Day Ten

10th May 2009 SCOTLAND

Rainbows under pressure…

I am up with the kettle on, just before seven… no puddles creeping up on me this morning… and again I hear myself say a quiet thank you… I think waking up with four walls around us, a roof above our heads and not forgetting the kettle are among the things we should never take for granted. I am in the middle of repacking my clothes from the drying room when the Reverend walks in… we both greet each other with a “Good morning”. I again say a big thank you for allowing me to stay at the station, for the fish and chips last night and for being able to start the day in dry clothes … and yes, I still wonder what better words I can use to properly say thank you. The Reverend / Fireman Donald brushes the thank you aside and hands me a bag… inside the bag are sandwiches, oat biscuits, nuts, and some fruit…enough food to keep me going for the rest of the day and more…I don’t know what to say.

Outside the fire station the Rev. Donald points me in the right direction to get back on to the West Highland Way. The route out of Kinlochleven takes me passed the brick buildings of the old aluminium smelter… the place has been closed for near on ten years… boarded up and fenced off. I don’t know why but walking alongside the perimeter fencing of this no longer used factory I feel the same as I do when stepping into an old church, or walking passed an abandoned croft, or looking across at the old bridge I saw a number of days ago… how to explain what it is I feel… I’m not sure… (maybe what I sense is a better word than feel) it is the stuff that can many times get lost in the pages of a history book… the little things… the raised voices on a factory floor, the sound of heavy machinery, the smell of sweat, oil and dirt, a quiet moment sat on a bench in some corner of a church, the re-thatching of a croft, rolled up sleeves and the blood on knuckles caught between stone, a young couple holding hands running and then tumbling to the ground, the laughter of friends sharing a beer at the end of a working day, the tears for someone lost, the joy of a little one being thrown high into the sky and caught again, the cooking of a hot family meal over an open stove… these are the things that I feel around me… little things maybe… but without them, I don’t know if the world would make any sense.

This old aluminium factory was powered by hydro-electric, from a dam high up in the mountains…there are several pipes that carry water down the side and through the woodlands of the mountain, the water I guess hitting turbines and creating power (electricity) for the factory. The first part of today’s walk will be to follow these pipes up the mountain. As I move away from the factory and step into the woods at the base of the mountain, I imagine that I hear the whispers from the couple that have tumbled to the ground… ‘I think were alone now’… Maybe best to leave them be… as I start to climb the past seems to fall back into place.

The weather is very different to yesterday… much of the sky is blue and the clouds that I see hold no rain… and yet I still come across a handful of rainbows… and how is that… the path that I’m on winds its way up through the woods keeping both the pipeline and a burn close by. There are a handful of places where the weld on the pipeline is a little broken, under pressure a fine spray of water and rainbows leap high out of the cracks… rainbows escaping before they reach the factory floor… I never knew you needed rainbows to create aluminium… just goes to show your never too old to learn new things. An hour passes… maybe a little more… the pipeline and the path that I’m on have gone their separate ways… in front of me caught in the sunlight I see a small waterfall, fresh mountain water cascading over a small crag… it’s a beautiful spot… a good place to stop and have breakfast… I dig out a cheese and pickle sandwich and an apple and again say a thank you to the Rev. Donald Davidson (hmm… I’m not sure if the readers of this story, get a little fed up with the many times I say ‘thank you’…I hope not… the saying 'Thank you’ is a big part of why I wanted to put pen to paper… keyboard to screen). I decide to empty my water bottle and replace tap water with waterfall water… I roll my sleeve up as far as it will go, and I still get wet… but the bottle is filled… and yes, your right I nod my head and say thank you Mr Waterfall.

