Half-submerged at Harperrig

You set off just after dawn. It's cold, but you're dressed for it. A band of cloud rises with the sun, softening the shadows for the first hour of your ride. Wind turbine blades flop lazily in a gentle breeze and there's a hint of woodsmoke in the air, its pleasant tang somehow enhanced by the chill. You head along the back road to Auchengray. You don't know what it is about this stretch, but you always feel happy riding it. Passing through the village, you cut up right to the Lang Whang, where you coast joyously down the hill that welcomes you to West Lothian. The ground rises again and, just before its highest point, you turn down to Harperrig Reservoir. You've pictured it from the main road but you think you can get a better view if you follow the single-track that is sign-posted 'Colzium'. You're right. It is exquisite. There's a castle you didn't know existed and the Pentlands reflect almost perfectly on the still surface. A half-submerged fence looks like it might make a good subject for a picture but the angle's wrong. If you chance crossing this boggy bit you might get a decent sh... 

Sheet! My pretentious 2nd person narrative is brought to an abrupt end because I am suddenly, and literally, sinking up to my bahookie in cold, reedy-brown water. I clamber out, briefly wondering why my first thought was, "Save the camera!" Then I stand in the December sun and laugh, loud and hard, for about ten minutes.

Now I’ve got a problem. As I ride towards Kirknewton, my cycling tights begin to dry, all except the padding. I realise it’s going to be a while before I can risk going into a café and sitting down without being the epicentre of an unfortunate scoosh of now-tepid reedy-brown water. In the end, it’s Bathgate before I chance it and even then, I have a guilty backwards glance at my seat when I get up to leave. 

Home via the cycle path, bailing out at Harthill, without further incident. 

How not to cycle to Glasgow

Macho tales of cycling competence sometimes used to make me think that perhaps I was in the wrong game. Unable to see myself ever being that good, I wondered if it was worth persisting. I like to think that the “I was up to my bahookie in cold, reedy-brown water” deflations typical of my cycling social media posts are put in to make sure I never set such a tone myself. Maybe that’s disingenuous. 

When I wrote a column for the Times Educational Supplement Scotland, I wasn’t afraid to make myself look foolish with tales of the times when it had all gone avocado-shaped (the more middle-class version of pear-shaped) in the classroom. That’s as long as I didn’t make myself look incredibly foolish to the point of incompetence. I held back a fair bit of stuff, or waited until it was so far in the past nobody would believe I was still that stupid. 

I want to be a bit more open with my stories of cycling, which is why I am about to relate the tale of the Clyde Walkway, January 2018. A month before this ride, for Christmas, my wife gave me a pair of Lycra winter cycling tights (padded) in black. Until then, apart from a dalliance with some shorts, I had always leapt on my bike dressed as if I was off for a hill walk. Deciding to test my new gear on a ride to Glasgow, I donned the tights (over pants, not realising that this was NOT RIGHT), a thermal top, heavy shirt and fleece sporting the logo of a well-known Scottish STEM education support centre. I must have looked like a character out of one of these books we used to get as kids, where the pages were cut horizontally in half. You could mismatch pictures of people, making it look as if a fireman had ballet dancer’s legs or a ballet dancer was wearing diving boots. 

Thus clad, I headed down past Carluke Golf Club towards Garrion Bridge, but after the short climb up from Cadger’s Brig, I crossed the A71 and rode towards Cambusnethan Woods to pick up the Clyde Walkway. Down by the river, the path was excellent for a mile or two, with a good concrete surface that ran close to the river. Cambusnethan Priory, its honey sandstone warm against the winter austerity, sat up a hill across a field to the right. When the surfaced path came to an end, the Walkway became a sheep track for the next mile. I had walked this stretch before and reckoned it to be rideable, but on that day, it was overly boggy. No matter – I got off and pushed, only mildly irritated by the occasional thwack of a pedal against my leg. Across a flood plain, at the bottom of the valley, I saw an interesting building – an old church or mausoleum. I decided it warranted a visit another day. 

The path became well-surfaced again through the Baron’s Haugh nature reserve and after a couple of miles gave way to the roads of Strathclyde Park. It was here that the signs to the Walkway became less obvious, but I reckoned I would pick it up again at the Raith Interchange. I crossed the busy road junction using the overhead cycleways, getting a kick out of avoiding the queuing traffic. Picking up the Clyde Walkway again was not as straightforward as I thought it would be and I realised that my assumption that I wouldn’t need to study a map too closely beforehand was invalid. I was also a bit hungry, but had foregone the chance to get something to eat at one of the outlets in the park. 

