Tollcross Park Walk. Glasgow's East End Green Oasis.

I'm not often in the east end of Glasgow these days although I used to work in every district and housing estate throughout the city years ago. People from these areas might disagree but I think it's fair to say from my own experience the lands  around Dalmarnock, Bridgeton, Parkhead and Shettleston are not noted for green spaces and fields, being mainly built up traditional tenements and flats, industrial estates, and brownfield sites. Like the east end suburbs of any large industrial city this was where most of the heavy industry, steel works,chimney stacks and manufacturing factories were built. The prevailing winds in northern Europe tend to be west to east so it made sense for any smoke, noise and gases to be sited here, downwind of the more upmarket west end. Even today these districts can seem a bit grim and grey to the outsider, similar to London's east end of old.

Barlinnie Prison. Scotland's largest free bed and breakfast with a good view of the Campsie Fells.
As I was over in Carntyne getting a repair done on my car in one such trading estate and had four hours to wait I took myself off to the nearby Tollcross Park.
Excluding Glasgow Green, which is a park much closer to the city centre beside the River Clyde, this urban jungle of trees and meadows is a much needed and loved green oasis for the locals, sitting as it does in the heart of a built up, densely packed residential area. You have to make an effort with some form of transport to reach the countryside from these areas so this large park at around 90 acres is a real treasure to escape into. A wild tranquil place easily reached on foot.

For young children living in the area it's also a rainbow of colours and sights as it has a children's zoo stocked with a small aviary, pens holding domestic animals, rabbits and ponies.
Zebra finches at play.

Pony munching hay.
During my time here numerous families passed by along with walkers out with their dogs, joggers, kite flyers, and cyclists.

It's a large enough park to lose yourself in and has meadows, a shallow glen area and a large slope covered in roses which is a spectacular sight during the summer months.

 A view of the International Rose Garden. http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3743  War of the roses in here.
The park was constructed and opened in Victorian times  around the late 1890s and this link gives a  fascinating glimpse into what it looked like then.
http://parkheadhistory.com/?page_id=2296 Some of the old coloured postcards in here are magical and give a real idea of how much this park means and has meant to generations of locals and visitors alike. A work of art and well worth a peak inside this kaleidoscope.
A substantial amount of money has been pouring into the east end recently due to the Commonwealth Games 2014  in the shape of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome  and the Athletes Village but I hope they don't forget about this green treasure when they are lavishing millions of pounds on 'sexy' modern projects.

I was sad to see the winter gardens, a long time favourite feature of the park lying neglected and locked up after being damaged during winter storms. Due to budget restrictions it doesn't appear to be getting repaired any time soon which is a real shame as the more run down it gets the greater the outlay to restore it back to its former glory.
It's just a personal opinion but I think green open spaces like this are more therapeutic and necessary to the average person in the street than fancy new designer villages that only a lucky few will get to live in so I hope they remember to create some new parks and walks in the area along with the houses. Traditionally crime has always been high in the east end of every large city but when you have places and sights like this growing up...

within walking distance of your house.

The world can seem a much brighter, happier place.

The views from the top of the park are inspirational as well. Roystonhill/Garngad seen from the grassy meadow of Shettleston Hill within the park. The tall spire is all that remains of the Little Sisters of the Poor. St Josephs; an old peoples nursing home run by nuns that felt really Dickensian and old world grim in the 1970s. It was a large ancient building and my heart used to sink whenever I was called to work in there or in Foresthall Hospital in nearby Springburn which was once Glasgow's Victorian Poorhouse and another massive building sitting in its own grounds. Still functioning but creaking institutions like these could be found throughout the city then, a reminder of the way things used to be.

