Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[tikay]

Just look at how that village seems to be framed perfectly by those trees. Bet none of them were "planted", either, just seeded by nature.

Pretty sure most of us take trees for granted, but I love them more with every passing day. Nature designed them so beautifully, they are like the countryside's furniture.   

There was a wonderful TV Show on Thursday about oak trees.


 

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

...and finally, you could not paint a scene more beautiful than this.

I'd get a dog just to give me the excuse to walk that meandering little path every day, with those gorgeous wooden handrails over, I assume, streams, & the sheep dotted around the hillsides.

Click to see full-size image.

[Archer]

I've always enjoyed the bike references in here Tom. It has finally prompted me to look back nostalgically at my own bike journey for the 10 years or so I spent on 2 wheels.

I started with one of these in my late teens and actually took my test on it: .

 

Amazing that back then passing a test on a small semi-automatic allowed me to legally ride a super bike. I didn't get the superbike tho. The opposite in fact.  My brother sold me this cheap and cheerful East German masterpiece:

 

I toured the States on a bike  for about a month in the early 80s and visited Vegas for the first time arriving at the Flamingo Hilton on one of these Italian beauties:

 

Click to see full-size image.

My final bike was this classic:

Click to see full-size image.

Happy days.

[RED-DOG]

I've always enjoyed the bike references in here Tom. It has finally prompted me to look back nostalgically at my own bike journey for the 10 years or so I spent on 2 wheels.

I started with one of these in my late teens and actually took my test on it: .

 

Amazing that back then passing a test on a small semi-automatic allowed me to legally ride a super bike. I didn't get the superbike tho. The opposite in fact.  My brother sold me this cheap and cheerful East German masterpiece:

 

I toured the States on a bike  for about a month in the early 80s and visited Vegas for the first time arriving at the Flamingo Hilton on one of these Italian beauties:

 

Click to see full-size image.

My final bike was this classic:

Click to see full-size image.

Happy days.

Cheers Archer. I didn't know you cared. 


I love the Honda. Where did you get it? Did you buy it new or second hand?

What happened to it?

[RED-DOG]

Pretty sure most of us take trees for granted, but I love them more with every passing day. Nature designed them so beautifully, they are like the countryside's furniture.  

Just stick to the facts please.

[RED-DOG]

Got myself a pair of these bad boys yesterday.

Click to see full-size image.

Genuine British Army Woodland DPM Extreme Cold Weather Outer Mitts.

[Rod Paradise]

Some pics from Leadhills (not mine) - it's only a couple of miles from the highest village in Britain, many years (and stone) ago I did the grouse beating up in the hills around there.

Click to see full-size image.

A confession - the photo above is from the next village along, Wanlockhead, but at least it's got a water powered beam engiine that used to pump water out of the mines, which should please Tikay.

Not so much the mine, but a question for you. (Those photos are excellent, incidentally).

It is my imagination, or are an awful lot of houses in Scottish villages faced in predominantly white stucco?

White stucco is lovely, & my recollection of driving through the Highlands is that the majority of houses & especially little Chapels seem to be white stucco? Pretty sure there are nothing like as  many in England or Wales.

Maybe the clay in Scotland is not suitable for making facing bricks?

Whatever the reason, I think it's lovely.

A lot of the houses are really old and made of rough stone and mortar not bricks (they were the workers' cottages and why pay for dressed stone or bricks when the mine is producing a load of rough stone?) There are a couple of dressed stone buildings, which were housing for the bosses. The workers were practically slaves, with the only shop owned by the bosses, when a worker started they'd get credit at the shop, their wages were never enough to allow them to pay off the debt & feed/clothe themselves & their families for the next month, hence they were in effect owned. With the rough stone buildings the whitewashing is pretty traditional. In the highlands where the same style of cottage is so common as you stay, again poor folks built with what was available and cheap.

Saying that my parents live in the old quarry manager's house with views over a quarry which fed the Sanquhar Brickworks which made some of the hardest bricks from the time, used in quite a few of the big football grounds, Ibrox, Villa Park & I'm told the old Wembley used Sanquhar Brick.

In Sanquhar the oldest houses are rough stone, with dressed stone after the area became more prosperous & brick from after the brickworks opened.

Sorry but the majority of the trees will have been planted - they're right up in  the moorland, apart from scrub trees in some gullys it's pretty bare, the trees will have been planted (and needed protected from deer & sheep) with beech and oak round the posh houses, & a rowan in the small gardens of the workers' cottages (they're said to keep away witches - so a lot of Scots gardens will have a rowan).

Aye it can be a great place to walk a dog (although the high lead content in the streams means that dog life expectancy is a bit low). There's also a very rough golf course where sheep form moving hazards & in August/September golf can be interrupted while the grouse beaters beat across the course.

