As Guillaume’s very pleasant Scottish neighbours, the ones from Perth who added to the weight of opinion that Fort Dump was a William [:)], were packing to leave for home today, there was a glimmer of hope; I spotted a weak shadow. Sure enough, though the sun was not at all clear, it was just about showing through a thin shroud of cloud. We bade farewell to them and, in the hope of some brighter weather in Glen Coe and Rannoch Moor, set off to give Francine the chance to play with her filters again and, perhaps, have a more pleasant walk.

The faint glimmer of hope remained as we drove up through Glen Coe to reach Francine’s chosen subject on Rannoch Moor. She began studying shooting angles and setting up her tripod. As she was doing so, the glimmer of hope became fainter, occasionally disappearing. Although there had been a few brief hints of sun, the air seemed even murkier than usual, the slightly distant hills all looking as they had been covered in a thin veil of grey. Having gone to the effort of setting up, Francine tried gamely to make something of nothing; she was only wasting reusable pixels, after all. A panoramic crop seems to work best.

With all glimmers having disappeared, we went in search of another location looking for views to convey the bleakness of the moor and climbed a small hill to get a higher angle. Shortly, ein Reisebus pulled into the same layby and discharged a large abteilung of heavily armed Sturmbanntouristen which immediately began a determined assault on our position. Greatly outnumbered, we made a tactical withdrawal and grabbed what, for me, was the best shot of the day. A passing Scottish gentleman play-acted machine-gunning them with his walking stick. They did make a good target against the skyline. 😀

The light now being a complete waste of time, we descended back into Glen Coe and paused for a short walk to Signal Rock, from which the massacre of Glen Coe was initiated.  For once this was Scots killing Scots and the English weren’t involved. The rain began at about 1:30 PM on our way back to the car.

It’s now raining heavily and the opposite side of Loch Linnhe has once again vanished in the rain-sodden atmosphere. So much for our glimmer of hope.

‘T was a reasonable morning in our adjusted reality – it wasn’t actually raining, though it looked as if it might at any moment. We needed a shopping visit so we could make a paella for Francine’s old college friend visiting us in the evening. There being no great choices in the near vicinity, our most likely venue that might sell chorizo sausage was likely to be Morrisons supermarket in Fort Dump/William. Mr. Scottish-Neighbour had been eulogising about a walk up Glen Nevis which heads south-east from Fort Dump so we made a plan to do the walk, hit Morrisons and then get a McWiFi fix.

The drive to the start of the walk was along another single track road with passing places. This time, though, there were no lunatic motorcyclists barging their way through. Without them and being old hands at such roads now, it was a doddle. We were not, however, prepared for the sizeable parking area to be all but full. We squeezed in, donned our hiking boots and set off, in my case with camera and monopod slung over my shoulder in case any wildlife should appear. With all the parked cars, the track was unsurprisingly something of a tourist motorway; yet another single track with passing places. Maybe I could use the monopod as a sort of cattle prod? 😉

The day’s rain began as we approached the top where the climb levels off into a high plateau with the main tourist attraction being an impressive waterfall tumbling down onto the plain. with the amount of water being delivered on a daily basis to this part of the world, I suppose it couldn’t fail to be impressive. The wildlife had more sense than to make an appearance so the camera was just so much baggage. Fortunately, Francine had a plastic bag with which I could cover my redundant camera and lens.

The only other intriguing sight was a precarious-looking rope bridge across the river resulting from the tumbling, impressive waterfall. Having only my long wildlife lens with me, I had trouble catching a snap of the lesser spotted tourist sporting what I can only describe as a crew-cut Mohican hair do. Very inventive! Incidentally, anyone who has seen Daniel Day Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans will know only too well that it was the Hurons with the wacky cock’s comb hair-do, not the Mohicans; the Mohicans had long, flowing locks that would make any dark-haired woman envious. Why, then, do we insist on calling those modern cock’s comb hairstyles a Mohican, pray tell?

On our return to Fort Dump, we did have a little wildlife excitement. There’s a dividing line that separates the dominions of Carrion Crows (Corvus corone corone) and Hooded Crows (Corvus corone cornix). The latter being restricted to Ireland, the Isle of Man and west Scotland, we aren’t used to seeing them. They are as common as muck here but we found spotting one quite exciting. Sad, really. 🙂

In my parlance, a good day is one with clear blue skies and, assuming summer, a warm temperature in the mid-20s centigrade. A quite nice day would be a dry day with scattered cloud and sunny intervals with a consequently slightly lower temperature in, say, the low-20s centigrade.

