The Caledonian Canal

Well Sunday morning has dawned to reveal my garden covered in a blanket of snow! It tried all day yesterday but the sun came out at regular intervals and melted it all. Today it looks more determined!

I woke up early and am eager to get down more details of my trip to Scotland. I had an odd day yesterday. I had planned to catch upon blogging but instead spent the whole day battling a virus that suddenly started taking over my PC.

By late yesterday afternoon it had practically ceased all normal operations. Thankfully after a few more hours I managed to get it to perform a system restore without crashing and the problem seems to be fixed, much to my relief.

I am quite surprised about how distressed I became over the whole event but my PC is my connection to a large part of my life. I know lots of you will understand.

So, Scotland! Well firstly now that I am back I can divulge just where I have been although Ben Nevis is a bit of a give away! I have been surveying trees in the Highlands along the Caledonian Canal and have walked the entirety of it picking up any hazardous trees and noting the extent and nature of the treescape to inform a long term management plan. That's Inverness to Fort William!

It was a wonderful but mad trip. I worked everyday while away obviously to make the most of the time and after a week had lost all track of normal routines.

I got up every morning, got my rucksack and kit together, drove to my starting point and spent the day beside the canal looking at trees and covering as much ground as possible!

I had imagined that in the evenings I would be going out with my camera, taking in new walks and returning to blog about it however after a days work my feet were singing and so I spent my evenings typing up survey notes and soaking my feet; with a wee dram in front of the fire!

The cottage I stayed in was beautiful and it was lovely to come back to a home environment every evening rather than a hotel. In the days I met lovely people enjoying the canal and spoke to many of the lock keepers about the canal and their jobs.

I also saw some fabulous trees, lots of veterans (several hundred years old) and many, many elm trees which was fabulous. Living in the southern portion of England I am used to dealing with small dead elms as most of our stock has succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease and any re-growth soon dies but further up north they have survived and Scotland has loads! Mature elms are beautiful trees.

I completed the canal last Tuesday and found myself moved by the end of the project and saddened by the prospect of leaving Scotland.

My partner and I have spoken many times over the years about moving to Scotland, it is a conversation that has been rekindled and is on the table for consideration.

Anyway I leave you for now with some more images from my trip. I really did not have time to take many pictures other than for work purposes however there are a few and my head is filled with the awesome sights I saw. Those pictures I unfortunately cannot share with you but will remain with me forever.