Similar in look to the Royal Infirmary seen here. Huge black structures with a maze of corridors, stairs and scattered outbuildings.As a service provider they had the feel of a real life gothic horror novel about them. Inside might have been fine but the cellars underneath these buildings were sprawling catacombs and that was where I usually had to go; a maze of dark crawl tunnels and unexpected dead ends. Even hardened plumbers got the heebie jeebies crawling around down there in the dark looking for leaks. The rats were bold and fearless and the other creatures scuttling around in the dust of ages were even more repellent. Cockroaches, spiders and silverfish of prodigious size, probably due to the heat of the kitchens, stoves, and communal ovens above which were always on during the day to feed the residents..Mind you most of Glasgow still felt very Dickensian during the 70s and 80s, even above ground. A grey,bleak world compared to the explosions of colour and softness around today. The 1960s and the Carnaby street psychedelic flower power era never really happened outside of London and the West Coast of America. Everyone still wore dull or muted colours of clothing to school or work; clean face and hands meant you had a 'still the minority occupation' office job when most folk worked in heavy industry and expected to get dirty each day: the buildings and warehouses were grubby and dark from decades of grime and chimney dust as were the people and the more unenlightened school teachers would throw heavy wooden blackboard erasers at your head if they desired your full attention in class. I was black as a coalman most days from crawling under floors and rarely saw the sun during working hours. I preferred it to office work though. Some new adventure happened every day out on the streets or in the housing estates. It was never dull there.

The highest flats in Glasgow. Whitevale and Bluevale tower blocks rising above the glass pyramids of the Forge Shopping Centre. Built in the early 1960s they are the highest residential flats in Scotland and, at 31 stories, 91 metres, they were the tallest in Europe until fairly recently. The nearby Red Road Flats are a metre lower but look higher because they are much broader. Both sets of flats are scheduled for demolition soon. As they have not been stone cleaned this was the colour of most of Glasgow's buildings in the 1970s and 1980s. Older buildings were coated black and it was a shock to see some of them emerge as handsome red sandstone after cleaning . Hard to imagine now what the air quality must have been like in the city before the Clean Air Act was passed. You can see from the photo the towers seem to have been grey/white underneath the staining and would have looked more impressive when new.

A modern east end school. An on-going regeneration programme is having an effect and the area today is slowly transforming itself into a different creature with growing pockets of good, high quality, housing and state of the art modern facilities.
Ironic then that due to the expensive computer equipment and materials in newly built schools and the worlds thirst for metal they have to be surrounded by high security fencing and CCTV cameras everywhere. Don't know about you but this looks very similar to a modern prison to me. The price we pay in present day society for safety and protection I suppose. Every age has its good and bad compromises. It's probably very nice inside and I'm willing to bet the children don't get thumped with dusters or have their hands thoughtfully warmed with hard leather on cold frosty mornings.
http://www.glasgow2014.com/games/venues/athletes-village
Wonder if the village will stay the vision of utopia it is in this link ten years down the line? The only predictable thing about the future is that it's never how you think it's going to be :)

Impact Poetry 3. If you ever hear...

                                      
                                                The IF YOU EVER HEAR series
                                      (A scientific study into natural phenomenon)


No 1              If you ever hear... Worms squelching.


Setting for research:   A sunny meadow in the heart of Perthshire.
Subject under scrutiny: A battalion of worms out for a morning excursion.


                                        " Left right, left right, left right, wriggle."

Joe worm. (Private first class)  "Sir! Something is moving beyond our left flank!"

                                        (distant sound of hoofs and slow swish of tails)

Three star worm.            "Halt men. Spread out and form a square. Defence formation."

                                        (sound of hoofs and slow swish of tails getting closer)

Three star worm.          "Tricky situation this chaps. We appear to be outflanked. Retreat is not an option for the professional soldier however. Never was. Hold your nerve men. Steady. They may pass us without noticing we are here due to our superb camouflage "

Joe worm.                          " May I suggest forming a long line Sir?"

Three star worm.                " You may not Private. We are stronger together for attack.  
                                              Where's your backbone man! "

Joe Worm.                           " I don't have one Sir. I'm a worm"

Joe worm.                           "Sir! Enemy have launched anti personnel missile!"

Three star worm.                "Sound the retreat Private! Dive men, dive!"

Joe worm.                    "ABANDON GRASS! ABANDON GRASS!!!"


                                                               SPLAT!

Three star worm.                                  " Damn."

Joe worm ( philosophically)  "Looks like we're in the (cow) shit again Sir."

Three star worm ( with extreme dejection)  "Forward troops. To the river. You know the drill."

                       "Squelch squelch, squelch squelch, squelch squelch, wriggle."


                  (So if you ever hear worms squelching you'll know what it means)

Impact poetry 2. Milk Trinkets.