In western Scotland it is necessary to adjust one’s yard stick when it comes to describing the quality of the day. Here, a good day is one with total cloud cover that remains dry all day long and may hit the dizzying heights of 16°C. An exceptional day will include the occasional tiny glimpse of blue which is swallowed by the clouds almost the instant it appears. A quite nice day is one with ten tenths cloud cover and rain for part but not all of the day.

After yesterday with close to 24 hours of rain, Francine peered out of Guillaume this morning and, having adjusted her levels of expectation muttered, “it’s quite nice out there now”.  Today dawned with solid cloud cover but without rain … as yet. There were even a few fleeting beams of light hitting the opposite side of Loch Linnhe. Yes, we could actually see the opposite side of the loch. We decided to investigate those occasional light patches on the Ardnamurchan peninsular, the opposite side of the lock. Our mental end goal was yet another RSPB reserve at Glenborrodale where, supposedly, we might be lucky enough to glimpse our first Highland Darter, Sympetrum (striolatum) nigrescens.

Getting to the other side of Loch Linnhe looked like fun since it involved the Corran ferry, the port being less than a mile from our campsite. The ferry saves a 50-mile or so drive around the end of the loch so we didn’t mind putting the £7.00 fare into local hands rather than the hands of the money-grabbing oil companies. The journey, including loading, crossing and unloading, takes up to 20 minutes. The ferry is a strange looking affair and is clearly purpose built with its loading ramps sticking out at about 45° at either end. This design makes the boat looked curved. We drove on and of at the required wacky angle and were on our way.

The next stage of our route took us along Glen Tabert and beside another sea loch, Loch Sunart, which, given a little subdued light, even if no sun, looked satisfyingly picturesque with small white buildings nestling in the shores and boats resting at anchor.

At Strontian, which gave its name to the element Strontium when it was first discovered there, the road became a single track with passing places. Most folks were good about driving cautiously and using the passing places intelligently. Progress is naturally slow on such a road but we eventually covered the distance to Glenborrodale and, having forgotten to bring the RSPB book [brilliant!], even managed to find the RSPB reserve.

Given the persistent rain in this neck of the woods, conditions were v. muddy underfoot. We climbed up and saw hardly any wee beasties moving at all, far less any dragonflies. Having reached the high point, I’d all but given up when, on a short section of boardwalk, I was definitely flown at. We needed some serious flushing and stalking techniques but a lone dragonfly eventually settled in an accessible position; a female and here she is. I initially thought she was a Black Darter (Sympetrum danae) but it lacks the diagnostic black triangle atop the thorax and I’m now pretty sure this is my sought after Highland Darter, though I’ll need to get that confirmed.

The day’s rain began as we arrived back at the car so we abandoned our original itinerary and returned the way we’d come. Swarms of motorcycles – we must have seen 50+ – were outbound while we were inbound. Although a motorcycle with panniers is over half the width of a car – I know ‘cos I used to ride them – for some reason these numbskulls generally didn’t think it necessary to pause in the passing places, they just forced their way through and, at one point, forced my near side wheels off the road taking avoiding action. Curiously foolhardy, considering their vulnerability, I thought.

There were two other dipsticks on the road in the shape of two white van men – builders in a rush. Whilst the road had a 60 limit, I thought 55 was sufficient given the frequent bends but Messrs Dickhead and Plonker chose to overtake approaching some of the blind bends and blast on ahead. Fortunately, they didn’t meet any more of the swarming motorcyclists – that would have created an interesting game of chicken. We met them waiting in the queue for the Corran ferry where they had to wait for another five minutes. Interesting mentality.

We invested another £7.00 in a pleasantly unrushed return ferry crossing.

Our bad weather pattern changed today – it got worse. The wind was piling the waters of Loch Linnhe into cresting waves which broke onto the pebbled shore of the loch. These pictures were taken in the early morning but could have been shot at any time of the day, there being little variation throughout. The first picture, taken outside Guillaume, doesn’t quite convey the complete picture in that the near horizontal rain cannot be seen, hence the second picture. As you can see, the far shore of the loch has, once again, completely disappeared from view.

With the strong winds and today’s forecast claiming a 70% chance of rain all day long – it rains here whenever there is any percentage chance of rain – and for want of something better to do while the rain lashes across and occasionally up Guillaume’s bows, I was inspired to define a Caravan Club Bunree equivalent to the old Beaufort wind scale.