For a while I followed one of the National Cycle Routes. I love National Cycle Routes, though in an attempt to avoid busy roads they can take you strangely jagged routes through housing estates, which is what the one between Raith and Blantyre did. At least it passed some shops, where I could buy food, except that I didn’t. I didn’t have any in my panniers either. Never mind, I’d soon be in Uddingston or Cambuslang or the city centre itself. It began to rain. 

Following a fine tour of Blantyre’s peripheral housing, I took a path that followed the river again until it rose up towards Bothwell Castle. It got a bit hilly here and I got off and pushed. Shortly after the castle, the path all but vanished. Only the fact that I was following the river told me I was heading in the correct direction. There was no surfacing to speak of and the bogginess factor was heading for eleven. Every time I tried to ride the rear wheel slipped and I had to dismount. When I pushed the bike, the pedal-thwacking began to seem gratuitous. I began to wonder if I was even on the Walkway at all. I came to a fence by a road and had to lift the bike over. The lack of a gate or stile concerned me. I wasn’t lost in so far as I could retrace my steps, but I didn’t know if I was where I should be. I took out my phone to activate Google Maps. I keep data switched off, which means that when I do turn it on my handset has a lot of catching up to do. After five minutes I was ready to throw it in the Clyde, where it would become only slightly less damp than I was feeling myself.  

I crossed the road, hefted the bike over a fence at the other side and found a sort-of path by the river. It distinguished itself by being even worse than the one the other side of the road. I thought I could see Daldowie Crematorium in the distance. Perhaps I should have headed that way. At least I’d have got a heat. Such were my distasteful thoughts in the fading light. 

I can’t rightly remember what I did next that caused me to end up back on the road, a few hundred yards from where I’d crossed it, having traversed three sides of a square. I headed along the tarmac, passing under a railway bridge. By now I was becoming quite seriously leg-weary. I pushed the bike up a hill that I should have been capable of riding. Unfortunately, at the top of the hill I found a clear, unambiguous sign for the Clyde Walkway. I say “unfortunately”, because if I’d stuck to the road, I’d (with a bit of shoving) have come to civilisation a lot quicker than I did. Here’s a top tip. Never forget this. You’ll thank me for it one day. In fact, let’s put it, standalone, in italics as if a wise person said it: 

“If a route is called a walkway, it may well be called that because riding a bike along it could be bloody difficult.” 

And it was bloody difficult, particularly in my energy-depleted, slightly soggy, getting-pretty-cold state. I should have known it might not be a good quality track all the way. Nearer home, there are stretches of the route, which runs all the way from New Lanark to the heart of Glasgow, where carrying your bike up and down numerous steps is the only course of action. The Walkway from Blantyre Farm Road to Cambuslang turned out to be considerably more difficult even than those wooden staircases. I had to push or lift my bike up rough slopes, leaning forward then applying the brakes as I half-hauled myself after it. Every few steps I needed a breather. Downhills looked to dodgy too ride in the steel-grey dusk. At the bottom of one hill, gathered around a pool, was a herd of deer. I could see houses, and evidence of building work, but no rideable path. I felt the need to stop, to sit down, to regroup, but it was too damp to do so. Eventually, I came across a reasonably surfaced track. I did that thing you do when you’re on a bicycle but have run out of resources – pedalled a couple of times, then let it coast. Do, repeat. Do, repeat. No question – I had hit the wall. I was experiencing what I’d heard cyclists call “the bonk”. The cure was rest and something to eat. Unfortunately, neither seemed an option. 

I saw a dog walker heading towards me. Dog walkers meant civilisation. I stopped as I reached him. 

“Excuse me, is there anywhere around here where I can get something to eat?” 

“Aye, there’s a Morrison’s in Cambuslang, about a quarter o a mile away.” He waved in the direction I'd been headed.

“A quarter of a mile? Thanks!” 

Somehow, this knowledge made the energy level indicator go from zero bars to one and I set off with something approximating to normal pedalling. I found the Morrison’s, which had a café, and ordered a steak pie meal and a latte. It was pitch dark outside. I ate the food like Scooby Doo. There was no possibility of making it to Glasgow, so I took the train home from Cambuslang, spending the journey contemplating my foolishness. 

• You didn’t bring food; 
• You made assumptions about the route; 
• You relied on there being good signage; 
• You pressed on when you could have stopped for something to eat. 
• 
  

Redemption came a couple of days later. I put my bike in the boot of my car and drove out to Springfield Quay. From there, I rode to Cambuslang and back again along an excellent surface, level all the way. 

I’d like to say that I never did anything stupid on a bike again, but it’s not true. For example, there was this time when I was up to my bahookie in cold, reedy-brown water... 

