The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these words:
The message
from Jaques d'Alltrades contains these
words:
The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these words:

Great walk, though.

Yes. I did a lot of growing-up on it.

Couldn't agree more. Each of our teen lads in turn hiked the first
"Highland Way" leg of your trek (a mere 90 miles) as a sort of solo
rite of passage.

I set myself a task - buy no food for as long as possible. I managed a
fortnight - fishing for brown trout, I usually caught eels, but fried
eel is rather good - if you can bear to see it wriggling once you've
decapitated it, and wriggling after you've skinned it, and the segments
twitching as you drop them in the pan...

I found a knocked-down but unsquished brown hare, raspberries in plenty,
crowberries, blaeberries and cranberries, and I knew a lot of the edible
fungi I found. I found a lot more which I now know to be edible, but one
doesn't take chances there...

After a forninght of something akin to the Atkins' Diet (Atkins?
Adkins?), fish, flesh and fruit, with some wild vegetables, I succumbed,
and scoffed a hot pie and a packet of digestives. It was all downhill
from then onwards...

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from Jaques d'Alltrades contains these
words:

fried
eel is rather good - if you can bear to see it wriggling once you've
decapitated it, and wriggling after you've skinned it, and the segments
twitching as you drop them in the pan...

Well, I can't bear it. My grandmother used to catch and cook eels
(ISTR , red knitting wool came into the capturing bit, but can't
remember how) horrible slimy things, then she'd have them wriggling in
the tin bath, before they wriggled in the frying pan, eeeeek. I've also
eaten panfried elvers which die quicker (or twitch less). Smoked eel is
nice, but only if I didn't meet it during life :-)

Janet

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

(snip Hagrid's tale)

After a forninght of something akin to the Atkins' Diet (Atkins?
Adkins?), fish, flesh and fruit, with some wild vegetables, I succumbed,
and scoffed a hot pie and a packet of digestives. It was all downhill
from then onwards...

Not surprised really if you're coming down from Strathblane.

The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

(snip Hagrid's tale)

After a forninght of something akin to the Atkins' Diet (Atkins?
Adkins?), fish, flesh and fruit, with some wild vegetables, I succumbed,
and scoffed a hot pie and a packet of digestives. It was all downhill
from then onwards...

Not surprised really if you're coming down from Strathblane.

The trial and fall were mostly in Inverness-shire and Ross & Cromarty.

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The trial and fall were mostly in Inverness-shire and Ross & Cromarty.

Do you have the scars to prove it? Huh?! I didn't go so far up. We left
Fort Williams by 5pm and arrived in Manchester at 1am, after stopping
in Glasgow. We all had enough of 6 days rain non stop. The dogs kept
steaming up the car - it was a bad trip.

But we had stayed the previous week in Lynlithgow, blue sky and warm
sunshine, at the little cough castle of a friend. The loch was at the
bottom of his property. A few slops there. My kids fell about a bit.
Does that count?

The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:

But we had stayed the previous week in Lynlithgow, blue sky and warm
sunshine, at the little cough castle of a friend. The loch was at the
bottom of his property. A few slops there. My kids fell about a bit.
Does that count?

Wot, they slopped in the loch?

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
Wot, they slopped in the loch?

Nah. But they're knowned for taking skinny deeps here, there and
everywhere and where you'd think one shouldn't really. Bless them.
Angels they are. My youngest has been showing horticultural signs of
interests for a few years now. I'm amazed how much he knows already.
(Bradshaw, watch this space).

But then again, he's not fashion concious much atm. Wellies are just
plastic shoes you wear when it's muddy. My oldest however turns green
at the idea of wearing them. It's simply not done when wearing a
hoodie, when this item of clothing seems to be glued to him 24 hours a
day. Sadly this has limited his activities in the garden and the lotty,
tho he enjoys the latter on occasion as the shed provides a fantastic
place for jumping from, throwing stones from it onto a deserted
railway, swinging onto the cherry tree nearby and more of less behaving
like a demented pair of monkeys from up there. Digging potatoes are
also their job as well as eating anything sweet without me noticing and
blaming a wild racoon ...