It rained for almost 24 hours.

We drove across Rannoch Moor and down through Glen Coe to get here. The rain that began as we drove up beside Loch Lomond had actually stopped but the clouds were what we now know to be their usually solid and relatively low self. We don’t stop and gawp with Guillaume in tow so, with a lack of rain this morning, we thought we’d pop back solo and have a touristy look.

There’s a Glen Coe visitor centre so we made that our first port of call. There are ticket machines in the car park. “This is a visitor centre; surely they don’t charge people to park at the visitor centre?”, I thought. When you read the notice on the ticket machines, it mentions that “the suggested donation is £2”. I wonder how many think it’s a compulsory fee? The centre being run by the National Trust for Scotland and Francine being a member of the National Trust, we figured we were OK. Oh look, more touristy stuff on sale – well, well.

We continued up the glen and paused for Francine to play with her camera and new set of fancy Lee Filters, and for me to check out some habitat (no one around). With dull grey skies, if you are going to take pictures at all, it seems to be best to try and frame the offending sky out of the shot.

We continued to the high point and starting driving past some of Rannoch Moor. We’ve read that Rannoch Moor “is large enough easily to swallow the English Lake District”, which I found surprising. I know where I’d rather be, too. It’d probably look impressive with the mountain – sorry, hill – peaks backed by blue sky but, as usual the sky was dull grey. We popped back to a photographically famous white house on the moor, just below the Glen Coe ski station, but that was swamped with cars and a film crew so snapping it was pointless.

The rain began so we took shelter in the ski station cafe to be entertained by mountain bikers riding up in the chair lift, their bikes slung on a purpose made hook on the side of the chairs, and then screaming back down on their bikes. Other than the fact that it was being done in the rain under grey skies, this seemed reasonably sensible: save the effort of riding uphill by using a chairlift, then coast downhill with the aid of good ol’ gravity. Bravo!

The rain eventually passed and the mountains could be seen once again, though the skies remained very largely grey, so we went to let Francine play with her filters again. We’d spotted a hawker zooming about (I assume a Common/Moorland Hawker) as we arrived so, while she was shooting, I went hunting but failed to find anything. I decided to take a picture (left) of Francine taking her picture (right). Obviously the line up and focal length used are very different – Francine has a nice moorland stream for foreground interest – but it also shows the difference a Lee ND6 (2 stop) hard grad filter makes to the mountain in the shot. Nice one, Francine!

We returned calling in at Glen Coe lochen for a short (2-mile) wander, where we spotted what I suspect was a Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) -it didn’t settle – in one of the most northerly outposts of its range, and at Ballachulish to get a few provisions in the local Co-op, where there was little in the way of choice. We did find a decent bit of rump steak which made some enjoyable steak fajitas for dinner. 🙂

Guillaume’s neighbours to his right on the side of Loch Linnhe are Scots who live in Perth. During a natter with Francine, who at least speaks a little Scottish, occasioned by a shared interest in photographing the conditions on and (just) above Loch Linnhe, Mr. Neighbour expressed the opinion that Fort William was a dump. That’s the third independent consistent assessment that we’ve had. This morning, there being a lull in the rain if not in the wind, we decided to dawdle the 15kms/9mls up the road to see for ourselves.

In our opinion, all three third party assessments were correct; Fort William is, in fact, a dump. Actually, Francine thought that dump was too kind a word for it. Many of the buildings are the soulless concrete slab buildings favoured in the 1960s. Much of the paint is flaking off the door and window frames of some of the shops and their signs/names tend to be missing odd letters. Several of the shop units in the main street are closed and empty. Those that are still trading seem to be selling the same Scottish tourist tat: tartan mugs, highland map tea towels, etc. There is an unavoidable air of decay and neglect about the place. It’s an ugly town that’s being allowed to fall apart. This is curious because it seems to think of itself as the outdoor activity centre of Scotland which should want to attract tourists. The tourists still spill out of coaches, for some reason, and are faced with the unwelcoming sight of a dilapidated Fort Dump. There was one piece of development going on; Weatherspoons pub was being developed, presumably to provide a ready supply of reality correction fluid to those unfortunate enough to be here.

We escaped Fort Dump to drive a short circuit up to Spean Bridge. At the beginning of the circuit, just outside Fort Dump, is the southern end of the Caledonian Canal, the last feature of which is a flight of eight locks known as Neptune’s Staircase. We parked and wandered a while to watch a couple of sailing yachts and, somewhat curiously, a life boat, begin they’re long journey up the locks.

