Of bike rides, rain-washed hills and bats

Yesterday Toad and I drove to the Pier Cafe at Stronachlachar beside Loch Katrine, stoked up on coffee and cake (well, Empire Biscuit in my case. I test them wherever I go if they look appetising enough. Stronachlachar's got 9.5 just trailing behind the 10-er at the Perch Cafe in Garelochhead. My gran's, which we called Grandma biscuits, are the benchmark against which all others are held), and set off in light rain to cycle round the Stronachlachar end of the loch and along the north side to Trossachs Pier where we would hop on the boat, Lady of the Lake, to come back to where we started.

At the start of the trail we met a couple in a pickup truck closing a barrier across the road. They said it was the first day in a week that they'd been able to drive out because of landslides blocking the road. We have had very heavy rain, even for Scotland, over the last week or so. The extent of the devastation became evident very quickly as we rode along. Toad, who had done this ride early in August, was shocked at the difference from the idyll he had seen just three weeks ago.



Officially the road was still closed to cars (it's a private road anyway so there is never a lot of traffic) but we carried on. We didn't meet anyone coming the other way until we were over half way along the twelve and a half mile track. Toad's phone app logging mileage actually recorded 14.77miles but officially the distance seems to be 12.5.


While we were still on the south side of the loch hillside scars from landslides on the other side were very visible. Flood plains had been well flooded too, leaving grass caught in trees and on fences. I hoped no-one had been in the white car (see below) when it got washed against the trees.



I recorded a short burst of the sound of this wee burn and tried to imagine the noise as land slipped and what had been small streams burst, quite literally, their banks.

It was still bonny looking down to the loch through the trees and the downhill sections of our ride, standing on the pedals and whizzing down at ~25mph, were great fun. Toad was impressed with my uphill efforts too. My recent rides to and from Garelochhead seem to have improved my fitness at that.

After half way we began to meet other cyclists coming the other way so readiness for braking had to be maintained during downhill whizzings. People starting at Trossachs Pier, where some had hired bikes, had been told that they wouldn't be able to cycle all the way to Stronachlachar. We told them they could.

Towards the end of our ride I enjoyed some moss banks of the kind that I remember reading about in poetic writing of old.

We had tea and scones at Stronachlachar when we disembarked from Lady of the Lake and I untied the string that I'd used for cycle clips because it was needed to tie the car number plate to Toad's bike on the back of the car. 

To finish off our day out we drove along to Inversnaid because we were so near. The noise of the waterfalls there was quite something and the view across Loch Lomond to the Arrochar Alps showed us how close to home we really were.

We then trundled, because I was driving (Toad never drives in a trundly way even when I wish he would so it's best if I drive bumpy roads) and happy to go gently on the single track road alongside Lochs Chon and Ard, back to Aberfolye and then homeward. There was a pause in proceedings when we stopped, along with a few other cars, to see if we could help dislodge an ambulance from the roadside mud. All that rain last week has created general mega-squelch once you're off road. Unfortunately a number of shoulders shoving together was not enough. The ambulance probably needed a pull by a tractor or some vehicle with a winch. Fortunately there was no-one needing hospital treatment in the ambulance at the time it got stuck. I think a boat ambulance had been sent to where help was needed instead. The sun had come out by afternoon and there was hardly any breeze so a New Zealander, an offerer of one of the shoulders mentioned above, and who had not had much weather luck during his Scottish holiday, decided to have a swim in the mirrored water of Loch Chon while he had the chance.

I don't often take alcoholic drinks because of medication I take for arthritis but I had a cider when we got home and slept like a log so wasn't aware of the bat in the bedroom until I woke up and opened the curtains. It had probably settled on the curtains so opening them disturbed it. I opened the windows too and after flying round and round the room  a lot it eventually went out by the window.

Windows wide to let out the bat

We know bats live in at least one of the walls of the house and a couple got into the house some years ago when there was a hole in one of the walls by the stairs after a bathroom pipe had been replaced. This time I think it must have crawled through elbow hole in Toadlet's room (damp plasterboard, teenage elbow; need I say more?). It's possible there's bat in her room too but she's still asleep.

Summer hols

Toad spent much of our summer leave drawing and painting, learning new tunes on his keyboard, and mending the shed. I spent much of the first week of mine recovering – hobbledehee, hobbledeho – from a wrench to my back that happened on the first day. During the second week, eldest daughter Rye came up with her boys, Moo and Oink. When Rye arrives it seems she often ends up cooking dinner. I'm happy with this. This time it seems my estimates of how much pasta was necessary to feed however many of us there were, how much cheese sauce to make, and so on, were inadequate. We rummaged through some of Toadlet's student digs bags and found some more pasta which Rye tipped into the pot. She then made the sauce while I did useful things like finding an ovenproof dish to put the giant macaroni cheese in and sending boys in search of more chairs. All the macaroni cheese was eaten. I keep thinking, if Moo and Oink eat so much now, aged nine and six, what will they be like in their teens!?

Here they are making a rope out of goosegrass:

We spent a fair bit of time down on the beach puddling about and searching for treasure. Rye collects crockery handles, for example.

We were intrigued by this beastie that looks similar at first glance to a woodlouse. The stone it was on appeared to be the back of an old tile.

One day we went for a walk around Ardmore Point in the Clyde. It's a lovely little wild nature reserve full of wild flowers. If the tide's out you can walk much of the way on the beach, which we did, but we also had a look in the woods.

Finding harebells

There were some white ones too:

white harebells

Towards the end of our walk we spotted a mouse on the path. We froze and got some photos of it. It seemed utterly unconcerned by us though and even allowed Moo and Oink to stroke it before it toddled back in the the undergrowth. Oink wanted to bring it home and keep it as a pet but he already has a cat so we argued against that idea. Given the mouse's carelessly dreamy attitude I rather thought it would be owl food that night anyway.

The light drizzle that went on most of the day didn't bother us at all. On the way home we shopped for grub for a crowd. Dinner the next day was going to be baked spuds with this and that and something else followed by a colourful fruit salad, Moo's request, and ice-cream, including soy ice-cream for the partner of J-of-the-wolves who has to avoid dairy products.

So that day all three of my daughters were here with their partners, whom I'm calling Pointy, Hilly, and Hezza unless objections are raised. Rye and Pointy hadn't met Hilly yet and no-one except the BoggyBraers had met Hezza, so it was a grand mixing together.

It was lovely having the visitors, thoroughly enjoyable, but I had apparently got quite tired: when I got home from work on Monday my nap lasted four hours!