Winter 7

A good week for walking - but I can’t say the same about gardening.

Sunday 7th February, 2016.

A new month, a new week and a fresh start. I keep having fresh starts but they never seem to amount to much.   We just went for a short walk after morning tea because of a medical appointment and a severe weather forecast for the afternoon.  Not rain this time - just gales.  The strong wind was predicted to reach gale or severe gale force and the forecast was right.  The car was buffeted by the gusts in the exposed hospital car park above the Mooragh brooghs.

I have been thinking about the past again.  Not my past . . . the past of the our environment.  I enjoy the sense of history on the Island.  It always gives me a thrill to stand in the exact place where earlier inhabitants gathered - like the old tombs or keeills - and to look out on the same hills and sea that they saw. The ancient routes which were travelled on foot or horseback also interest me.  Some are still preserved as public footpaths.  Our road up the glen must follow the route of an old track although it wouldn’t have been a road much travelled as it ends at the old slate quarry.  It is possible to hike from the quarry up to Mountain Box on the TT course but the sides of the glen are very steep up there and there are no paths apart from sheep paths.  

A section of the old route up the glen was lost during the 1930 flood when the bridge was washed away.  After the new bridge was built the road was re-routed.  Instead running between the houses and the river, the new road was built behind the row of houses and the mill.  I often wondered how much of the road was destroyed and where the new section joined up with the old road.  On our walk I noticed that the oldest trees in the fields belonging to Crenagh Barns grow in a slightly curved line.  It occurred to me that many of the old trees in the glen follow the banks of rivers or the sides of roads.  If these trees were growing alongside the road it indicates that the original road turned away from the edge of the river just past the house known as The Old Mill and continued diagonally across the fields up the present road.

Two views of the old trees.

The next photo looks south towards the probable junction of the old and new sections of road.   The 1930 (recently daffodil-edged) “Glen Auldyn back road” in the foreground.  I think the road (beyond the gate) with the old crumbling dry-stone wall is the original pre-1930 road which used to veer to the left in front of the gate and follow the line of trees to the mill and the river.

Last week I was wondering about the type of work carried out at the old mill and found a reference to chemical works. While I was looking up something completely different this week I found a reference to “ the narrow part of the Glen, above the cloth-mill” which indicates another possible use for the building.

In the afternoon I started digging a hole for a creeper. It has been growing in a large pot for a few years while I tried to make up my mind where to plant it.  I eventually decided to lean a bit of old recycled, metal trellis against the kowhai tree behind the kitchen and plant the creeper near the tree so that I could enjoy the flowers while I was doing the washing up.  It is a slow-growing, evergreen clematis with pretty white flowers.  It only has a few buds this year but I am hoping that it will be happier once it is in the ground and that it will flower better next year.

Tuesday

We extended our Whitebridge walking route today - crossing the footbridge and walking up to the Jurby Road.  Then we returned home via Bowring Road and Lezayre Road.  The route is  nearly four miles and was the longest walk we have attempted since the autumn of 2014.

On our way along Gardeners Lane at the beginning of the walk,  we passed the magpie nest which had miraculously survived yesterday’s gales.  We paused briefly to watch one of the birds return with a twig.  The nest looks like a random pile of twigs but the builder took great care to fit the new twig into exactly the right position. Obviously a skilled craftsman.

Further on we passed two  echoes of the past.  The first was this sign outside a Department of Health facility in the new housing estate.  

The facility and the sign are both new - but the name is old.  Reayrt means view in Manx and Skyal is the old Manx pronunciation of Skyhill - as explained in this quote from A Manx Scrapbook which was published in 1929.. “The Western wall of Glen Aldyn is politely and cartographically called Sky Hill, but on the lips of the people it is " Skyall," accented like " trial." This is not a case of h-dropping, but comes a little nearer to the Scandinavian original. As befits the scene of the battle of Scacafell, " Jutting Hillside," (Note: I have also seen Scacafell translated as Wooded Hillside - I do not know which version is correct.).

The second fragment of history was a little row of trees (a mixture of holly, hawthorn and ash) - which had been preserved in the new housing estate.  They were originally part of a hedge and were probably planted on top of a typically Manx field boundary sod wall. The remains of the sod wall must have been buried when the ground was levelled and “landscaped”.  These ancient sod walls, usually constructed of soil and stone and covered with grass, pre-dated the dry-stone boundary walls and rather confusingly used to be called hedges.

After seeing the magpie nest, I wondered whether the rooks were also starting to work on their nests.  There were no rookeries on our route but we did see a large group of rooks which had gathered  in a sycamore by the Jurby Road.  They appeared to be having a committee meeting - possibly discussing whether it is the right time to start building.  PS  I am having second thoughts.  I had assumed these were rooks but after examining the photo I am now wondering whether they are jackdaws or maybe a mix of rooks and jackdaws.

There is a big rookery near the road on the way from Bride to the Point of Ayre.  We may drive out there next week.   If the wind drops a bit we could walk from the lighthouse towards the visitor centre to photograph the floods. There is a photograph on the IOM Today website and some interesting weather statistics  - http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/wettest-november-december-and-january-on-record-in-isle-of-man-1-7715147   It looks as though the flooded area is very similar to the March 2014 flood when we hiked through the Ayres with Trevor and Dorothy.  On that occasion the others took off their boots and waded up the road from the visitor centre. I tried to find a way around the flood and ended up with soggy boots.  

After lunch, I finished digging the hole for my clematis and planted it with plenty of compost  - hoping to give it a good start in its new life.  It looks anorexic and needs to fill out a bit but the trellis is serving a second purpose because the little birds like to use it as a perch.

Wednesday

We just did our short top of the glen walk so that we could return home before the cricket started on TV.  We noticed that the big wheelie bin had been returned to the side of the road near the Crenagh Barns fields. The Infrastructure people must have decided that it is too dangerous to take the refuse lorry up to the end of the tarred road - or else they are planning to repair the road soon.  The crack at the edge of the road near Wildwood House looks slightly worse every time we walk up there.

Before the rain started, I cut back some old raspberry canes - a job which should have been done in autumn.  I also trimmed a very short section of holly hedge.

Thursday

We took load of garden refuse for recycling in the morning.  Then I picked up all the bits of dead raspberry, and some brambles that I weeded out yesterday.

After lunch we walked down to the Sulby again.  The magpies are still working on their nest and the ducks are still playing in the Auldyn above the weir.

Friday

We did the usual shopping and then our short top of the glen walk.  There are no signs of road works starting yet.  I was impressed by the greenness of these wild garlic leaves at the side of the road.  They really are the freshest spring green that one can imagine.

It ended up being a  nothing day in the garden because it didn’t seem worth going out for a few minutes before the forecast rain arrived.  We were warned of rain from mid-morning.  Of course, it didn’t arrive until later than expected - so I should have done some work in the garden.

Saturday was a double nothing day - no walk, no gardening.  It rained hard most of the day.  The only bright part of the day was another victory for the England cricket team in South Africa.

Sunday brought another shopping trip and another walk in the morning before returning home for more TV sport.  This time it is rugby - Ireland is playing Wales in the Six Nations Championship.

Today’s  walk took us down to the river, and back via the Jurby Road, Bowring Road, behind the fire station and along Gladstone Ave. and through the houses to Gardeners Lane - another four mile route.

Near the river there were some bright green patches of Alexanders.  They could challenge the wild garlic in a competition to be the epitome of greenness.

It has been another non-gardening day and another disappointing week as far as progress in the garden is concerned.  But we did increase our walking mileage.  This week we managed a total of close to seventeen miles.