When I was a small child and first glimpsed carved ivory on the television I thought these wonderful tiny white objects had been sculpted from frozen milk, like the ice lolly's I used to like around that age. 'Milk Trinkets.'   (Well, it was black and white and a grainy miniature screen. State of the art 1950s style)
When I later found out they had been ripped out of animals heads it changed my appreciation of them from mysterious wonder to painful reality. The memory and disappointment of that discovery must have stayed with me; that feeling of 'what a con' as this inspired one of my first poems.
Parents always want the best for their children and usually tell them the world is out there for the taking. Most children get spun fairy tales of how anything is possible if you put the effort in. 'Everyone is born equal.' The great mantra.
The reality is, as we all know, depending on your circumstances, that level playing field might be tilted at an acute angle where it's almost impossible to score a goal at one end and relatively easy at the other. Still, we keep trying as that is what we are preordained to do. Our role in society. You cant have the apex of the pyramid without a broad thick base supporting it.
This was one of my first poems written around sixteen. I'd just left school and the job prospects were not as rosy as I'd been led to believe. I spent the next five years crawling under floorboards in houses as it seemed better than working in a slaughterhouse or a car factory. Some of the other jobs I was sent to apply for at that time. It was mining without the coal. Luckily I discovered I actually liked the dark places of the world. Peaceful and serene when compared to the noise in a factory or a slaughterhouse..




                                                                       Milk Trinkets


Stars in their passion
burn up from cradles;
love in its fullest
contrives to be free.
From the edge of an armchair
sail stories to meet us;
on the waves of a pillow
dance the lies in their cream.
We swallow politely
with pale haunted eyelids;
the occasional moonbeam
to peep through the blinds.
Soft hands warm and welcome
arrange folds in pyjamas;
wrap up the small limbs
of a princess or a king.
On bare hungry pages
the future is typecast;
to be played out as Shakespeare
Believing. Believing.

Wood wolves and goblins, hedgehogs with headaches.
Three toed gorillas that catch fruit flies with string.
We dine out on milk trinkets, sugar ducks and pink halos,
that mark like mosquitoes, so you scare feel the sting.
But on fair frosted mornings, with two hands to guide us
our hopes rise from the prams like birds to the trees.

Like doves in a ships garden, fragile pearls on an ocean,
whose hearts ever open see only the sky.
No glimpse of the crystal, clear walls all surrounding,
or the planks where the worms
gnaw in from the sea.

But dissolve it does,
as dissolve it must.
And souls ringed in their childhood
are never truly at ease.

They quest for an ideal,
 never there to begin with;
just figments and fragments,
gifts from those who dared care.
So no rest for the searchers
who were brought up on moonbeams
that dance discontent echoes
on their pale pristine hearts.

Like fevered survivors
from that sad empty ocean,
brought up to believe
there ought to be more.
As the waves wash the memories
of yesterdays daydreams,
down through the sand grains;
innocence crushed on the shore.

But those stars that were kindled
way back in blue cradles
are hard to extinguish;
shine bright through the tears.
We continue believing
thinking past dismal failures
to those tiny white trinkets;
rich rewards to be won.
When we slept safe with pink halos
that turned to mist the next morning
and woke up with grey puddles;
the magic all gone.
So how cruel that enchantment
to chain us to fables
which we soaked up so freely
yet still cant deny.
Maybe just round the corner
there's a shop dealing in daydreams
with a notice proudly declaring
'we have snowflakes for sale'.

Impact Poetry. Born with the trust of humans.

When I was young, around fifteen to my mid twenties, I wrote poetry. Not the sort of thing you readily admit to your friends growing up in a large boisterous council housing estate. Poetry still has a flowery, whimsical, image. All about clever word games, flights of intellectual fancy and philosophical conundrums. I've always liked impact poetry myself. Poetry from the heart which is dragged, raw and hurting, onto the page. Poetry that means something and provokes strong emotions in the reader. Like Poe's Annabel Lee. His last and a theme which had haunted him throughout his life. He finally nailed it down on paper.
As a teenager my canvas and inspiration became the people and world around me. A fascinating mix of minds and every vice and virtue imaginable.
Most were sociable and friendly. Some were good and enjoyed helping others; some were out strictly to help themselves and immediate family; some were isolated, remote and indifferent to society and seemed to prefer it that way. Others, a small percentage, always seemed to be angry and at war with the world around them.
Myself, I liked to go on mental journeys from time to time, projecting myself into different mind-sets to imagine how each brain worked. This is a poem from that era. Early 1970's.