Towards the top end of our circuit we came across this second world war memorial to the commandos. The countryside around here was used as their training ground. Beside this statue is a small memorial garden containing many recent tributes to those lost in conflicts more recent that WW II, particularly Afghanistan.

A final disappointing observation. From Neptune’s Staircase you can see Ben Nevis when the cloud permits. Ben Nevis may be Britain’s highest lump of rock at 1343m/4406ft but visually impressive it isn’t. That’s it in the centre distance of this (bad) picture under the traditionally disturbed sky – no craggy, pointed peak, just a rather dull, rounded, almost flat-looking top. Had I studied any geography, I might have understood why the Scottish mountains are soft and rounded like this – I’m guessing glacial erosion from the ice age, or some such. Suffice to say that I prefer the cragginess of the Pyrenees and the Alps.

Incidentally, we’ve been told that mountain is an English word, the Scots call them hills. Well, they are 3000m/10000ft lower than the Alps/Pyrenees, I suppose.

As you can see from this Monday morning picture, the texture from yesterday evening’s moody grey skies had completely disappeared to be replaced by oppressive, featureless low cloud. This is the view from the right front quarter of Guillaume across to the opposite shore of Loch Linnhe, just visible between the low grey clouds and the grey water. It was breezy but at least it wasn’t raining.

We went to visit an old friend of Francine who, for some inexplicable reason, has chosen to live in Scotland. Apparently, he wanted to “do all the Munroes” – a Munroe is a mountain above 3000 feet – but, as can so often be the case, health issues intervened. We had arranged to meet for a walk upwards but, as you can see from the first picture, heading upwards was a decidedly bad idea so we opted for a trip to visit Oban instead. Oban was, to quote friend’s wife, “a bonny wee town”. Like our once removed contact at Englethwaite Hall, she also expressed the opinion that Fort William was a dump. A consensus was beginning to form.

We wandered along the harbour and called into an Oban cafe and chocolate shop to sample both the coffee (very good) and chocolates (also very good). Outside, a constantly changing line of cruise ship tourists were being ferried back to said cruise ship, moored out in deeper water, by two tenders shuttling back and forth.

Our friends spotted a fish restaurant, the Waypoint Bar & Grill, across Oban harbour on Kerrera island. There was also a ferry service to and from it which, it transpired, was free. Fish and Chips appear to be regarded as Scottish haute cuisine, along with black pudding which they were at pains to point out was best from a master butcher in Oban. With trepidation – Franco doesn’t do well on small boats – we took the ferry for lunch. Whilst our pals tucked into Scottish gourmet haddock and chips, Francine enjoyed some wonderfully caramelized scallops with bacon and salad (declared delicious) and I chose mussels with garlic, white wine, cream and parsley, or moules marinières, as I prefer to call it. I must say, I think the mussels were the best I have ever tasted.

After a brief interlude of relative brightness, the grey had returned and the rain, which had begun as we approached the island, gradually intensified. The clouds hit the deck and, as we were driving back to Guillaume after our return ferry trip, the rain was downright awful. The opposite side of the loch had become all but invisible.

This could get tedious.

Our next destination is another 200 miles further north at the Caravan Club site at Bunree, near Onich. Our site at Englethwaite Hall has been an interesting stopping off point. Englethwaite-Bunree seems to be a popular combination. As Francine was waiting for the organized fish and chip delivery on Friday evening, along with several others, she began talking to another gourmet diner who was also at Englethwaite en route to Bunree. Her camping neighbours, in turn, had stopped at Englethwaite on their way back from two weeks at Bunree where, they reported, it had rained every day. Oh joy! They also expressed the opinion that Fort William, at the southern end of the Caledonian Canal just above Bunree, was “a dump”. As a result, I have now mentally rechristened Fort William as Fort Dump, though I am still personally to validate their assessment. Today would take me one step closer to doing so.

We hitched up and were on the road before 9:00 AM. In just a few miles we were beyond the frontier of civilization, leaving Hadrian’s wall behind us in the rear view mirror. The journey north begins on the M6 motorway. This self-same motorway then utterly seamlessly becomes the A74(M) which then, again completely seamlessly transforms itself into the M74. One road, three different numbers: M6, A74(M), M74 – how sensible is that?

