Day Thirteen

13th May 2009 SCOTLAND

Falling plates, bumbling bees and sticky fingers on painted walls …all very good

I wake up to another day of lochside and woodland walking, but first breakfast. Heading down the stairs, I hold on to the banister, the legs are stiff… at the start and at the end of each day I hobble… that’s what I do now… it has become a part of who I am.

Pushing the kitchen door open, I walk into what looks to be chaos… a thousand people doing a thousand different things… pots and pans banging, all the cookers fired up, somebody’s toast is burning in the corner, another person calling out for the salt, a moment later a plastic salt container is moving through the sky… caught beautifully… the salt container is tipped upside down and shaken into a pan of something or other… the lid is clipped shut and again back in the air heading in the direction it had just come from. I find a mug, a teabag and wind my way through the crowd to the hot water earn… scrounge a drop of milk and a teaspoon of sugar… as I head for the door out of the kitchen, I bump into a guy who is about to throw away some burnt toast, “I’m happy to take the toast… shame to throw it” … I am given the toast… the worktop next to the bin is another guy buttering some bread, I ask if I could pinch a little bit of butter... “Sure” I am handed the knife “Thank you”. A moment later I am out of the kitchen, in the dining room, sat next to a window with a mug of tea and a couple of slices of well-done toast… I cannot help but smile, not just at the beauty of the world I see on the other side of the window, but also at the noise and chaos of the kitchen… I hear a smash… the kitchen goes quiet for the smallest of moments (as it does in any kitchen when china hits a hard floor… the plate is no more) … the moment has gone, the laughter and noise is back... and again I smile at the world around me.

Half an hour later I’m sat on a bench outside putting my boots on… again an easy day ahead of me. I have today and all day tomorrow before I meet Arthur and the gang in Milngavie… time is on my side. I push myself up off the bench, swing my bag on to my back, check my collar is up, push my hands into my pockets, kid myself that I’m looking good and start walking. It’s a beautiful day… I’m not sure but I think the loch is a little bluer today, the woodland a little greener and the sun a squidge warmer. The path like yesterday pretty much follows the shoreline of the loch… one moment under a woodland canopy, the next under a wide-open sky… both the loch and the mountains rarely out of sight.

I have read that this island I am walking through (the United Kingdom) has nearly half of all the Bluebells there are in the world… I’m thinking most of those must be here, in these woodlands on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond. The slower we move I think the more we see…sat behind glass driving a truck, I see the seasons change, woodlands turning green and then to the golden colours of red browns and yellows and then no leaves at all… on my pushbike cycling to work it is not the woodland I see, but individual trees, the blossom, the shape of the leaf, the fruit be it catkins, berries or acorn, sometimes a blackbird sat in amongst the branches…slow down again to walking pace, brushing my fingers through the long grass… it is not the tree but the individual branches that comes into focus, the texture and pattern of branch and trunk, the shape of the tree. Bring the walking to a stop and we move from branch to twig… the miracle of an unfolding bud, the delicate structure of each petal on every flower, the picking and the tasting of a bramble, eye to eye with a bee moving from flower to flower… and I wonder if I could see even more if I knew how to go slower than standing still… maybe if I walk backwards… I try… no it doesn’t work.

A few hours of walking behind me I stop at the side of the loch and just sit for a while, enjoying the day for what it was… from my bag I dig out the last of the sandwiches given to me yesterday, by John from the Inversnaid Hotel. I sit for half an hour…probably more… I guess I should make a move… instead I lay back… I think a week ago not having any food in my bag and not knowing when I would next eat would have played on my mind a little… not any more… I enjoy the things that I do have, the Earth below me, open space above and the thought of my two little girls waiting for their dad... and at this moment that is all I need.

Still lying on the ground… I think about Bluebells, Blackbirds and bees, the trees, rivers and streams, the mountains, glens, and this Loch I lay next to, the very sky above and the earth that I’m lying on, none of this should be taken for granted… our planet is pretty special. The solar system that we are a part of sits in a quiet part of the Milky Way… nothing much to bump into. The star (our Sun) we travel around is both stable and long-lasting, this planet we stand on (or lay on) is at a good distance from the sun… any closer, Earth would be burnt toast, further away it would be like bread from the freezer, needing a chisel to separate the slices… our planet is at a distance where butter melts but doesn’t evaporate nor turns into a knife bending solid block. The Earth is tilted to give us the seasons and has a big enough moon to stop that tilt turning into a wobble. Above our heads there is a layer high up called the ozone, protecting us from high and lethal levels of radiation. The two gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn that sit on the outer edges of our solar system help stabilize the orbits of the inner planets and like two big brothers help protect us from being hit by massive asteroids… The list of what makes this planet that little bit special… that allows a flower to bloom, a bee to bumble, a guy to walk, is greater than what I understand… but what little I do know, tells me we should slow down more often… maybe even stop once in a while… and take a closer look at this incredible and unique world that we are living on… this little blue planet has served us well… should we not take a little more care... give something back.

I really need to be making a move, I push myself up from the ground… I wonder at how it is politicians… (that’s a little unfair… it’s not just the politicians… its we) squabble over things that don’t really matter much at all.

It has become a routine, each time I stop… it takes the legs a little time to figure out how to walk again. I continue down the side of the loch, the path heading off occasionally into the woods and Bluebells… and the next moment I’m back on the shores of the loch, looking across at the hills on the far side of the water… the sky is clear, would be a good day to be high up on the mountains… I don’t grumble, it is also a good day to be walking on the quiet side of Loch Lomond.