                  

                                                  Born with the trust of humans



Wheels of the dark green volvo crawl, through puddles at dusk, sniffing for prey.
Outside it's the jungle.
I love my work.
Today is Friday. It's Raining.
Nothing can wash the trail away.

Radial gets a scent and takes control, winding and cruising through the speed of the trees.
I park in a thicket of billboards to wait.
Minutes pass. An hour.
Some far country this. Like Africa only better. Dismal and bleak.
Heavy with honey and the thrill of pleasure domes.

There's a ball in my head that swings when I stop.
I pull down the shades; say 'hello' to my 32 Sadie's.
They'll calm the cogs inside me. Numb the pain.

I need to see you sixties girl.
You're cold beautiful; dazzling and hard.
A sunrise in stainless steel.
We're two of a kind you and I.
Reflections in a metal feather. Birds of a blade.

It's your birthday Susan. Day of daises, night of stars.
We'll wake up to ceiling wax dripping in ovens.
I promise you plenty. A cake and candles. One for every year.
I'm dreaming of game when I slow for a zebra.
Cant do a thing. Wardens behind me.
I'm starving yet I've just had dinner.
Does he know it's me whose cutting his numbers?

It happened so fast I knew it was easy.
Suddenly, all around. Shadows of silk, slit skirts and stilettos.
A million whores in a million windows,
and little pimp pictures of my guardian angel,
dripping on doorsteps, showing the way.

A few leak red syrup, I merge with the pavement.
The shore of a chin speckled with rain.
Down by the beach I stop for a clean up,
dip hands in the ocean, wash face in the spray.
My brothers taught wisdom; my cousin mixed poisons.
I still hear their voices; they whisper in seashells,
once you blow out your candles always leave them to drain.

Back on the street, yet again there's a zebra.
Three! Sleepy and dark. A wobbling invitation.
Baby candy. A golden opportunity too dumb to miss.
and I certainly don't.

Wheels of the dark green volvo roar, over game at dawn, on the break of day.
Outside it is the jungle.
J'aime mon travail.
Today is Saturday. It's still raining.
Nothing can wash the blood away.

Then down the embankment, casually dragging your prize,
with the roar of the dead in the darkest of eyes.

A walk in the Lomond Hills.The Peaks of Fife.

This is a day out from late June I've just got around to posting. An early mist was predicted but it was a good forecast on the east side of Scotland so we headed for the Lomond Hills as Ron had never been up them. I had a circular walk in mind that would take in both East and West Lomond. A five to six hour day at a steady pace.
As you can see it was still misty when we arrived but by the time we had climbed halfway up the first hill from the scenic and historic village of Falkland it was starting to clear.

One from the village itself on the way up the hill from the large central square car park. Falkland is one of the real gems of Fife with cobbled lanes, old buildings covered in history, plus the ancient Royal hunting palace of the Scottish Monarchs.

Some gardens even have a mini Falkland within them. In some ways it feels very English. Almost Cotswolds in nature and in surrounding landscape. (Shock! Horror!) They even play cricket here and take it just as seriously as the villages down south. Neighbouring Fife village Freuchie even entered then won the English Villages Cricket Tournament one year which was some achievement as it's a tiny place. The path up the hill is signposted and travels up past the right hand side of this recycling factory on a village street then enters the woods seen above. A steep climb at first up a long straight  line of wooden stairs. Once on the ridge the going is easier though.

We started out by heading up East Lomond first which is a cracking walk in itself then made for West Lomond along the grassy, high level track that connects the two summits.

After that we cut down into the finest glen in the Lomonds, the steep sided Glen Vale, but first we had to descend to the Devil's Burdens. This is a straight line of massive, weathered boulders similar to the peak district or Stanage Edge although slightly smaller with no real rock climbs to speak of. Scrambling only. Still a nice feature though. The Devil is supposed to have dropped these from his back as he flew over the Lomond Hills. It's also the name of Scotland's well attended hill race through the Lomond Hills which passes this point.http://www.fifeac.org/events/fife-ac-events/devils-burdens/51-devils-burdens-2013.html

Not being into running I didn't realise what an epic and large event this is as there is not much evidence that 700 runners pass through here. It is still a grassy and beautiful location throughout its length. Long may it remain that way.

