4th August

Last week I was away with Erin finishing of the west highland way.

I will come back to that story after a wee bit of news from the farm.

The jobs I left were just harvesting and bed weeding not overly exciting, we are going over the onions and leeks for one last time, after that that will be all the crops weeded for the year.

But we do still have to go through the winter crops with the weeding machines, and these will need bed weeded once before we can put the bed weeder away for the year.

The winter crops are covered in fleece and will stay covered in fleece until they are ready for harvesting, or the wildlife will do the harvesting for us.

The purple sprouting broccoli, winter cauliflower and kohl rabi are doing great as expected, plus the beetroot and neeps we have done as a trial are looking good, so far, I think that we will be blocking these crops next year rather than direct sowing them.

Next week we will be harvesting the bon bon squash, the first harvesting of squash this year, these are very tasty and great for roasting, but there are lots of diverse ways of cooking these.

I also cut a swede for our dinner they are small just now only the size of a fist, but they are so tasty and sweet, and a great size, usually swede are that big they last for over week, one is far too much for a meal.

So, we might harvest them for a wee change in the nets over the next week or so.

With me not being at the farm there is not a lot more for me to say.

So, the west highland way.

Erin has been desperate to do it, so 4 weeks ago we set of from Milngavie to do it, we had bag transfer all set up, so ready to go.

Day one was 21 mile to Cashel camp site and it poured of rain all day, fantastic start, day 2 was rain of and on 19 mile to Bein glass camp site soaked again, day 3 was sunny plan was Tyndrum, I had managed to get our boots semi dry, but after climbing up the hill after Crainlarich, I noticed Erin was not right, eventually got her boot of and she had one huge of a blister that had opened up, and that is with compeed plasters and good walking boots, so I called it a day, a very unhappy Erin.

So in between then and this week me, Erin and Calum had an overnight walk in to loch turret, wild camping and climbing Ben Chonzie carrying 18 kilo each, feet are ready to go.

A weather window appeared for the west coast last week, so on Sunday afternoon Erin and me set of to finish the west highland way, but Erins plan this time lest carry all our gear no bag transfer and we can camp where we want, lets make it even harder than the first time, great idea.

Planned route was Crainlarich, Tyndrum, Inveroran, Glencoe, Kinlochleven to Fort William.

We left Crainlarich at 3 pm hoping to miss the wet, but no it rained all the way, but we had trail trainers on this time seemingly they dry on the move, and I managed to get our rucksacks to 14 kilo, we arrived at Tyndrum for 6 pm 8ish miles

Day 2 and dry trainers dry we made great time and were at Inveroran for 1.30, so carried on to Glencoe the advantage of having all our camping gear 19 ish miles.

Day 3 again we arrived in Kinlochleven around 1.30, so carried straight through to For Willam 22.5 miles.

We did have to camp outside fort William so the next morning we had to walk in to get the photo of the finish.

I now have an incredibly happy Erin, and I need to get back to work for a rest, until the next adventure.