Tuesday 1 August
The annual walking holiday in Scotland is always the highlight of my year, and this year's was as good as ever. I stayed for a week with the usual gang, in a farmhouse they had rented somewhere north of Inverness. As last year, I drove up to Scotland a few days before joining them and did some walking and climbing on my own in an attempt to get at least partially fit, so that I would be able to keep up with the rest of the gang.
Since we were staying fairly far north anyway, I took the opportunity to go right up to the north coast of Scotland, which I have never visited before. The rest of Britain was sweltering in a heatwave, but up at the top of the country it was just pleasantly warm, with a fair amount of cloud cover and even some occasional rain. In other words, conditions for climbing were just about perfect. On the three days when I was on my own, I walked out to Sandwood Bay (which claims to have the most unspoilt beach in Europe) and climbed the two most northerly Munros. I then had an excellent week with the gang, but I won't say any more about that here because I have already posted a photoblog of the trip on the family web site (link below for anyone who's interested).
I have been going on these holidays for over 20 years, and Allan started organising them several years before that. In the past, we have always unthinkingly assumed that they would go on for ever. But this year for the first time we actually discussed the sad truth that the time will come when we can no longer climb mountains. There was a time when we confidently reckoned that we could beat the time that the guidebook gave for a climb. More recently, we have found that the guidebook's timing was just about right for us. But this year we had to face the fact that we are slowing down and taking longer than the guidebook times.
Given reasonable health, we should have ten years or more of climbing left in our legs. In the hills, you quite often see wiry little old Scottish ladies in their mid or even late seventies who still manage substantial climbs. But obviously the time will come when that will no longer be possible. What happens then? When I jokingly suggested a coach tour of the Highlands they practically threw things at me. We certainly wouldn't want to be reduced to that. But I hope that we'll still find some way of enjoying the hills together, even in our dotage.
Here's a couple of pictures from the holiday. The first one is Sandwood Bay, now owned and protected by the John Muir Trust. Even on the hottest, sunniest day of the year there were only half a dozen people along its 2km of golden sand. Being over four miles from the nearest road (and then 60 miles of narrow, twisting road from anything resembling a town) helps to keep the crowds away.
And here's one of me with my head in the clouds (or a bit above them) on the summit of Ben Klibreck.
( Three pages of photoblog start here. )
Wednesday 2 August
There's an interesting and heartening little item in this week's Sunday Times. It reminded me of something I wrote about here four years ago, when I gave a short review of Benjamin Britten's opera Albert Herring after seeing a performance of it by Opera North. This is part of what I wrote then.
Albert Herring is an interesting opera by Benjamin Britten. At one level, it is a comedy about English social attitudes, set in the deeply conservative rural community of Loxford, where they are unable to find a suitable May Queen for the May Day ceremonies. Eventually they hit on the idea of choosing instead a May King, the greengrocer's assistant Albert Herring. [...] Britten uses this scenario to explore issues of sexual identity and gender transgression.
But now it seems that fact has caught up with fiction. Here's what the Sunday Times reports. (Considering that both it and The Sun are Rupert Murdoch papers with a strong conservative bias, and that it's writing about a small town in rural England, I think it's very encouraging that social attitudes have become so accepting and relaxed. It's a far cry from the hysterical intolerance of Margaret Thatcher's time only 20 years ago.)
Only gay in the village of the week
A gay teenager has been chosen as carnival queen by a small Somerset town. David Bridge, 15, will parade through the streets of 
Axbridge wearing a dress, tiara and high heels. He auditioned in front of the mayor, who didn't have the heart to turn him down, reported The Sun. "It seemed fun and I thought I'd enjoy dressing up," said David, pictured right. Just four people applied to head the parade, so mayor Barry Hamblin named two previous queens as princesses, picked a 16-year-old girl as queen with David as "alternative queen". Said one member of the selection committee: "It's hard enough to get people involved as it is."
Saturday 12 August
I hope the people who were grumbling about the heat last month are happy with what we've got now. It's more like November than August here, with dark grey skies and a blustery wind threatening rain any moment. Temperatures didn't even reach 60°F today.
This is obviously the time to be heading for warmer parts, and for the past few days I have been putting the finishing touches on our travel plans for Spain. Ten days from now (terrorists, airlines and politicians permitting) we'll be in Madrid. We're staying there for a week, notionally to attend the International Congress of Mathematicians, but since I'm now retired I won't take that too seriously. We're looking forward to meeting lots of old friends and colleagues there, but I'm likely to be spending more time in art galleries than in lecture theatres.
When we leave Madrid we'll rent a car and drive slowly southwest, stopping for a couple of days in Toledo, then in Guadalupe and Mérida before going on to stay with Steve, Jo and the grandchildren for a few days. I have been looking for accommodation in cheap hostals, but with the proviso that they must have air-conditioned rooms. Today I had an email from the hostal in Guadalupe confirming that they have reserved a room for us, and that completes all the accommodation arrangements.
I'm very glad that we were not due to travel during the past two days, with all the delays, cancellations and confusion caused by the latest terrorist scare. It's very good news if some horrific outrage has indeed been thwarted, and I realise that the authorities have to introduce extra security procedures, but I do wish the government would not over-react quite so hysterically. What they are saying at the moment is that passengers can take nothing on board except the clothes they are wearing, tickets, passports and wallets. Nothing in pockets, no handbags or cabin baggage of any kind, not even a book to read, and I'm not sure whether they're even allowing wristwatches to be worn. Everything has to go into the checked-in baggage. I don't see how it's possible to endure a long-haul flight without a book to read. Even the two-hour trip to Madrid is going to be mind-numbingly tedious.
Sunday 20 August
It's still not at all clear whether or not the huge terrorist scare last week was a false alarm, but at least the government has begun to relax the emergency airport security measures that were introduced in such a panic, and it's now permissible to have a small amount of carry-on baggage including books. It seems that dangerous materials such as toothpaste are still banned on board. 'Tis a mad world, indeed.
So we're off to Spain tomorrow, hoping to enjoy two weeks of sunshine, seeing new places and meeting old friends and family. I'll be back here sometime in September.
