Living up to its name with Seymour Butts

[Bbbadger]

Eventually getting around to walk report 2 months late.
A Groupon deal for the Spread Eagle hotel in Jedburgh afforded us the opportunity to pay a visit to some far flung hill or two. Keeping with the somewhat risqué theme of the weekend we decided to travel down to Cocklawfoot farm which was just past Blackcockhole for a circular walk which took in Cock Law, Outer Cock Law, Blairs Hole, Windy Gyle and Windy Rig but to name a few of the imaginative place names. I reckon the chap who informed the cartographer of the place names had somewhat twisted if not perverted sense of humour.
Anyway on to the hill. The Saturday morning was glorious and held much promise bearing in mind Englandshire was in the midst of biblical floods. The road down was a bit of an adventure which included dodging convoys of land rovers containing Barbour coated, deer stalker hatted shotgun totting farmers, quad bikes and fording a flooded river.
Arriving in the sun we kitted up and set off through the farm and on to the hills. Passing the remains of an Iron Age fort we observed the shooting party in the adjacent valley happily blasting anything that moved on the moor. At that moment I remembered a film I once saw called Deliverance....of course I didn't mention this thought to Mrs Badger.
Looking back along the valley a black cloud had appeared on the horizon which was foolishly dismissed as a the forecast had been good. However by the time we had started up onto the ridge that straddles the border the waterproofs had been donned and we were in the midst of a hailstone blizzard. Alternating between having our faces stung in the headwind or being deafened by the hailstones hitting Goretex around the ears we attained the ridge where the helpful and unexpected sign post directed us along a flagstone lined path to the summit of Windy Gyle. Thankfully there was a substantial cairn and shelter wall which allowed us to avoid hypothermia while eating our lunch.
Having chilled down as much as we could bear we again braved the hail and increasing wind thinking the worst was over but as we hit the dip of the bealach the wind was getting compressed and funnelled at great speed through the gap, so much so that walking at all was only possible at an angle of 45 deg, definitely the strongest wind I have ever felt.
By this stage we were both soaked through and only the constant walking kept any heat in us. It was with great relief we eventually saw the starting point at which point the weather seemed to ease considerably.
Back at the car we changed into some dry clothes and headed out of Porno Valley with thoughts of several drinks in the hotel bar followed by a hot bath and evening meal to look forward to.... We were not disappointed! To add insult to injury the sun re appeared as we left that godforsaken Brigadoon , never to return.