. The hawthorn is in abundance too but we had run out of bags when we reached them. I also collected some beechnuts which I intend to roast.

And like last year I collected pounds of plums and damsons from my neighbours’ trees. Yesterday while the rain poured down and the sun refused to gift the Scots with their necessary dose of vitamin D, I spend the afternoon in the warm company of the radio making compote, jam, chutney, wine, sloe gin and rowan berry liqueur. I think we now have more than enough sugar and alcohol in that batch to see us through the wet winter.

I just need to find my own herring stock and then the vitamin D problem will be sorted.



My barrel garden

More firsts

The harvest in the garden has also been a bumper. In keeping with my Fifty First Timers here is a list of all the vegetables and fruit I grew successfully for the first time this year;
Peppers, cucumber, cauliflower, leeks, celery, asparagus pea, red onion, tomatillo and Brussel sprouts. I am also attempting to grow aubergine but as yet they have to bear fruit. Rhubarb, gooseberry and blackberry, have also been planted this year although the birds had the feast of the harvest there. I grew marigolds from seed and used these as a companion plant for the greenhouse plants. It was amazing to watch them being shredded by tiny beasts while the veg plants were left to grew in peace.

If the food prices continue to rise at their present rate I may have to put in even more effort next year to reduce my food air miles and the strain on my budget.

Thank you for the Music

A great music experience

Life has been pretty quiet and I was struggling to find some thing to put on the blog tonight then I turned on the radio for my tea time music fix. I enjoy cooking but sometimes weekday meals become a chore; Radio Scotland’s and Bryan Burnett’s ‘Get It On’ is the best antidote for teatime blues. I have mentioned ‘Get it on’ before but to remind you the programme – now extended to a two hour slot - chooses a theme each night and listeners send in their requests. The format throws out the most unexpected selections and during the show you are constantly saying ‘Oh I haven’t heard this for years’

The programme has a definite cult following with regular contributors like ‘Jim the Jam Man’ ‘Mike from Fife’ and the ‘Inverpolly Crew’. On the Monday second hour one listener has the chance to feature their own summer mix; a play list with related stories behind the choices. These have been immensely popular and often hilarious but tonight’s offering deserved to win a platinum disc.

Maybe it’s because we Scots are a sentimental bunch but Donna’s summer mix was heart wrenching and judging from the comments read out, everyone agreed. Donna, an American pilot, came to Scotland for a holiday last year, ended up on the Isle of Skye met Bryan (not Bryan Burnett) and they fell in love, married, but live thousands of miles apart. I could hardly eat my tea for the lump in my throat. Check it out - Donna's story and her playlist are on the blog. I feel as though I am part of a big family. I hope Donna finds a job in Scotland soon.


Still On the music theme

Colin and I are currently working our way through our separate vinyl collections and converting them to digital. This is enjoyable but can often be an emotional experience. Last Saturday night I played Stevie Nicks' Bella Donna and it brought back painful memories of my first marriage.

Christmas Day 1980something I received this album from my parents, but I was forbidden to play it by my then husband. He maybe wanted to watch ‘Eastenders’ or ‘The Great Escape’ for the tenth time - I can’t remember. Once he was drunk enough and sleeping, I crept out of my marital bed in the middle of the night, poured myself a wee glass of wine and listened to my pressie. Sad eh?

History Lesson

Fifty First Timer No. 27
Read and adored War and Peace

The blurb on the cover says this is the greatest book ever written. I don’t know if that is true but it is certainly one of the best books I have read.

To say I was daunted reading this 1360 page novel is a lie; I have been in the past that was until I heard a great piece of advice. ‘How do you eat an elephant? Answer, in bite size pieces.’ That is how I tackled this, a chapter at a time. The hardest part was holding the book for long stretches of time, its heavy!

The story takes place over two Napoleonic Wars and gives a fantastic insight into the way the Russian class system worked at that time – no wonder they had a revolution. The aristocracy were few but owned all the land and also owned the Serfs, who were slaves. I am so ignorant, I had no idea.

I also worked out that Tchaikovsky wrote 1812 Overture about the battle of Borodino – there is a gruesome section about this battle.

As the title suggests, it isn’t all about War. There are long sections about the years between the two wars. There are over 500 characters (some historical) in War and Peace Tolstoy uses great techniques to help the reader remember who each one is. By the time I was finished the book I was intimate with them and now miss them.

I would encourage everyone to read this book, it only took me two months to read.



Age doesn’t come on its own

As a birthday present the Health Board sent me an invitation - I am now eligible for their bowel screening programme – lovely, can't wait!