A couple of days after my rescue, I was ready to go again. I had rested my ankle by going to a friend’s house and spending the warmest day of the year (so far) in her garden drinking chilled white wine. My ankle and my soul were rested and refreshed so I ambushed another friend into more exertion than either of us had planned for that Sunday afternoon.
It was the last walk of this section of The Path, so once I had completed Glenduckie Hill, I would have walked from Newburgh to Wormit Bay (and back). I was looking forward to finishing this section and felt prepared and ready to go. You see, since I’ve been writing these posts, it has become increasingly obvious that my friends have been providing essential supplies for me: hot chocolate, flasks of tea, cartons of juice, chocolate, shortbread, clothing. Admittedly, I’m not a dedicated, 25 mile a day hiker so I’m not expecting to be fully prepared but I am wondering how I manage to be so ill-prepared every time. I leave the house thinking that I’m ready to go. My Batman tee shirt is comfortable and fits nicely underneath my jacket, which I’m hoping might be waterproof. If it turns out not to be waterproof, I think it won’t matter because my skin is. I take a bottle of water, a banana and tissues, as well as my phone, walking poles, camera, map, monocular (Google it) and car key. Then when I arrive, it becomes clear that nothing I am wearing is suitable and that I feel reluctant to carry anything apart from my phone and key. These fit in the pockets of my jacket but I end up leaving the water, banana, camera and map in the car. I also sometimes leave my walking poles in the car, but this is due to poor memory function rather than being a conscious decision.
I had decided to correct my oversights and get myself more prepared. I had ventured bravely onto a website for outdoor people who love being outdoors and need special outdoor equipment and outdoor clothing to be able to achieve this. I think it was called www.outdoor something or other. It was a very daunting experience to someone who doesn’t really understand what “wicking” means or how to measure a rucksack in litres. I spent a long time scrolling through pictures of well-dressed, well-prepared outdoors-y people and felt a little overwhelmed. Then I decided that, instead of trying to purchase a complete outfit, I would just choose something to carry all my stuff in and looked at rucksacks, daysacks and backpacks until I came across a picture that looked vaguely familiar. Where had I seen that before? It took a moment to register that it was similar to the thing hanging on the back of the door in my spare room. I put down the laptop and wandered through to the spare room - where the exact backruck/dayback I had been looking to buy was hanging. The internet can do miracles. So for today’s walk, I had packed my daypack/ruckpack/backsack with tissues, bananas, hot chocolate, map, phone and keys, picked up my walking poles and set off to meet my friend. So far so good.
We’d chosen a circular route that would take us round the summit of Glenduckie Hill, mostly following The Path but with a couple of small deviations – or so we thought. Actually, what happened is the same thing that happens to me when I try to follow motorway diversion signs. The helpful hand-painted sign provided by the landowner said that we were to go through a gate, follow the path for 100 metres then we would re-join the path. Except after 100 metres, there wasn’t another sign. I was going to carry on and my friend pointed out the path on our right which was roughly 100 metres after the sign. We had a short debate which was watched with interest by a beautiful brown Clydesdale horse, with white “socks” and a white flash on his nose. Obviously my friend was right, there was another sign when we re-joined the path and we started making our way up the hill.
Up. It’s such a small word. It does accurately describe the direction but does not fully describe the effort required to move us in that direction. The Path was very steep and felt unending as it wound it’s way backwards and forwards up the hill towards the summit. The gravel was grown over and was almost completely carpeted by green grass with daisies poking their tiny white heads through the cracks and stones. My friend was very patient as we kept stopping for me to “admire the view” (that is my code for “I need to stop and take deep gulping breaths or I’ll fall over”). It was warmer than I’d realised and I was desperate for a drink of water, so we paused and as I went to get the water I realised that I hadn’t packed any. My friend had brought her water, but when I’d mentioned I had a daypack/bag thingummy, she had thought I’d brought water in it so she’d left hers in the car. So now we both needed water and I hadn’t brought any. Bananas, yes. Hot chocolate, yes. Tissues, yes. Hat, yes. Walking poles, yes. Water? Nope. So much for being well-prepared.
My better-prepared friend had brought some sliced apple, and we stopped and had a little rest and some apple, which was cool and refreshing. We spent some time genuinely admiring the view and it was worth admiring. To the left of our path, the dark Lomond Hills stood in the distant background, their twinned peaks almost seeming to touch the low white clouds. The sky was a palette of pale blues and the white clouds were whipped along by playful winds and lit up by bright spring sunshine. In front of us, the hill fell sharply down to meet the Tay, the view broken up by the skeleton branches of trees, bending and waving in the wind. And to our right, the up path. Going up. Very much up. Break time over, we started winding our way up to the summit. This hadn’t been part of The Plan, but since we were here, we decided we might as well get to the top.
There had once been an Iron Age fort and stronghold on this summit too, as there had been on Norman’s Law. There was even less evidence of a fort here, there were no broken-down walls, or curved ditches; just a cairn marking the summit and a group of fellow hikers. It seemed a shame to hike up this hill and still not manage to have it to ourselves, but we sat on the grass in the sunshine and drank hot chocolate and looked across the ridges of farmland, the sun shining on the fields of Fife. It was a good view and I felt justified bringing the hot chocolate. I was also looking forward to the descent, because whatever the rest of this afternoon held in store, at least there would be no more “up”.
The way back took us through Melgers woodland, The Path was dark despite the sunny afternoon, the canopy of trees was thick and each branch was draped with Old Man’s Beard. It looked like an ancient forest, one that reminds you why people once believed in tree sprites, woodland spirits and trees that came alive. We broke out of the forest and joined The Path, following it round the hill through an avenue of grass, the dense dark forest on one side and plantations of Hawthorn and Birch on the other.
By the time we had followed The Path back to our starting point and had a cup of tea from my well-prepared friend’s flask, I decided that it didn’t matter how ill-prepared I was. All that mattered was that I have good friends who help me out when I need it. I’m pretty sure there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.
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