It seemed that only I was abroad as the watery winter sun rose in the eastern sky but that illusion was abruptly shattered as a thousand or more greylag geese took to the wing, their beating wings giving me a thunderous applause as I crested the Balmore brae even though I had interrupted their feasting on some unsuspecting farmers field.
I had been making my way towards an old oak tree that beckoned me to the open pastures and the hills beyond which lay silently to my north splendid in their white night caps and still wrapped snug in their blankets of mist. I stopped to breathe it all in sliding my backpack off to indulge myself in a cup of piping hot coffee from a flask I had slipped into my pack afore leaving the house with only the moon as my escort.
Leaning against the old stalwart of the brae I gazed in wonderment at my surroundings , how glorious it all looked in Winters slumber but how bonnie it must look decked out in the vigors of Spring or draped in Summers finest I thought! The early primrose and the flaming gorse , the triumphant foxglove waving a welcome to the industrious bumble bee and carpets of daisy's as if laid by the fairies themselves.
Drinking down the last of my coffee I set my sights on the faraway hills once more. Songs have been sung rejoicing these wardens of the north and I momentarily dreamed on past leather tramps and wanderers who most likely leant on this great oak and gazed like I did on the unfolding beauty laid out in front of them like some banquet of natures delights. Perhaps the revered lowland bard himself Burns used this very scene to sweep some young farm maid from her feet or enthrall his supping companions of an evening in some village tavern rich in the reek of peat smoke. I guess I'll never know as their time has past as sure as mine will come and some day years from now another young wayfarer might take his rest on the Balmore brae and think on travelers past before writing the next chapter of his life.
Balmore Brae.
GJ.
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