Although a mere 30 miles apart the east coast gets roughly half the rainfall of the west coast. My next mountain post will demonstrate this difference in very graphic terms and what that actually means in real terms on the mountains.

A sea of cotton grass under West Lomond.

Ron doing a good impression of John Knox from the precarious scoop of John Knox's cave. A prominent hollow halfway up a five story sized sandstone cliff. From here the great man, notorious nippy sweetie, and protestant firebrand reputedly preached to the faithful, condemning the catholic Mary Queen of Scots and all that she stood for. A very readable, short and interesting account here. It's also full of other facts on the history of Scotland. Great site for bite sized details that are easy to digest and remember. 
.http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/renaissancereformation/johnknox/index.asp

Nearby is this tranquil waterfall. A magical place and a contender for one of the prettiest waterfalls in Scotland. Not powerful, not dramatic... just small, stunning, tumbling, playful. Perfection in nature.

Instead of fairies however I ran into this down here. A very large, very nasty looking flying insect, nearly three inches long. It looked like some kind of sand wasp that digs a hole then causes paralysis in fat juicy caterpillars with its sting before dragging them underground to feed its brood. Despite a fair bit of searching I cant find its likeness anywhere online. A seasonal invader from the continent perhaps due to the extended summer heat wave?
It behaved like a really evil, (not so wee) bug that feared nothing and no one so I gave it plenty of room bending over to take this photograph. I didn't want it numbing me with its sting then dragging my fat juicy body underground. It was almost big enough to attempt it :)

We returned to Falkland across Harperleas Reservoir then past little Ballo farm to the car park on the minor road that cuts the Fife Regional Park in half. This is also a good place to do East and West Lomond summits from if you want an easier way up with far less ascent. Allow about an hour for each peak starting from this elevated car park at a sedate pace.

We then walked down this minor road past Maspie Den back to Falkland. Even this tarmac road was a joy in late June with a cornucopia of wild flowers filling the verges on both sides and very few cars. This road over the Lomond Hills also forms part of  a popular bike tour. Did it a few years ago and it was very fine indeed. A great day out and perfect walking for humid conditions as we had a light breeze once up onto the central plateau area between the peaks.

Video today is a modern classic. Soulsavers with Mark Lanegan on vocal duties. The poignant and moving 'Kingdoms of Rain'.

Ireland. Last Day.Slieve Binnian. Gear Review.

Our second day in the Mountains of Mourne was not as good as our first. The weather had changed with a wet front predicted to move in before lunchtime. Graeme and Sandra did not fancy another hill day with such a poor forecast and suggested a wander round one of the Irish coastal towns instead then maybe lunch in a bar. If we'd still been in Scotland with hills you could climb any weekend I would have joined them but as it was a new area I might not get back to in a hurry, if ever, I decided to seize the day.
'God loves a trier!' I told myself.
The photograph above is a small zoomed section of the Slieve Binnian ridge. A magnificent mountain with close to a dozen separate large tors spread out along it's long central spine. It looked impressive and immediately caught the eye from Slieve Bearnagh the previous day.

Approaching Slieve Bearnagh. What a difference one days weather makes.

After a quick glance at the map when we were packing up the tents the best and quickest approach from the campsite seemed to be to drive round to the Silent Valley. This is the massive waterworks  and reservoir area constructed to supply the citizens of nearby Belfast with fresh safe drinking water, the protective wall of which we'd been walking beside over the summits.

Part of which ( The upper reservoir area I think) you can see here from Slieve Donard.

As it was still early and not too bad a day (cloudy and overcast but still warm at low levels with good mountain views) I decided to go for it and chance my luck. Normally my luck is excellent but that's because I've usually seen the forecast myself  the night before and have a fair idea of how bad it's going to be before I start. This time I didn't have as much visual information to go on. Just Graeme's assertion that the weather would turn bad after lunch.

He was kind enough to drop me off at the gates of the Silent Valley Mountain Park. This is just under £5 pounds to get in with a car so I proceeded on foot up a long straight boulevard lined with trees until I came to the dam itself.