I sit on my bag and enjoy both the sandwich and the company of the creation around me. There is a curious phrase in the Book of Romans, it talks about the creation eagerly awaiting the sons and daughters of God to be revealed… maybe there is a two-way thing going on here… I know that if my head is in the right place and I am out in the great outdoors… be it sat on a woodland floor on the side of a mountain as I am now or standing on a beach looking out to sea, or walking alongside fields of barley, I feel a sense of peace… nearer to what is good… closer to God… maybe it is the same for the created world… when people stop a moment and open their eyes… and appreciate the world around them… listen to bird song and the wind moving through the landscape, breath in the smell of freshly cut silage, run our hand against the bark of a tree, or bite into a bitter sweet bramble that makes one eye squint… does not the creation in those moments see the beauty within mankind in the same way we see beauty in creation by looking at rainbow… crumbs I’m struggling here… I kinda know what I feel, but don’t really know how to put it into words… it is truth and beauty that brings the natural world and the world of people together, I think those who work on the land or the fishermen on deep sea trawlers understand this stuff better than I…. as a truck driver I am a handful of steps behind those guys, I look at the four seasons of the outside world through glass… the windscreen of a truck.

Time that I carried on climbing this mountain… reaching the high point of the path, I stand between two peaks, the one to the right of me being the taller… I turn full circle, there are mountains all around me… I can see for miles and miles in every direction. This is the Scotland that you see on tourist brochures… the Mountains, the Glens, the Lochs, the high roads, the low roads all under a bonny blue sky. I take my bag off, dig out a fistful of mixed nuts and then gulp down some water… time to head down the side off the mountain. The path zigzags its way down to the low road that runs through Glencoe… the Glen I think was designed to be put on to postcards… sadly in Britain, certainly here in Scotland the word Glencoe fits more readily with the word massacre than with beautiful… in the late 1600’s in this very glen, one clan murdered over thirty members of another clan while they were still pretty much in their beds… men, women and children… earlier I spoke of moving nearer to what is good… hmm… I sometimes wonder just how much closer we really are… the Glencoe massacre is sadly just one tragic example in a million, of what it is we are capable of doing to each other. Evil, hate are strong words and yet they are real, they should not be dismissed or ignored… but confronted.

We need to occasionally take a step back and look at where it is, we stand in the spectrum of what is good and what is bad (I do not think any of us can put our hands up and say with absolute confidence “I’m all good… there’s nothing wrong with me” … we are all work in progress, knowing that is better than not knowing). I think a universal and a sound definition of what is good and what is bad is as follows: - Good is putting the other first both in thought and action, Bad is putting myself first both in thought and action... maybe the definition is a little simple… but as a guide to day to day living, I think it works… every small step away from the dark side, we move a little closer to what is good, making ourselves and the world around us a better place.

At the base of the glen, with blue skies still above I turn left onto an old track that runs alongside the main road. It is not to long before I come across the Kings House Hotel and Bunkhouse… I step inside… five minutes later I am sat in a soft chair, legs stretched out under the table and in front of me a pot of tea and a cake… “Thank you” … the world is already in a better place… I sit again for a little longer than I should… you would think by now I would know, sit to long and the legs will cease up… it’s not the legs not wanting to work properly that bothers me… it’s the silly walk I have to do to get out of the place. It is not and till I have crossed the road and heading up the other side of the glen and with nobody around to see me, that the legs start again to work properly… great.

Again, I am heading up hill, it’s a steady climb that takes me up to the Glencoe ski centre. On reaching the centre the path takes a left turn… avoiding the higher mountains in front of me… and for much of the afternoon the path continues to skirt around the side of the hills… gaining and dropping a little height here and there, an easy afternoon… lost in thought in a vast landscape… crossing over stone bridges… kicking stones, picking up an old drovers’ road, simple roads from passed times, used for moving cattle between winter and summer pastures or taking them to market. Today the cattle, other livestock and pretty much everything else is moved around the country by trucks rumbling through a beautiful but many times a forgotten landscape. I guess it is easy to look at the past with rose tinted glasses… times were slower… people in general were much more connected to both the land and the four seasons. The flip side… life was incredibly hard, winter was never easy, hunger was real, many children would not get passed the age of five, sickness was never far away… Yeah… we should count our blessings a little more often than maybe we do… I know there are many people today that struggle and have real problems and situations to deal with… real as real can be… and they should be in our thoughts (…and actions). I also know many times we are quick to compare our own situation with those that are better off than we are. I think maybe better to compare the life that we have not with our neighbours but with the life’s our grandparents lived… do that… and suddenly our lives are surprisingly good.

