It is ok to walk in the dark and other lessons from my first outing with a mountaineering club

My trip with the Tweeddale Ramblers (*click*) may also count as an outing with a mountaineering club, but it was only a day walk.

This club is different. People are generally younger, the walking is more ambitious, and they go on weekend trips in the highlands every fortnight. Accommodation in hostels, bunk houses and mountaineering huts is arranged and very cheap. Lifts get shared, and communal evening meals are also sometimes organised.

The club meets in the pub every Thursday, and I had gone along a few times to see if people were nice. That confirmed, I joined them on a weekend trip in Roybridge. A whole weekend with a group of strangers in the remote Scottish highlands.

My car company was nice and chatty, but unfortunately I got very, very car sick on the drive up, sitting in the back and not wanting to make a fuss. That pretty much ruined my evening, and I was having trouble socialising. Socialising consisted of looking at maps and gear and planning the next day's adventures. That was the single topic of conversation. Everyone seemed to check with everyone else what they were planning on doing and who with, before making up their own minds. It amazed me that people in the end did have a plan.

The weather wasn't great. Lots of snow on the hills, and poor visibility. My plan was to walk through a river and along a glen, possibly up one or two corbetts if it was nice enough. I was happy to do it on my own, but ended up walking with three guys, who seemed to be in a rush to get this hill-walk done and over with and get back to the huts. Once I realised I'd rather continue alone at my own pace, I was on a hill in a whiteout and didn't know how to get down it, so I kept following the guys. Not exactly my kind of walking.

At night, we cooked together and had a nice chat and made plans for the next day. Trying to fit in, I talked about the long walks I had done, but in order not to risk my mountain cred, I didn't mention all the stages I had skipped...

The following day, I had to go where my driver was going, because his walk was on the route home, and he wasn't going to come back to the huts. We did a lovely walk up Creag Meagaidh nature reserve with a larger group of friendly people. They had some incredible stories to share.

There was the one of the guy who came down a hill very late at night and ran into a search party. He decided to join them, because on the hills you look out for each other. Only after a while did he realise that it was him they were searching for.

Another story was about this seasoned hill-walker who didn't make it back at night at all. He had gone up Creag Meagaidh as well. His wife was used to him coming down the hill quite late, but eventually in the morning she got concerned when he still hadn't come home, and she notified the mountain rescue. They walked up the usual route and took a break at the lochin before going up 'The Chimney' to the ridge. They had a cup of tea sitting down on the mountain rescue kit, a coffin-shaped wooden box for emergency shelter, when they suddenly heard a knocking sound. Yes, the guy they were looking for had turned his ankle in the evening, hadn't been able to make it down the hill, took shelter in the mountain resuce kit and fell sound asleep. And it never occurred to the rescue team to look inside!

I now always carry a head torch when out and about in the hills. It seems quite normal to most hill walkers to come down a hill after dark.

Giggleswick

How to describe music summercamp? It was a week filled with music classes, concerts and performances, eating together, drinking together and enjoying the company of friendly people who share the same interests.

We were 170 people of all ages between 16 and 92, although the average age was probably above 50. This was one reason for me to sign up - this wouldn't be a knocking shop, and people would be quite relaxed about musical skills. I could just relax and not worry about singing or playing poorly, or impressing boys. The musical focus was on folk music, jazz music, and a little bit of classical music as well. The tutors were high-caliber professional musicians, most of them also teaching music at university.

Most people were staying in the school which was more like a small village. I had a little room to myself under the roof with a sink and a mirror, and a shared bathroom in the hall. Food was excellent, and it was served to a strict schedule in a dining hall. I sat with different people for each meal, and everyone was friendly.

I was probably most nervous about my jazz voice class. This was about performing jazz songs solo in front of people. We did a couple of songs together, and each student had also prepared a song to rehearse and then perform at a student concert. We sang the first song together, Have You Met Ms. Jones, and then each of us sang 8 bars on their own. Once that was out of the way and I felt that I was doing ok, I relaxed a bit and started to enjoy the class.