  It's a nice enough spot with a couple of ponds and some woodland trails but what I was after was the start of the track which leads up to Wee Binnian, a prominent low tor on the shoulder of the much larger Slieve Binnian. The track on my map was misleading and didn't seem to exist anymore but just before the dam wall( seen in the 3rd photo above) an obvious path on the right leads over a high wooden style then follows the wall steeply uphill to another style. This is the route.

The Silent Valley overflow. Unusual construction. Wouldn't want to fall down this dramatic deep hole in the earth but it had a strange pull on the mind, daring you to look into it from above. Like a magnet pulling you towards it.  The same morbid fascination bare exposed meter terminals have in a house. You know it will kill you instantly but a small stupid part of your brain says 'Go on touch it! See what happens!' Creepy stuff lurks in the human brain...Well, in mine anyway.

By the time I'd climbed up to Wee Binnian the mist and clag had rolled in off the sea. Motivation went down further when it started to rain. Steady drizzle at first then a constant heavy downpour. As I wasn't that far from the summit slopes I kept on going, glad I had some shelter from the wall beside me. A new side of the Mourne Wall became apparent here. Apart from a handy navigational aid for walkers it also provides valuable shelter for hill folk, local farmers, myself, and numerous flocks of sheep who really treasured its five foot protective security. Huddled right in against its bulk they didn't get soaked, which is more than can be said for me.

The rain and wind grew stronger the higher I climbed until I arrived here. The summit area of mighty tors. Man it was grim up here! Not a soul around, a howling, miserable, rain lashed, half seen unknown jungle of tors. The summit is a tor itself  and I think this is it but I'm not sure. I crawled up this one on very slippery holds then slithered off again on bum, knees, elbows and adrenalin. Even in good conditions granite outcrops are a handful. This time it felt like ascending  an awkward pile of giant oranges lavishly covered in washing up liquid. It felt very exposed  up here as the gusting wind and rain made it hard to see anything.

This is a different tor nearby. I went up this as well then called it a day, returning the same way I'd slithered up.
On a good clear day a better option I think would be to travel up the flat water board road along the floor of the silent valley reservoir then up to the secondary dam. From here the map shows a good path up over Buzzard's Roost then the Back Castles, exploring every tor on the mountain. That would be a spectacular outing but a long hard day best saved for decent weather.
I struggled back down over rocks and grass heaving with torrents of water. Water ran up both sleeves on the scrambling sections as it had been a surprisingly arduous ascent this way over boulders and short slabs of moss and rock. Streams and substantial puddles appeared where puddles had not been before an hour ago. Back down at the reservoir area not a car or a visitor remained in the car park and the rain hammered off the tarmac all the way out to the main road.. I felt like God's lonely man as I walked shivering alone down that mile long straight corridor of tarmac with not a soul in sight as the heavens opened like Noah's Flood.
Graeme and Sandra had enjoyed a pleasant time down at the coast and rolled up just in time to save me from hypothermia. Cant win them all!
A fantastic hill I can recommend on a good day. Fairly grim on a bad one.

Thanks again to Graeme for a truly memorable trip and suggesting the Mountains of Mourne as a hillwalking venue. Amazing range of hills.

Gear review.
It has not gone unnoticed that everyone else on blogs seems to have received free gear to review apart from me despite the fact that I am out doing adventurous stuff nearly every weekend. Maybe I'm not the right sort of person or I'm just not in the loop:) To be honest I've never been that interested in what's the best gear, or reading about it, or surfing though mountaineering or hillwalking forums. Everybody's different. I've always preferred just doing it rather than reading about it. Same with the Tour de France. I enjoy cycling but have no interest in watching anyone else doing it unless it's a tour through the worst housing schemes of Paris I haven't been to yet. Now that would be fun viewing.
So I'd probably make a crap gear reviewer anyway as I'm not that fussed what's the most stylish or elegant as long as it does the job and it's cheap but I do know a bargain when I see one.
As I decided to purchase an Asda Ozark Trail 2 Person Tent  for £25 pounds  and an Asda Ozark Mummy Sleeping Bag for £12 pounds for the Mourne camping trip, and, feeling left out, sniff, sniff, I thought I'd review them instead :)