I noticed another odd thing about the Scottish end of the motorway. Our national speed limit on such roads is 70 mph. The national speed limit for any road is signified by a white circular road sign with a thick black diagonal bar. What you never see in England is speed limit sign with “70” specifically written on it yet, here in Scotland, they were. They looked weird, just because we’re not used to them.

Mercifully, a new motorway-grade road has been built through/over Glasgow. Since the best way to deal with Glasgow is to get through it/over it as quickly as humanly possible,  the new road helped greatly. Regrettably, the 70 speed limit signs were replaced by a mixture of 60 and 50 speed limit signs, slowly progress somewhat. Even more unfortunately, Sally Satnav didn’t know about this new road – her maps are 18 months out of date, after all – so Snr. Navigation Officer Francine had to assume control as Sally drew a car in the middle of nowhere and announced, “driving in Scotland”. Very helpful, Sally!

They could do with a new road running beside the 24-mile(ish) western shore of Loch Lomond but alas, we had to bounce our way relatively slowly over the existing road surface. [I use the word surface loosely.] The puddles from the moderately heavy rain made reading the surface as difficult as seeing anything of the bonny, bonny banks themselves.

Our route even further north took us through the twin tourist attractions of Rannoch Moor and Glen Coe, both of which managed to maintain a certain amount of visual appeal despite the low cloud base. It had, at least, stopped raining. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to return in more favourable conditions, should any arrive.

We arrived at Bunree Caravan Club site at 1:30 PM and checked in. The site is picturesquely placed right on the shore of Loch Linnhe. There are loch-side pitches literally eight metres from the shore but awnings are not permitted on these. As we were early enough for there to be several up for grabs, though, Francine couldn’t resist snagging one of the remaining ones and foregoing the convenience of our small porch awning. I was more than happy to forego the pleasure of having to erect it.

Here’s a moody monochrome shot of Guillaume’s view for the next eight nights.

We’d ticked off two of our list of tourist attractions for our first base. For our third and last day here, Francine fancied checking out the Solway Firth west of Carlisle. As a juicy bit of bait for Franco, she came up with another RSPB reserve, Campfield Marsh, on the southern side of the firth which, as well as birds of course, boasted a decent collection of dragonflies. Once again the weather didn’t look very promising for Odo hunting and the thing uppermost in Franco’s mind was getting a full tank of diesel ready for tomorrow’s drag up to Onich on the west coast of Scotland.

As usual, navigation officer Francine chose an interesting route right beside the southern shore of Solway Firth. There was a thin strip of grass then mud flats running beside the road but the water was an encouragingly long way out. Less encouraging were signs placed at regular intervals beside the road reading:

When the water reaches this point the maximum depth is one foot.

Great! Maybe we needed a Land Rover with a high-level exhaust. One sign actually mentioned a maximum depth of two feet. I hoped these signs referred to an unusual occurrence and not to a twice daily flooding caused by high tide. I had memories of watching cars play chicken with the advancing tide as it raced in to flood the passage de gois, a submersible road joining the Île de Noirmoutier to the mainland of France. Since cattle were roaming freely across this road in front of us munching the grass verges, however, I thought we’d be safe but one never really knows.

The reserve didn’t look very promising as we started into it clad in Wellington boots which we’d sensibly remembered to bring. After half a mile or so and having seen little but the ubiquitous swallows swallowing flies to fuel up for Africa, we came across a small pond surrounded by reeds whereupon Francine yelled “Odos!” Four species were flitting about here but were having to be a little circumspect flying in the stiff breeze.

We continued on the trail seeing more of the same until we came to a boardwalk over much more open country. Time was advancing and we weren’t seeing anything new so we snapped the view, then did an about turn to start making our way back.

Very shortly, Francine spotted a tandem pair of Black Darters (Sympetrum danae). While she was snapping them, I noticed, hanging up just about two feet from her right shoulder, a magnificent male Common Hawker (Aeshna juncea) in pristine condition. I begged her not to move and started snapping away myself. With a shot or two in the bag, Francine relaxed and joined in. The Hawker seemed completely unconcerned and remained motionless. This star catch was the perfect partner to the female we’d snagged just the day before at Haweswater.

Already a happy camper, as we were nearing the car, old hawk-eyes spotted another hawker hung up in the hedgerow; apparently I’d flushed it whilst walking past. A Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) this time to bring our collection to six.