My Ukulele class turned out to be a bit too slow-paced for my taste. I did learn new things, but too few of them, and too slowly. I dropped it and took up Dixieland instead. Dixieland was great. We had a tuba, banjos, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, guitar, and a tutor who had a huge smile on his face, handed out the music, and wasn't precious about the outcome. He made everyone play an improvised solo - and then everyone at the same time. The outcome was loud and fun and chaotic, and much more musical than expected. The tutor told me later in the bar that he had never taught adults before - he was filling in for someone else on short notice.

And finally, my First Steps In Improvisation class was very surreal, hugely entertaining and impossible to describe.

I ended up playing my trumpet much more than expected - after seven years of not playing it at all. It all came back quickly, and I remembered that I once quite liked it.

There were student concerts at night after dinner, and there was a bar and cheap drinking. People were playing their instruments everywhere, rehearsing for one of the many performances, or just jamming. I joined a bunch of recorder players for a session of recorder playing. On my birthday, I joined a jam session with my trumpet. I sang a jazz song to an audience of maybe fifty people, accompanied by piano. At the dance after the gala dinner I danced a quickstep with the only man at the camp who could ballroom dance, 92-year-old Norman. And for the last day, I rejoined the ukulele class to perform with them in the big final all-day student concert. At the ceilidh at night, I showed the mostly English crowd how they dance in Scotland.

It was indeed all very lovely.

School grounds - I stayed in the house on the left

A Giggleswick house

Gala dinner

Late night drinking with boys from Ipswich and Doncaster

Borders Abbeys Way 1

Another long weekend, another long walk. My friend, let's call him Joe, who accompanied me on the last one, was keen to do another one. Usually a mountaineer, this different kind of walking was a revelation to him. The full walk report is coming out soon!

Festival fall-out

Oh yeah, this happened:

Some of our amazing volunteers celebrate 70 Years of the Edinburgh Festivals with Nicola Sturgeon and Roger Spence pic.twitter.com/sqrvIqAHh5

— EdinburghJazzFest (@EdinburghJazz) 16 August 2017

Another party at the beach

I was invited to an 'informal gathering at the beach'.

A dump by day, a romantic hidden beach by night

Wildlife

Longstone (where I live) is a jungle!

I keep running into my local badger when I cycle home at night, and the canal path is full of foxes, and earlier at night, rats.

And this morning, John was about to leave the flat when a magpie hopped down the stairs, past him, followed by our neighbour from upstairs who said that this was the third time this week he had to see a magpie out.

Music school

Folks, I'm away at a summer school of music in England for a week!

I packed all instruments I could find apart from the fiddle: the uke, trumpet, kazoo, rekorder (my favourite!), harmonica, and a borrowed music stand. Also my glad rags and dancing shoes for the gala dinner.

This is happening in a boarding school with the great name of "Giggleswick" in Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. Kat and I once walked from Settle to Malham (*click*) over the hills, arriving at Malham in the dark -  and I never blogged about it!

I am taking three courses: Ukulele, Jazz voice, and first steps in improvisation (trumpet). Ukulele should be easy and fun. Jazz voice is quite outside my comfort zone, and while I have done some improvisation before, the last time I touched my trumpet was probably five years ago. So, good fun ahead!

Pilgrimage 3

Monday: Wooler - Fenwick - Beal - Berwick-upon-Tweed

I still have the dorm to myself but I don't sleep too well anyway. But a full cooked English breakfast is waiting for me so I get up and make my way to the dining room. The table is set for two, everyone else is making their own breakfasts. My friend is nowhere to be seen so I order him some tea and am ready to take it to his dorm when he arrives. Phew, I didn't really want to set foot into a male dorm in the morning.

We say our goodbyes to the natural dying girls and the pilgrims, and leave to do the final stretch, 23 km (14 miles) to the coast. We won't be able to cross over to Holy Island today, because the tide will have come in by the time we make it to the causeway. Instead, my friend suggests we continue walking to Berwick-upon-Tweed, rather than taking the bus, from where we will take our train back to Edinburgh. This is a ridiculous idea, as it will add another 17 km (10 miles) to the day, so I agree.

We walk through Wooler and past a group of adolescent walkers who we soon leave behind, never to be seen again. We meet a gang of young bulls - or bullocks - the ones without balls anyway. They are quite friendly, curious and excited, mounting each other, and I'm feeling much braver when I'm past them and on the other side of the gate. Love is definitely in the air - three female sheep are at it nearby.