For £25 quid this is a real bargain for folk who just want a basic, no frills, cheap tent. Graeme obtained this one over in Ireland straight off the shelf for me and it proved easy to erect in a matter of minutes without even looking at the instructions. A few hooped poles, bang in the pegs, and it was up. It's fairly roomy inside and can sleep two people comfortably. Only negative points are that it's not flame retardant so you have to be careful with stoves, campfires, matches or smoking. Use basic common sense really.
It's also too heavy and bulky for enjoyable lightweight back packing but apart from that it's a cracking tent for the price. It looked durable enough to stand up to most conditions apart from severe winds and stayed dry inside even after heavy overnight rain. Other online reviews state that it remained dry after a week long rock festival where it rained most days with an amorous young couple inside, on drugs, humping nonstop every night. That's road testing the equipment with a dedicated approach. Serious competition to the established models of tents I'd imagine. Market forces at their best. Although I use supermarkets regularly for speed and convenience they really are the tiger at the bottom of the garden, eating up any other animal within reach or sight. A full range of camping gear. What area will the supermarkets get into next I wonder? Must be a big worry for any independent business that. They've already slashed the price of new paperback books and DVD,s to  £3 each which is good news for the buyer but really bad news for the creators of the work. Might as well give it away for free at that price by the time the publisher and agent take off their percentage.

Asda Sleeping Bag £12. A three season bag but it was fine and cosy with a consistent thick layer of material. Only negative is one of height. If you were over six foot tall your shoulders might stick out the top as it seems to be just one size. I was fine in it ( 6foot. Tall, dark and ugly.) but I could not snuggle down to pull it right over my head  so for that reason alone it's only three season. Fine for Mid Spring, Summer, and Autumn though. A great deal for the money. At a push, if you're under 5'6 inches, you could use it in winter, just keep some clothes and warm socks on. Both items are perfect for the average sea level camper.
They do a cheap spacious day rucksack as well 45litre capacity £16 pounds  in bright orange and grey/white similar to the tent colours. The whole three items for £53 quid. That's a real bargain for anyone starting out.
Nuff said.

Ireland Day Two. Mountains of Mourne.

For our second day in Ireland we headed across Donegal towards the Mountains of Mourne in Northern Ireland by way of Sion Mills and Newtownstewart, passing the Ulster America Folk Park then Omagh and Armagh. All places I'd never been to but already knew the names well enough from media coverage during the troubles.
We parked at a place Graeme had sussed out which was the Meelmore lodge amenity campsite. £6 a night per tent. Situated directly under Slieve Meelmore this has an attached breakfast/lunch Café doing Ulster fry ups: showers, toilets and picnic tables. It was fairly basic but had everything we needed and has a beautiful rural setting, surrounded by cattle, potato fields and mountains. Great place for children to explore and there were a few families and a couple of mini buses full of well behaved teenagers in the large site when we arrived. The Mournes are popular with Duke of Edinburgh youth groups on adventure treks.
The photo above was taken just as it was getting dark. The midges were bad and biting and I made a joking comment about them to the owner when he came round. It was just an off the cuff remark but he disappeared then came back a few minutes later with a firelog which did a brilliant job of keeping them away. It's sitting on a BBQ stand which was already there. Now that's friendly service for you and totally unexpected.
Another campsite Graeme looked at wanted £16 pounds a night. Wonder if we would have got a free complimentary firebrick thrown in there. Maybe when he heard we were from Glasgow mind you he thought we would rip down all the trees and burn them instead. It's amazing how folk from different cities perceive each other. I knew a friend from Belfast years ago who was slightly worried about coming over to visit me on holiday in Glasgow because he'd heard the city had more gangs than London, a city six times it's size, and that Pollok had more gangs than any other area. (This was only because greater Pollok took in so many separate schemes, around 11 or 12 different dividing lines to be crossed.)
Mind you he was impressed by the brutal, no nonsense architecture of some of the older 1950's tenement estates at that time which looked as if they had been built by the Romans. (Some actually were by way of captured Italian POW's )

This is the view from the campsite in the morning. Beautiful setting. Note the potato fields. You don't see many fields of crops around Glasgow's Central Belt or in the west of Scotland anymore but all over the Emerald Isle the fields are still productive.

