Category Archives: Highland Life

Random maunderings from life off the beaten track. Includes the joys and trials of living in the Highlands, its scenery, humans, animals and environment. Contains traces of environmental and climate pleading, plus some enthusiastically experimental cooking.

Highland Life, Riding & Driving

Passing Places…

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I’ve been planning for some time to write a piece on how to use the passing places on Scotland’s many single track roads. But I’m pleased to say that our friends at Noss Head have just done exactly that. So, rather than repeat their wise words (which I’ll henceforth refer to as the Noss Head Rules), I’ll simply link you to their excellent piece on the subject.

What I will add to that is some basic common sense for driving on narrow and (especially) single track roads, which (TL:DR;) boils down to: Slow the f**k down!

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Highland Life, Politics & Governance

Fourteen Years: A Reckoning

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With a general election finally called for the UK, we now have a real chance to put the Tory Party out of our misery, and hopefully for a generation. Like most of us though, I look back on the last fourteen years and struggle to come up with a less than book length summary of the damage they’ve done. But I had to try…

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Building & Renovating, Highland Life

Cowboys on the High Range…

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The saga continues. I’ve previously documented the behaviour of MMAXX Ltd, the numpties (UK coll.: complete fecking idiots) who installed our ground source heat pump. But more has emerged, for which read on…

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Building & Renovating, Climate & Environment, Highland Life

Heat Pumps and History

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…or rather, historic houses: between 2009 and 2014 we embarked on a complete eco-renovation of our house – a Regency-era listed steading in Highland Perthshire. We took it back to the stonework, insulated it throughout and installed a ground-source heat pump (GSHP), biomass stove and solar thermal panels. It wasn’t cheap (our initial budget rapidly became a rounding error) but we now have a 270m2 (floor area of heated spaces), 200-year-old farmhouse that is both warm and comfortable – winning UK Renovation of the Year in 2014 was just a nice piece of validation for our hard work.

So, with now nearly a decade’s hindsight, what difference did it make?

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Highland Life, Politics & Governance

The Elizabethan Age – A View from the Glens

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With the bowing out of the second Elizabethan Age, It probably won’t take much hindsight to see Elizabeth II as possibly the last unifying factor in the life of the rather nebulous entity we call the United Kingdom. Despite her accident of birth, she managed to embody a clear commitment to public service, to duty, decency and integrity, all carried out with unfailing good humour.

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Highland Life

Hordes of the Things…

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We’ve just seen a weekend where, rather than reducing travel and staying at home, large numbers of people have flocked to the Highlands, treating it more like a Bank Holiday than a Global Pandemic.

So please, Protect us, Protect yourselves, and go home.

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Highland Life, Politics & Governance

The Sound of Crowing in the Dark

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I’ve lived more than six decades cheerfully identifying as English (where I was born), Scottish (where I was brought up and where I now live), British (when I couldn’t make up my mind), European (where I’ve spent a deal of my working life and where my greatest cultural resonance lies) and Human, in all other circumstances. And, for the most part, that hasn’t mattered a damn. My passport says I’m a British citizen and – again, mostly – that’s been fine, despite significant differences of outlook with most governments of my lifetime.  Continue reading The Sound of Crowing in the Dark →

Highland Life, Politics & Governance

Read. The. Memo.

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So I did my democratic duty today and rocked up to the “Bollocks to Boris” demo in Glasgow’s George Square. There was a fairly decent turnout, with a diverse crowd pretty much filling the square, music at the east end and the speakers to the west. Lots of EU and Scottish flags at the musical end, whilst the speakers’ end was dominated by what I can only describe as the “Rent-a-Banner” contingent: The Communist and Socialist Workers’ Parties (bless their pointed little heads), assorted 1930s-style union showings and, in the midst, some white-bearded bloke mumbling away into a microphone. Now, I couldn’t actually hear what Corbyn was saying, but the cohort around was definitely pitching the same tired old mantras that we’re all familiar with, from any decade: Destroy the Tories; Resist Racism; Nationalise Everything; Soak The Rich (or whoever they consider “The Rich” to be at any given moment), not one of which is remotely germane to – and which in fact get in the way of – the issue facing us here and now. Didn’t they get the bloody memo?

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Highland Life, Politics & Governance

Brexit Local

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Health of Government Warning: this is an intensely political post. But it is not a party political post. And, yes, it’s about Brexit, two years after the referendum. Mostly though, it’s about the integrity and principles of politicians, and of our local MP in particular.

Still here? I commend you…

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Highland Life

Evening on the Loch

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A solitary canoeist was enjoying himself this evening, powering his way up Loch Voil into a golden sunset.  He rounded a headland, to see a large bloke lying prone on the shore, pointing a camera and long lens across the loch. At the other end of the scene, a Black-Throated Diver is floating serenely on the water.

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