Gettin a wee bit radge aboot Jack Horner

Read this first-

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/twa-cuddies

It's a lovely Scots poem for children by James Robertson. I heard somewhere that it was written for a disabled friend who could not go riding but who would have loved to  do so.
I sometimes write poems for children. Like James Robertson, I write in Scots. Unlike James Robertson, I write about rude, sometimes violent old ladies and animals with disgusting habits. James Robertson and his pal Matthew Fitt are to blame for this. They asked me to. They were clever. When they started the Itchycoo Scots language book series, they began with books that weren't about vomiting budgies and umbrella-wielding grannies. They established that Scots wasn't just another way of being coarse. When King o the Midden, the book of manky, mingin rhymes came out, if the rudeness served as a gateway drug to Scots, there were a variety of other non-rude ways to go thereafter.
I know the poems have a fan base, that Mrs Nae Offence gets recited by children at Burns Suppers. What I only recently found out, by way of a Twitter vanity search, is that some people loathe them. I came across a thread where they seemed to be being cited as an example of everything that was wrong with the SNP's education policy. Wee Radge Jack Horner attracted particular venom.

Wee Radge Jack Horner,
Sat in the corner,
Eatin a Mars Bar in batter,
It did Nae guid at aw,
Fur his cholesteraw,
Sae noo he takes naethin but watter.

Well, I thought it was funny at the time, and that getting children to subvert nursery rhymes would be a good way to get them writing poetry. Maybe cholesteraw is 'gibberish', though. I did enjoy the criticism. Some of it was unintentionally complimentary - I write like a primary 4. I am a 'cough' respected poet in Scoats/Weedgie. Someone wanted to start a petition to ban my stuff in schools. As Oscar Wilde said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, though you do wonder if Oscar had ever been hit in the nadgers by a high speed football.

[Fact check: when I wrote Wee Radge Jack Horner, I was pro-devolution, anti-independence and had never voted SNP]

I have internal dialogues about writing in Scots. When my mum went into care, I wrote a lot of blank verse about being eight years old. I could lay the charge at my own door that I didn't talk like that. It would be only partially true. And by calling my mother Maw in the poems, I could see her as she was then, not as the adrift, confused, almost wordless mum who now lives in a home.

In fifth year English, I read 1984. I am sure I was too immature to understand everything that the novel was saying, but I did get the point about Newspeak. If you restrict language, you restrict thinking. On the other hand, the more ways you have of expressing yourself, the more ways you have of thinking critically.

Interestingly, when I came across the pillorying of something I thought was harmless fun that might lead children to read better Scots writing, a report was published by Education Scotland.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15510561.Scots_language__helps_pupils_in_English_exams_/

It is not an academic study, but it's worth a look.

So, to those who hate Wee Radge Jack Horner, lighten up. That's lighten up, no lichten up. You're entitled to your opinion, but by politicising something that was never political, you're coming across as a bit up your own bahookie, Nae offence.

Pride and Prejudice revisited

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sixteen year old boy in possession of his own motorbike is not going to be best pleased at having Pride and Prejudice foisted upon him for his Higher English. Gordon Bennett! I swear that I read every word as if each was a tin of beans I had to check for defects as part of a stiflingly boring factory job. Past my eyes they rolled. I missed nothing. I missed everything. "It's so funny!" a studious girl in my class exclaimed. She must have been trying to impress someone by pretending to find the book amusing, I reasoned. Not for the first time I was wrongly attributing a base motive to someone because such a motive was the only one I could conceive of having myself.

In a rare act of rebellion I wrote a bitterly sarcastic critical evaluation of the novel. My English teacher, fully entitled to beat me about the head with the complete works of Jane Austen, nevertheless chose to respect my opinion. He commented that I should put P & P aside for a few years but should return to it at some point. It was not something I anticipated doing, despite feeling that I owed him as much.

Now, to get in the mood for the rest of this piece, you could perhaps stick 'Eye of the Tiger' on the stereo, because the rematch- Steele versus Austen- occurred this summer. I did not expect to enjoy the experience, viewing it like a tough hillwalk with visibility occluded by persistent drizzle. The best I hoped for at the end was a dull ache that would prove that the exercise had been in some way beneficial. Maybe this time I would at least be able to feel some sympathy for Elizabeth's father. Anyone subject to a sixfold dose of synchronised PMT was bound to arouse some emotion in me. Such was the downbeat air with which I approached my task.

But I liked it. Damn it, I almost laughed out loud a few times. The relevance to life that I had, (so cleverly I thought at the time) dismissed as a youth was there for anyone with a modicum of maturity to savour. My English teacher was right.

It has become important to me that he should know that I know appreciate his wisdom. His name was Mr Jimmy Anderson, PT English at Lanark Grammar in the seventies and, I believe, an assistant head on Islay thereafter. If you know him, pass on my regards, though the hope that he should remember me is doubtless a vain one in both senses of the word.