Speyside Way - Day 3 of 6 - part 1

April 23, Sunday. Walked from Grantown-On-Spey to Ballindaloch. Official estimate was 14 miles plus 1 mile off the Way to my hotel. My various iPhone apps say I walked 17.5 so 18 miles. 

I hope this post will be brief. I was cold and wet and increasingly miserable as the day went on. I suspect in more pleasant weather I would have enjoyed the hike and the landscapes (in the first part of the day I did, actually.) But in the last half, as I kept backtracking for a lost mitten or a missed way mark, or detouring to find my way back to the trail, I began to imagine this trail devised here in the land of whisky by a group of whisky lovers sitting around late at night in a pub. All of them are telling stories about how to plan the trail aling an impossibly crazy zigzagging route that no one can possibly follow. Each one outdoing the others in far fetched trail planning tales and all of them laughing til their bellies ache and then laughing some more. Let’s make it go this way, then that way, up here, down there, around - they’ll never be able to follow it! Oh, and let’s have them walk right through a a narrow crowded part of the cow pasture here, and one of sheep there. It will be an absolute howl when the wee calves and lambs are around and the mums want to protect ‘em. And those walkers won’t be able to believe these so-called trails that look like no one has or possibly could walk on them - what with the rocks and the mud and the bumps and the uneven lumpy ground tilting this way and that - they won’t believe this could really be the path of an official national trail! And get a load a this route here - we’ll even leave off the waymarks here,  so they’ll be sure to guess wrong and have to go back. This ‘ll show ‘em how we true believers feel when our worship of the bottle has been so devout that we can’t for the life of us find our way home. 

I was only barely beginning to feel this way, trudging through the rain, when I saw this horse in a soaking blanket and wondered if he was warmer or colder than the horse with no blanket. And then began to think about what the term “wet blanket” really meant. That suggests itself for the perfect theme for this post. 

In the morning I was surprised that I wasn’t as cold as I expected and congratulated myself on my extra layers of clothes and pointed out the beauty of rain drops and mist and gray clouds that are a special gift of rainy days. 

Mist can be beautiful the way it mutes and softens everything and the air can be very fresh smelling and tasting to breathe. During the (increasingly rare) interludes between rainy periods, I was quite cheerful in the morning. 

And gray clouds have their own dignity and grandeur.

Yes in the first part of the day I found a variety of redeeming glories and imaginary Jesus walked along beside me and had all but convinced me that the miracle and beauty of this creation made it worth willingly picking up and carrying the cross of one’s own and others’ pain and humiliation and despair. 

To be continued in 

Speyside Way - Day 3 of 6 - part 2