Pretty much at mid-day I walk into Balmaha, a village close to the foot of the loch… the name Balmaha comes from the Gaelic meaning ‘St Maha’s Place’… it is thought that people a number of centuries ago would come here to see a hermit living near a spring that could cure illnesses … crumbs how far it is we have come over the centuries.

In Balmaha I find a small hotel called The Oak Tree, I walk in and again explain what it is I’m doing… and again I am shown a table and given tea, soup and a bread roll… you would think that maybe by now I would be getting use to this kind of treatment…not at all, each time something like this happens, I am blown away by the generosity and kindness of the people that I am meeting... I am filled with gratitude… wanting to say so much more than just thank you… (the writing of this story I’m hoping is another way to say thank you to all the people that made this walk what it was). Sat at the table with the map open in front of me… a mug of tea on one side of the map, a bowl of soup on the other side and a bread roll in hand… Where do I end the day…? I decide to head for a place called Drymen… and maybe find a bed. I have a choice of how to get to Drymen, by road or over the hills… I finish my soup, fold up the map, say thank you… Back outside, I decide to head for the hills. It is good to be gaining height… the summit of Conic Hill is over a thousand feet… not a huge hill, but the views of Loch Lomond and the many islands in the loch, not forgetting Ben Lomond to the north are breath taking … Conic Hill is part of a fault line that runs from the Isle of Arran on the west coast to Stonehaven on the east coast, separating the Highlands to the north and the Lowlands to the south… I again sit for a while… I feel that I’m on top of the world… looking down on creation.

Different cultures have different stories of how it is the creation (this world) came about… I grew up with the stories from the Abrahamic faiths… the book of Genesis… the six days of creation. A story believed to have be written down over two and a half thousand years ago by a guy called Moses… how do such stories last the test of time… Did Moses believe this world was made in six days… he was an educated man… he grew up in the Pharaoh’s palace. With the scientific understanding we have today, even primary kid knows the world was not made in six days… but turn those days into time periods (one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day… use that kind of thinking… maybe use millions instead of thousands) and then look at the story again… The order in how the world was put together according to Genesis fits pretty well with the scientific understanding we have today (a scientific understanding that did not exist in the days when Moses was putting quill to parchment). Day one… God created light (I’m guessing there was a lot of light created at the big bang). Day two… the sky was created (we know the planets started life as giant balls of gas and dust). Day three… dry land, seas, plants and trees were created (gravity is pulling the gases and dust together to create rocky planets, with land and bubbling seas, early life is formed algae, plants and primitive trees). Day four… the Sun, Moon and stars were created (from the viewpoint of the Earth you could argue this to be true, as the algae and early plants took in carbon dioxide and pushed out oxygen, the skies begin to clear and from the Earth the Sun, Moon and stars become visible). Day five… creatures that live in the sea and creatures that fly were created (again we now know that it was in the oceans and shore lines that more complicated life started to take shape) … and Day six… God created the animals that live on land (our understanding is all creatures on land can trace their ancestry back to the swamps and oceans)… and at the end of day six God created mankind… I think the story told in Genesis and what we know today fits pretty well… maybe just maybe Moses was not writing down a story but a revelation. …Yeah yeah… I know I’m a truck driver, not a theologian… best I pick up my bag and start heading down hill to the small town of Drymen.

A couple of good hours on the hills and I’m back on a small country road walking into Drymen… I find a church and make contact with the minister… I can tell he is not really wanting to help… and that is ok, I cannot walk into a small town and expect people to go out of their way every time… people are busy, also I don’t know what kind of day or week that they are having… I’m thinking tonight I will walk out of town and find a quiet place out of the way someplace, and besides tomorrow I will be in the town of Milngavie and sleeping in a hotel. On the way through Drymen I come across a pub called the Pottery Inn… and yes of course I walk in, with the hope of a cup of tea. I share my story with the guy behind the bar, his name is Taylor… I don’t ask for nothing other than a cup of tea… instead of tea he gives me a plate of chips, a burger and a glass of coke. How good is that. Thank you so much.

A little under an hour later, I again say thank you to Taylor and head out of town. In a field a mile or so down the road I come across a Highland cow, I stop to say hello… I thought about telling him that he was on the wrong side of the fault line, this side of the line are the Lowlands… I didn’t... it looked like he was having a bad hair day, I didn’t want to give the highlander any more stress. Another mile down the road I climb over a wall into a field, out of sight of the road and set up base camp (… a sleeping bag and mat)… the sky is a little less light, but still not close to being dark… I climb into the sleeping bag,, glad to take the weight of my legs, arms again behind my head… listening and looking at the world around me.

I like how in the story of creation, at the end of each day God says, “It is good” and at the end of the sixth day after creating mankind, God says, “it is very good”. It reminds me (and I guess many parents) of making ready a room for a new baby… re-painting the walls, new carpet, lights and curtains, furniture, colourful ABC pictures on the wall, soft cushions, teddy bears and toys… and at the end of each day you look around at the work you have done and decide that it is good… and when the room is done, you spend the next few weeks in the evening after work stepping in and out of the room, making small changes here and there… waiting for the day chaos arrives… and when it does… chunky Lego bricks fly across the room, bashing against wooden furniture… baby food squidged into carpets…sticky fingers on painted walls… it is good… it is very good.