Saturday, 29 April 2017

On a walk across two fields

I went to see a pal who lives two fields away, I looked back at one point at this old field boundary of beech trees. There is the remains of an old drystone wall there too. I expect that was built before the trees grew.

We haven't had any rain for a week or so and the ground, usually soggy, was amazingly dry. I've noticed short dry periods like this in spring before in this part of Argyll. I was able to crawl under this fallen tree without getting wet. Bit of a shock to the sytem really when so much effort is spent trying to keep dry!


And look how dry the ground is round this cattle feeder! Positively weird! 🤣

In the first field I walked along the woodland boundary fence. On the other side of it is a wonderful bank of bluebells. I knew there were bluebells there but not that there were so many. Although I've been in that wood many a time, I guess I hadn't been there at bluebell time before. I must go back in a week or two to see them in flower before the other vegetation takes over.

bluebell bank
Further along, the other characteristic of this bank becomes apparent. You can walk along the top of it. Apparently it was part of a pilgrim's path to St.Modan's church in Rosneath where the relics of Modan, an abbot of the Celtic church in Scotland who then became a hermit in this area, were enshrined.

Another local saint is Gildas. There is a fuller Wiki article about him and a newish Catholic church (1968) in his name, also at Rosneath.

Another section of what, I'm told, was the Pilgrim's Way
The current hill track, that goes all the way to Kilcreggan (the 'kil' part in the name refers to a hermit's cell and 'creggan' to the cragginess of the coastline) but it is higher up the hill than the old Pilgrim's Way. It would make sense for the old Pilgrim's Way to be lower if they were heading for Rosneath.

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