Peter, Ah kin see your hoose fae up here

[weedavie]

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This was a kind of ramble, just a way of finding out if a bit of the Pentlands could be traversed by a horse. That is, no stiles, no kissing gates, no cattle grids. You can have walked the ground 20 times before and you'd swear there were none of these and then you walk paying attention and go "Oh, aye!" Anyway that bit of the walk was quite successful but early on, I was taken aback by fundamentalist activity on Black Hill.

OK it's not quite ISIS in Palmyra but then I don't go walking in Palmyra and I was a bit shocked and horrified. I'd a shot at pushing it over but it's a couple of metres high and made of telegraph poles.

Let's face it, Black Hill is an ugly, unprepossessing hill. It does not need additional blemishes. If we're clearing inappropiate erections, this is high on my personal list. Also there's a sinister inscription on it.

On my way back I traversed Hare Hill. A JU88 bomber crashes there in 1943. There's a simple memorial, a short pole with a metal plate with the names of the flyers. It's surrounded by a small pile of debris from the crash and is hard to find, half way down the slope. I was going to photograph it as a contrast but I'd run out of electricity in my Box Brownie.

[basscadet]

Well its a feature, which that hill is particularly lacking
Went up there on new years day this year, and no sign of it then, so must be new

[matt_outandabout]

Do you not need some kind of permission for such things?

[weedavie]

Do you not need some kind of permission for such things?

Speedy or what? I passed it to Pentlands, Park who went to the landowner, who hadn't given permission and it's been removed (I'm told.)

[weedavie]

Hi, it's been back. After an absence of a year this ugly fecker has returned. It wasn't there towards the end of January but on Saturday, I found it lying at the summit. Well it might not be the same one, it was face down and I couldn't turn it over to see the code. This time it had been planted at the summit rather than 100 metres north. It looked like someone had pulled it up.

Well that's what I wrote last week and I was going to rant about religious nutters but conversation on the hill has given me some of the background. The artifact gets there as part of an activity, Extreme Stations of the Cross. Now clearly this does suggest a combination of religiosity and the truly barking but there has to be a degree of reluctant respect. Evidently they start the ascent in the darkness on Good Friday. As the thing was too heavy for me even to turn over, carrying it demands a considerable effort. Mind you as the cross was lying there 6 weeks later, they're still guilty of serious littering.

On balance, I think the farmer should take the same attitude as to sheep-worrying and shoot on sight. It'd add to the extreme nature of the sport.