A view of Slieve Bearnagh with its magnificent summit Tor. The Mourne Wall is visible here as well, a five foot high wall that is a constant feature of these mountains as it runs in a circle over fifteen different peaks. It was built to protect the Silent valley reservoir and feeder streams from contamination which in turn was constructed to supply nearby Belfast with clean fresh drinking water.http://www.explorethemournes.com/mourne-wall.html Great link to the area here with a  cracking slide show of photographs. The pictures of the ascent of the Devil's Coach Road in here are particularly impressive.

As it was a cracking morning I skipped breakfast and headed straight up the hill around 8:00am.
Some folk like Alex faff around drinking coffee and eating meals and Graeme and Sandra were no different. Fired up for the mountains I arranged to meet them later at a pass called the Hare's gap which is the low coll in the second photograph. I would race up Slieve Bearnagh right away to sample its wonderful summit tor just in case the weather turned nasty later on.

This is the North Tor, which you come to first after a brutal climb. Only problem with the Mourne wall is that it makes a beeline for the summit. No deviations to allow for the steepness of the terrain. A marvellous feat of building but the original maintenance paths tend to go straight up right beside it, without the usual easy gradient zig zags you might expect. In the 4th pic down the path follows the wall. Yep, it is a steep as it looks! Good for the heart.

The summit tor from below.

A different angle.

Bit of a granny stopper this as it's exposed enough scrambling to make this old granddad's legs wobble like jelly. Not sure this is the best ascent route as it was quite tricky.

Back down at Hare's gap I just arrived in time to meet Graeme and Sandra. Graeme had Slieve Donard in his sights, which at 850 metres is not only the highest mountain in Northern Ireland, Ulster and the Mournes but the highest summit in all the northern half of Ireland down as far as Dublin.
We were all very impressed by the Mournes. Formed mainly from granite they are similar to the Arran peaks but cover a larger area. Mountaineering heaven. Loads of rock climbs, distance treks,and outdoor adventures to be had here.

At an easy pace we ambled across the Brandy Pad on a good path before traversing under the curious rock formations known as 'The Castles'.

These stretch in a long line and contain a huge array of free standing pinnacles, walls, towers and granite chimneys so there must be rock climbs here.

Soon we could see the summit of Slieve Donard in the distance looking suitably bulky.

 It was a fair old trek up the side of yet another aspect of the Mourne wall but we made it to the summit.

This is looking down the path towards Slieve Commedagh. It was now early afternoon and the weather had turned by this point, clouds pouring in from the north.

 Can you spot the upward gazing teddy bear here:)  We knew we were in for a soaking soon but it was thunder and lightning we were concerned about. Right beside the summit a small plaque commemorated someone who had been killed by lighting a few years ago at this very spot, at this same time of year probably. High humidity over land coupled with cold sea air blowing off the deep Atlantic Ocean can produce fairly impressive summer storms over the mountains and we didn't really want to be up here in the middle of one.

We had partial views as the mist drifted over the summit.

A zoom of the seaside town of Newcastle from the summit. Like Rothesay or Millport for Glaswegian's this place is loaded with memories for generations of Northern Irish holidaymakers who made this resort their summer playground of choice. Having heard so many people reminiscing about it  I would have liked  to have visited it out of curiosity but we didn't have time on this trip. This was the nearest I managed to get to this seaside jewel. Even from up here it looks nice.

It wasn't long before heavy sweeping curtains of rain fell down on us and the temperature dropped dramatically but the expected thunder and lightning didn't materialize and we returned to the hare's gap soggy but unzapped. This rainstorm only lasted an hour before it passed through then it started to dry up again. By the time we got back to the campsite we had clocked up a long day on the hills. Ten hours for me, nine for Graeme and Sandra but well worth a brief soaking to enjoy such a cracking outing. (The white blobs are bags of sand and rock for path construction.)
Thanks to Graeme and Sandra for great memories and a fun camping experience.

It's been a while since we had a video so here's an absolute cracker. Stumbled across this at random surfing you tube for new music. A world wide dance smash from a few years ago I must have missed. Great catchy tune, great video, sexy band. And lashings of gratuitous Sax. And the best Dominatrix band leader you'll ever see. What more do you want from a song? Only a few years old this video has already been viewed over 23 million times outstripping most established headline hit singles by established acts. Wonder why:)