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Sunday 2nd May , rain tipping it down . Sitting here with a coffee with a tad of whiskey thrown in , absolutely no desire or inclination to move out of my warm comfy chair .
So with nothing else to do ( unless the wife knows better
) , I thought a little reminiscing would be quite in order .
The first walk that came to mind was the 13 mile circuit of Loch Leven from last May , notable for two things , which will become apparent if you read on.
It was last Mayday when we decided to walk the circuit and lo and behold the weather was good ,( dry , warm and humid). We parked the car at Kirkgate Park and made our way around passing Kinross House . The array of wild flowers and birds were a joy to behold , but then Scotland always excels in May . We were happily strolling along singing a song , ( as all on Walkhighlands are prone to do on occasion ......No!.. I hear you say ,.... well you surprise me ), when we began to notice that the small groups of flies that we had encountered along the way seemed to be merging into large swarms . By the time we passed Burgher Bridge on our left the air had become one thick dense super swarm of millions if not billions of flies . Never in my life have I seen anything like it . I've seen thick clouds of midges high on the Cobbler , I've seen masses of midges while on the West Highland way and swarms on the Pennine Way ( didn't expect so many there ). But never have we ever had to virtually wade through the sea of flies as we did on that day. People passed us on their bikes with vests pulled up over their faces with one hand shielding their eyes from the plague . There were children crying as flies were landing and crawling all over their faces and into their eyes. Fortunately they didn't appear to be the biting type , probably Duns etc.
After a mile or so the swarms thinned out and we walked on enjoying the sights of both Loch and Hills . Had a spot of lunch about half way around and walked on to Vane Farm Nature Centre. From there we walked on the newly openly section of path back to Kinross and the car. We were not overly impressed with the new section , very open , sparse almost barren , but maybe in a few years time as newly planted trees and shrubs grow it will improve.
All in all we enjoyed the walk but unfortunately two days later Arlene noticed a tick fall from her ankle while in the shower . Over the next couple of days she developed the classic Lyme disease rash all over her body . She went to the doctors and fortunately made a point of having them check for LD and although I believe it is difficult to determine by a blood test at an early stage , she was seen by a doctor who has had experience with treating LD before . He prescribed the appropriate course of antibiotics and within a couple of weeks the rash disappeared .
The moral of this story is to always check yourself over ( or get a friend to
) after a walk , even early in the year , you just never known when LD will strike.
PS. Arlene's okay now and since then always uses a She-Wee ( I think you get the picture) .