One of my favourite walks is back home from up there, which gives great views & means walking through different habitats at the different heights and potentially lots of wildlife to spot.

It was on one of the hills overlooking Wanlockhead that I took this pic of Kerry:

Click to see full-size image.

[Rod Paradise]

Got myself a pair of these bad boys yesterday.

Click to see full-size image.

Genuine British Army Woodland DPM Extreme Cold Weather Outer Mitts.

So no-one can see your hand?

[tikay]

Great explanation about the houses and trees, thanks Rod.

[RED-DOG]

Very interesting about the lead in the streams Rod. You say it affects the longevity of dogs. Surely it must effect humans in the same way?

[Rod Paradise]

Great explanation about the houses and trees, thanks Rod.

Disappointed you weren't interested in the beam engine - it was water powered and built about 1870 - replacing the steam engined pump.

Simple but effective

The beam engine was a simple but effective machine – and much less costly to run than the steam engines that preceded it. Water to power the engine was collected in a tank (the only piece of apparatus no longer in existence) on the hillside above, and piped to the right-hand side of the engine. There it ran into a wooden bucket attached to the great timber beam by an iron rod.

The weight of the full bucket took it downwards, thereby pulling the pump rod in the adjacent shaft upwards. As the bucket reached the bottom of the pit it triggered a valve that emptied the bucket. The rising empty bucket pushed the pump rod back down again. As soon as the bucket reached the top, it filled again – so repeating the procedure.


God’s treasure house in Scotland

The villages of Wanlockhead and Leadhills are known as ‘God’s Treasure House in Scotland’ because of the extraordinary rich and diverse mineral ores beneath them, principally gold and lead. The Crown of Scotland, on display in Edinburgh Castle, was made in 1540 from Leadhills gold.

Wanlockhead, incidentally the highest village in Scotland (467m), was created in the 1680s, and the Straitsteps mine opened in 1710. It was worked commercially from 1793 until the 1920s. Wanlockhead now houses the fascinating Museum of Lead Mining, where the beam engine is a focal point.

And there's still gold in them that hills...

This nugget was found by someone on a gold panning course this summer & is worth £10,000.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Got myself a pair of these bad boys yesterday.

Click to see full-size image.

Genuine British Army Woodland DPM Extreme Cold Weather Outer Mitts.

So no-one can see your hand?

Yes. So no one can see my warm dry hands when I'm on my motorbike.

[RED-DOG]

Great explanation about the houses and trees, thanks Rod.

Disappointed you weren't interested in the beam engine - it was water powered and built about 1870 - replacing the steam engined pump.

Simple but effective

The beam engine was a simple but effective machine – and much less costly to run than the steam engines that preceded it. Water to power the engine was collected in a tank (the only piece of apparatus no longer in existence) on the hillside above, and piped to the right-hand side of the engine. There it ran into a wooden bucket attached to the great timber beam by an iron rod.

The weight of the full bucket took it downwards, thereby pulling the pump rod in the adjacent shaft upwards. As the bucket reached the bottom of the pit it triggered a valve that emptied the bucket. The rising empty bucket pushed the pump rod back down again. As soon as the bucket reached the top, it filled again – so repeating the procedure.


God’s treasure house in Scotland

The villages of Wanlockhead and Leadhills are known as ‘God’s Treasure House in Scotland’ because of the extraordinary rich and diverse mineral ores beneath them, principally gold and lead. The Crown of Scotland, on display in Edinburgh Castle, was made in 1540 from Leadhills gold.

Wanlockhead, incidentally the highest village in Scotland (467m), was created in the 1680s, and the Straitsteps mine opened in 1710. It was worked commercially from 1793 until the 1920s. Wanlockhead now houses the fascinating Museum of Lead Mining, where the beam engine is a focal point.

And there's still gold in them that hills...

This nugget was found by someone on a gold panning course this summer & is worth £10,000.

Click to see full-size image.

Wow!

I wonder why it's worth 10k?

[Rod Paradise]

Very interesting about the lead in the streams Rod. You say it affects the longevity of dogs. Surely it must effect humans in the same way?

It used to I'd imagine. The water for there (and here) is now piped in from a big reservoir a few miles away. Also the lead in the water is leaching in from the mine workings - so drinking from the burns upstream is OK.

I don't know if they still do but there used to be some moonshine making in the old mines, it was an argument whether it was the lead in the water or the methanol in the moonshine that was more dangerous.

[tikay]

Tom, are you familiar with Enthoven's battery recycling plant up at Darley Dale? (As a side issue, they used to have a lovely fleet of lorries).

Locals say that the ground around there is fearfully contaminated, and the rabbits are not fit to eat.