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Stands of dark water

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Stands of dark water 17th February 2018 Tucked into the folds of the Border hills lie glistening stands of dark   water. They appear suddenly when cresting a knoll or rounding   a bend or dropping from high ground into the pleat of a hill. All distinguished by location, size and setting, each with its own character and atmosphere. Some are steep sided and lethal, sitting deep into the ground with sharp drops from the surrounding land. Others seem to fit the land better, with gentle sloping access running easily from land to water and out again. Others are edged by trees and undergrowth that need passing before the waters edge is found. In the hills above Abbotsford house, close to Galashiels are two such lochs. The day is grey and cold as we pull quickly up onto the edge line of hills that runs to the south of the B6360. A small plantation of beech trees tops the main hill before   we head off to our right in search of the waymarked path.   The height we have gained has already
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Yarrowford to the Three Brethern

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Now in deep mid-winter the airstream has turned towards the north and for the last week, with one brief day of remission, snow and ice and a gurly wind have dominated our weather. Local hills are capped with white and onto these we take ourselves during the last weekend of the year. Four miles west of Selkirk, we cross a dog legged stone bridge to park up next to the village hall in Yarrow ford. The whole building, road side and detached, is painted in a garish red, at odds with its surroundings but adding colour to the dullness of an overcast winters day A Cicerone walkers guide arrived a few days ago so we trust to its exactitude and strike out for Walk 28, mysteriously called ‘In search   of an army’s pay chest’. A short pull up sees us reach open ground, with good views left and right. We stop to chat to a friends of Forbes while his girlfriend’s six year old son has a right old shindig with a young Alsatian dog on the snowy slope running down to the valley floor. Difficult to kn
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Three Hills

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Three Hills Saturday 15th December 2017    A mild blustery day sees us take a 10 kilometre loop around three small tops in the Moorfoot hills north of Clovenfords. We park up close to some farm buildings, oddly embedded in one of the old barns, sits a very old stone Border keep, in an advanced stage of dilapidation. Shortly, the road drops away and a long spacious valley appears stretching into the distance, dark and broody under a grey leaden sky. The ordinance survey map highlights a track pulling up from the valley floor about two kilometres ahead. Before long we round a bend to find a shooting lodge tucked into the hillside, shuttered and gated, the well-built stone structure, is surrounded by a neat gravel path and a smart picket fence. To its right a broad track leads uphill. We begin the long slow ascent to the first top, Great Law, at just over 500 metres. As we gain height we are increasingly buffeted by the cold northerly wind.   As always it takes time to adjust
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People and places

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People and places Ashiestiel Hill – 4 th November 2017   Within thirty minutes we had reached the high point of the walk. Ashiestiel hill sits back from the A72, on ground above the long closed Peel hospital, a WW2 army hospital, converted to civilian use after the war before final closure in 1988. At twelve hundred feet the hill   provides a remarkable prospect over the Border terrain . Remarkable also, is the scarcity of farm dwellings or human habitation. A few large houses are tucked into the folds of the hill on the ground above the main road but nothing else takes the eye. The rough ground we have covered to reach this point is fit only for grazing, sheep and cattle scavenge among the heather and reeds to feed on hidden patches of grass and sedge. Most hills have some covering of conifers, either encasing or bisecting the hillside or appearing in ordered blocks of deep green on the flanks of the valleys. Fields, won back from the wildness of the place, often
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A beguiling gloom

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‘A beguiling gloom’ 14 th October 2017 By mid-October the shooting season is well underway, attracting a large number of visitors to the area to partake in the dubious pleasure of blasting away at a range of feathered creatures. By accident we stumble across what we assume is a sort of open air game bird factory on our weekly perambulations around the Border countryside. Another overcast and gloomy morning but with a forecast of thinning cloud and some sunshine by lunchtime. Destination today is Seathope Law, sitting back from the A72, at a height of 542 metres; it sits close to the small hamlet of Clovernfords. We park next to a collection of houses scattered within the precincts of Holylee farm. Beyond the farm yard the track passes a well-built cairn marking a ‘holy well’ and a small damned up section of water, before striking uphill and away from Perlooie   burn, gurgling its way downhill to the Tweed river in the valley below.     It is here we begin to experience the ‘ph
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Mark of man

The mark of man October 7th 2017 Lindean reservoir sits on the high ground between Galashiels and Selkirk, about four kilometres east of the A7. Much of the site was dug out by hand back in the 18 th century when farmers extracted the lime rich marl clay as fertiliser. Now an impressive stretch of water with the lime rich soil, unusual in Scotland, maintaining a diverse plant population. We circle its northern bank on a dull, windy Saturday morning in early October before taking a sharp turn onto a path that runs perpendicular to the loch and running alongside the towering telecommunications tower that occupies this site. Tethered to the ground by soaring steel cables, the mast itself and the building that sits beneath it are odd additions to the landscape, military in appearance but nothing more interesting than a radio and TV communications tower, put in place in 1961 to bring ITV to the South of Scotland. Odd too its existence in this age of satellites. We drop back onto
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Up the Dam valley

Up the Dam valley 5 th August 2017 This week up and down Damhead valley running south from the Border hamlet   of Traquair, set in the heart of the Tweed valley. A day of sunshine and sudden heavy downpours, shot blasts of rain disappear quickly on a strong westerly. The returning sun bright and intense, seeding colour and light back onto forest and hillside. The rapid weather changes engaging us differently in the landscape. Sometimes huddled and protected under a leaden sky, suddenly released to a warm uplifting sun. The valley a thing onto itself, as all valleys are, protected places. McFarlane refers to them as sanctuaries that, ‘possess the allure of lost worlds or secret gardens’ * This particular one gathers a greater sense of isolation the further it pulls us from the village below. First a slow drag up , passing a demolished bothy and a strange sort of memorial garden to local horses. Their names listed on roof slates attached to the stone dykes, some recounting sto
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