I'm feeling stronger today, slightly better rested, and we are leaving the Cheviots behind us - in theory, it's only downhill from here. We walk over a very old-looking bridge, Weetwood bridge, and a couple of ladies tell us it is medieval. We take a break on a grassy pillbox from the second world war. We visit St. Cuthbert's Cave in the woods, which has graffiti from the 18oos scratched into the large rocks, and we climb some boulders here.

When we leave the woods, a man warns us of another gang of cattle with offspring and offers us his stick to fend them off. We cross the field, and a group of people come our way, looking very scared and yet determined, trying hard not to make eye-contact with the cattle closing in. But the cows sense our fearlessness and leave us alone. We see the sea.

At Fenwick we carefully cross the fast A1 and then approach the rails. There's a phone here for calling the signalman to ask when it's safe to cross. He asks how many of us there are and how long it will take us to cross, and then he allows us to cross.

We watch the last cars on the causeway returning from the island before the tide comes in, and we make our way to the barn at Beal, a cafe, for a long break in the sun with a sea view. We decide to walk to Berwick-upon-Tweed. I'm not ready for the adventure to be over, and I don't know yet that it is another 17 km.

The walk to Berwick along the coast is lovely - at some point I take off my shoes and walk in the sea - my feet are loving it. They are complaining a bit though when I have to force them back into the boots. To keep our minds off the pain and the remaining miles we resolve to riddles and logic puzzles.

We pass a beautiful grand house on a cliff and I wish it was a hotel, taking us in, but we keep walking and eventually reach Berwick. We hobble into the town centre and have some food and wait for the train. A man is waiting with us and tells us that he owns the grand house on the cliff and runs it as a B&B.

On the train, my friend is absolutely shattered and can barely keep his eyes open. I'm actually not too bad and tease him by acting extra lively. We arrive in Edinburgh at 10 pm or so, and after 85 km (53 miles) in total, and 40 km (25 miles) today, I'm sore and I shiver from exhaustion, and I think this was an absolute beauty of a weekend.

Pilgrimage 2

Sunday: Kirk Yetholm - Hethpool - Wooler

It is Sunday morning and on entering the hostel kitchen, my friend gets me a coffee and fries me some duck eggs. That's the way to start the day! We chat with some grumpy Danish walkers, and with a girl who's doing the pilgrimage with her grandad. These pilgrims we will meet again.

We leave for our 20 km (13 miles) walk to Wooler - our shortest day. We soon have to climb our first proper hill, one of the Cheviot Hill range, and it feels much more strenuous than the previous day. Maybe the climb is steeper, but I'm also feeling a bit sleep-deprived and am less talkative than I have been. On top of the hill we take a break and a nap or two in the sun. When we continue walking we meet a bunch of Englishmen in an eerie forest plantation who tell us that we have already crossed the border - without noticing, we might even have taken a nap on it!

I  run out of chat, so I ask for most embarassing stories and uncover a goldmine! Of course nothing that I could share here.

We interrupt the day several times with long breaks and naps, but are still exhausted when, after a few lovely miles across a desolate moor, we arrive into Wooler where we shave half a mile off our walk by taking a shortcut on a road. The hostel is up a hill, but at least we each have a dorm to ourselves!

After a cup of tea and a bit of a rest, we freshen up and search for a pub for food. The Tankerville Arms, or the "Tanky" as the locals call it, is a mile down the hill, but the food is worth it. In fact, I get so excited about eating that I throw half a pint over my friend's lap. Oops. Sorry mate.

To make up for it I offer him a piggy- back up the hill back to the hostel but have to give up after a few meters. Also, the etiquette concerning arm placement of the piggy-backee is unclear.

Back at the hostel, we have more tea and a chat with the pilgrims who are also staying here, and with a group of three girls who are on their way to a course in "natural dying". This is about dying textiles with dyes made of plants, and has nothing to do with assisted dying.

A couple of retired Germans stop at the hostel to speak to the warden about something, and then join us for a chat about their trip through the UK. The man is originally from Peine, a German town near Braunschweig, where I lived for 10 years, and he is friendly and talkative, while his wife seems a bit shy with her English. They promise to stop if they see us hitchhiking tomorrow.

After all the walking, napping, and socialising, I am exhausted and ready for an early night.