I plan to finish the day at the railway station in the tiny hamlet of Bridge of Orchy. The weather forecast is looking good for the next few days, no rain, and clear skies… sounds daft but a night on a bench at a little station in the middle of nowhere, under a billion stars sounds good. I still have the food that the Rev. Davidson had given me this morning… enough for tomorrow's breakfast as well.

Towards the end of the walking day, I passed the Inveroran Hotel (in the 1800s it was the Drovers Arms… a place where the cattle guys could rest up for the night, grab a hot meal and a jug of beer) … I was tempted to knock at the door… I didn’t. Still skirting around the edge of the mountains I come across a cairn, with the three-legged red flag of the Isle of Man stuck on top of the pile of stones. My navigation skills maybe a little rusty but I am pretty sure I’m not standing halfway up Snaefell on the Isle of Man… crumbs I hope not... I have not seen any news these last ten days maybe the Isle of Man has invaded Scotland… I am sure I would have been told… Another idea… my older brother (Ian) was born on the Isle of Man, maybe he is one or two days ahead of me on this walk, leading the way as it were, probably not… although there is a grain of truth in that idea… many years back, it was Ian that poked me in the ribcage (a number of times… over a handful of years) and told me to take a look at faith a little more seriously… and many years later… here I am on a kind of pilgrimage I guess… walking the length of Britain, heading south to the church that I was baptised in… I think that’s job done Ian.

From the cairn I drop down the side of the hill, through some woods over a river and into Bridge of Orchy. On the way to the train station, I pass another hotel… the idea of a bed suddenly sounds better than a bench… the temptation is there but again I walk past. The station is just up the hill… I walk across a car park and push the gate open… I do not know why but I was surprised to see a handful of people on the platform. I decide to walk up to the ticket office; I explain a little of what it is I’m doing and ask if its OK to stay the night. “You want to sleep on a bench, the station doubles up as a small hostel, we have a spare bed does that sound better… we have two climbers and a young couple staying, you’ll have to share a room.” He gives me some bedding and shows me the room… a bunk bed with three levels and small bathroom with a shower. “If you head back to the ticket office in about forty minutes dinner will be ready”… and of course I say thank you… I put my bedding on the top bunk I can see the other two are taken, then grab a quick shower and spend twenty minutes before lunch sat on the bench outside that I had planned to sleep on… again not quite believing what had just happened.

Seven of us are sat around the dinner table, Steve and Helen (who run the place and have allowed me to stay the night), a young Austrian couple Stephen and Doris, the two climbing guys and myself. shepherd's pie is served up, introduction are made and stories told… and after dinner the table is cleared, dishes are done and the kettle is switched on. We all sit again at the same table with tea. coffee and a stack of biscuits… we sat for two hours or maybe more, talking about this and that, telling more stories and laughing… that is what people have been doing for thousands of years (all around the world) telling stories, be them sat around a camp fire, a jug of beer in the Drovers Arms or around a table in a ticket office at a train station in the middle of nowhere… it's what we do.

Lying on the top bunk with hands behind by head … the middle bunk is Stephen… the bottom bunk Doris... I think sleeping I hear no sound, my arms my legs my body are tired but the head is wide awake reflecting on the day just gone … each of the seven colours coming together is what makes a rainbow a little special… likewise each of the seven different characters sat around the table this evening created something a little special… bring people together and something bigger can happen… maybe that’s what the creation is eagerly awaiting for, not just the sons and daughters of God, but also for the nations to come together… it is not just the rainbows that are under pressure… this blue planet (our home) more than ever before needs people and nations to come together to think big and do big.