Winter weather brings forth every colour of the rainbow
Last updated 11:01, Friday, 15 February 2008
IT has been frequently said this winter that ‘we have had really terrible weather’, or words akin to that.
In the past few months that statement has probably been true in many parts of Britain and Europe but in Scotland we seem to have had the best of the weather so far, compared maybe with the Midlands or the south.
There have been a few marvellous days when the sun shone in all its glory and the bad spells made us appreciate the bright days.
There was one such day in early January. The sky had been cloudy and wet until noon, then the clouds began to break until they became a mass of small, fluffy clusters, clinging onto a bright blue sky.
Towards Pikethaw, The Wisp and Tudhope Hills and on to Hawick the sky was a deep or royal blue and the small floating clouds became a myriad of shades of pink.
The clock had just left four when I started up Meikleholm Hill with the promise of a wider view of the heavens.
I passed the cattle trough and the water tank to see that the sky over the Solway was turning a lighter blue, with fewer small cloud patches, but with a greater spread of horizontal streaks.
At the top of Meikleholm the horizontal panorama was overwhelmed with a voluptuous sea and sky, ranging from duck-egg blue to pale blue, to light blue, merging into the darker blue overhead.
Below us the hills were black; black with their shadowed faces looking back at me. The strips of horizontal clouds in turn seemed to alter from pale pink to deep pink, and to vivid red as the sun sank even lower.
I stood mesmerised by the magical scene until I could no longer read the face of my watch and Eskdale was dark.
As my candle had gone out, I set off in some trepidation to stumble homewards. In reality I knew the hillside so well that there was no real danger but the odd hole might suddenly stick up or a tussock might suddenly appear so I walked diligently.
Just above the water tank matters degenerated as the lights of Langholm glared up at me, causing the intervening ground to sink into dark shadow. Eventually, I reached the gate and the comparatively strong street lights were shielded by the tree line. But there have been other fine days when the sun’s bright orb created cheer and even a slight warmth over the land.
We paid a visit to Newcastleton Forest travelling via Whita Yett, Tarras Lodge, Tinnis Bridge and Copshaw Holm. From there we drove across the Liddel to Sorbietrees and past Carby Hill, probably originally called Caer Ba, which means ‘the fort of the cattle’. From Caer Ba we went downhill to Kershope Burn and parked at the quarry.
We crossed onto the English side of the bridge and followed the border for two miles, before crossing a metal bridge back onto the Scottish side.
We climbed uphill towards Tweedenhead in the centre of the Newcastleton Forest and not so far from Dykecrofts above Copshaw.
We were looking for the Long Cairn and, fortunately, my old friend Bill had been there before. But I was disappointed; it was nae mair nor a ‘rickle o’ stanes’.
There is another lang cairn or horned cairn in the Border forest at Tinnisburn between Langholm and Copshaw.Unfortunately, over the centuries both heaps of stanes have been used for dwelling and dyke construction.
As we turned back down the valley to Scotch Kershope Cottage, the sun was directly in our faces so both Scotch and English Kershope just across the border were bathed in a brilliant sunset.
But on this occasion there were no clouds in the sky, not even a wee smidgeon. The sky was blue, the trees were bare and the giant orb of the setting sun was directly in front of us at eye level on the narrow track.
In this cloudless sky there were no stupendous reflected colours, only the blinding direct rays.
As we crossed the bridge back into England, it was difficult to see and would have been worse when driving across the muir to Tarras Lodge and Whita, so we returned by a lower and shaded route through Kershopefoot, Harelaw and Clayett.