The tide was in as we made our way back towards Carlisle. The “encouraging” signs were still visible, the road wasn’t flooded and the cows hadn’t been swept away. Neither had their many deposits on the road surface – you really need to be careful with your speed around corners, here. We stopped overlooking the firth to munch our lunch where I couldn’t help but be amused by this Royal appointment sign on a British Gas van parked beside us. “Repair and maintenance of gas lamp lighting”? I thought we’d advanced further than this. 🙂

Just for the record, our wildlife haul for the day was:

• Common Emerald Damselfly (Lestes sponsa)
• Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
• Black Darter (Sympetrum danae)
• Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum)
• Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea)
• Common Hawker (Aeshna juncea)

We are tantalizingly close to the north-eastern edge of the Lake District. In England, for spectacular scenery, the Lake District cannot be beaten, IMHO, not that I’ve seen everything, of course. In search of interesting attractions, Francine spotted an RSPB site on the shores of Haweswater, not too far distant. Our route could be encouraged to go through the village of Shap, which Francine also fancied seeing. We’d be needing shopping, too, on our way back and Penrith should be able to satisfy that. A plan emerged.

The intriguing thing about the RSPB reserve at Haweswater is that it used to be home to England’s only breeding pair of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos). Unfortunately the male lost his mate a few years ago so it is now the home of England’s only Golden Eagle, who can apparently be seen displaying, at the right time of year, in an attempt to attract another passing female Golden Eagle. Very sad, really; I’d say the likelihood of that happening would be pretty slim given the paucity of Golden Eagles in England.

We drove off and headed for Shap. Soon, we were threading our way down 1½ track country lanes overlooking fields criss-crossed by light-coloured dry stone walls enclosing various farmers’ herds of sheep. Unusually, the sun was shining and the scenery looked idyllic. Stopping to take this picture was a little problematic but we managed it without upsetting more than two of the aforementioned farmers in their Land Rovers. You really do need a serious four wheel drive up here in the winter, I’d imagine.

Haweswater is a man-made reservoir, i.e. dammed. I’d have thought that there were already enough lakes in the Lake District but apparently, in 1909 “they” disagreed, dammed a valley flooding a couple of compulsorily purchased villages, and created another, Haweswater. I bet the flooded locals were very happy. Hey ho! We drove the length of Haweswater to its southern tip where we found an overfull car park. Clearly other folks were interested in the walks and the lone English Golden Eagle, too. We found a small, as yet car-free pull-off and parked to begin our walk.

To cut a long story short, we wandered three miles there and back with no sign of anything large, feathered and golden brown, lone or otherwise. In fact, we didn’t really see any birds other than swallows feeding on flies above the fields in preparation for their long flight back to Africa. Given this year’s appalling weather here, one has to wonder why they bothered to make the long flight to us in the first place. Of course, they weren’t to know, were they? Despite grey, featureless skies, Haweswater itself looked quite picturesque, though.

Very unexpectedly given the conditions, we did spot something golden brown hunting on the wing, though it was considerably smaller. After a very determined Francine watched and waited for a while, it settled in the grass and posed for pictures. What didn’t we have? A decent camera! Francine managed it with snappy, though. Our quarry was a female Aeshna juncea, known variously in the vernacular as Common Hawker/Moorland Hawker/Sedge Hawker. Whatever its name, it more than made up for our not seeing its much larger feathered raptor counterpart.

As planned, on the way back we called into Penrith for some shopping. We’d last been here in 2002 on a Christmas trip to Pooley Bridge with our two ageing mothers. [The two ageing mothers are now even more aged.] Then we discovered an excellent grocery shop in the square. It was a timeless, double-fronted Victorian classic with a central island counter boasting a fine selection of cheeses, amongst other temptations. I was delighted to find that it was still there, largely unchanged. We entered and I made straight for the cheese selection. As usual, my eyes sought that which I didn’t know – something new. They were inexorably drawn towards a blue cheese labelled “Jervaulx”. I’d never before heard of Jervaulx and had to have some. As a lump was being cut, I was informed that this had originally been called Blue Wensleydale, had then been called Jervaulx, and the latest shipments were now coming in once again being called Blue Wensleydale.

I’m familiar with Blue Wensleydale so the mystic attraction of Jervaux had been somewhat shattered. Maybe calling it “Jervaulx” had been some a misguided attempt to make it appealing to the intensely parochial French? Whatever, we returned to Guillaume with our purchases, for our fish and chip supper, pre-ordered and collected by the accommodating campsite wardens

The Jervaux/Blue Wensleydale proved to be the best I’ve ever tasted. Delicious, whatever its name!