Inverted World

Whilst staying near Achnashellach on the west coast for a week I took advantage of there being several hills reachable right from the doorstep of our cottage and revisited the Munro of Beinn Liath Mhor which I last climbed on a spectacular winter day back in February 2010. The weather this time was less favourable and sadly a forecast brightening around midday never materialised. Nevertheless this Munro offers a dramatic ridge walk, even in mist, and being in the vastness of Coire Lair once more was brilliant.

See my route here and read the full report on The Mountain's Silhouette.

Tonight I was back at Tolbooth in Stirling for an evening of folk music with M G Boulter and Jenny Sturgeon. I've known about Sturgeon's work for a few years now, since she joined Salt House for their 2018 album Undersong and then more recently released her own album The Living Mountain inspired by the writings of Nan Shepherd. Her collaboration with Essex-based singer-songwriter M G Boulter started during 2021 and has since flourished into a full album, Wild Convenor, released a few weeks ago followed by a national tour for which Stirling was the opening date. It turned out this was only the second time they'd met in person!

The room was set out with chairs and tables which meant I could get a seat close to the front of the stage. It was a small but warmly enthusiastic audience that greeted the two musicians who split their set over two halves with a short break in the middle to sell some merch.

They opened with Jason, the track which opens Wild Convenor, and then proceeded to trade different tracks, some from previous solo works and several others from the new album. It was a delight to hear Recesses from The Living Mountain and Jenny announced that she intends to tour that album again next year.

Hearing some of the stories and inspiration behind the album was great - from Herne the Hunter (Wild Convenor) to researchers in the Arctic (Introverts by Nature) to discovering stone circles in the wilds of Wales (Flint Knapped).

Boulter played several songs from his own back catalogue and also talked about The Clifftown Podcast which tells stories of his hometown of Southend-on-Sea. His quest to find the last resting place of the HMS Beagle out on the mudflats near Southend was particularly interesting!

Boulter mostly played guitar but did accompany Sturgeon on lap-guitar for a couple of her tunes which added a nice extra dimension alongside the shruti box.

They closed with an a cappella rendition of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris' A Song For You which was just beautiful and capped off the evening nicely.

I'd come up with numerous different plans for spectating on this stage but in the end decided it was more sensible to head to the small town of Earlston in the Borders which was serving as both the start and finish town for Stage 5 of the men's Tour of Britain. As the route included a finishing circuit there would be several opportunities to see the race which seemed a good trade off compared to trying and seeing them out on the course where they typically flash by in just a few seconds¹.

I had a fairly early start for a Sunday morning which meant quiet roads to Edinburgh and around the city bypass before picking up the A68 which took me directly to Earlston. The stage information from British Cycling had suggested parking was available and this was easily found at the rugby club.

The high street was a short walk away and the big green Lloyd's finish gantry was visible in the distance. My plan was to try and find the team buses to catch a sight of riders warming up before heading down to watch the neutralised roll out.

Eventually I made my way to the High School at the far end of the town where the team buses were spread out between a couple of different car parks. The weather was a bit grim at this time and the riders were all firmly ensconced on buses but it was fun to have a walk around and see the various bikes which were being prepared.

Eventually a few members of the Netcompany Ineos team came out to take a picture with members of the Kelso Wheeler's cycling club² before they headed out to sign on and attend the team presentations.

I made my way back to the start and finish area, skipping past the podium and heading slightly up the road to wait for a view of the rollout. This was perhaps a bit of a mistake as I could potentially have got some better views of the riders assembling, but in the end it was fun to see the whole peloton come rolling by behind the race director, most riders wearing rain jackets and braced against the somewhat unpleasant weather.

There would now be about a three hour wait for them to return to Earlston for the finishing circuit. Luckily there was a big screen so you could follow the action out on the road, whilst there was some entertainment for the crowd from a DJ and a couple of announcers. I watched quite a bit of the race, got myself some lunch and spotted Ned Boulting doing some work for ITV.

Just before 2pm and with the day now looking much more promising weather-wise I headed back to the course to watch the race come through Earlston once more. The racing had been ferocious out on the course and there were now several groups on the road. This meant it was much easier to spot individual riders.

The leading group containing Filipo Ganna, Nils Politt, Tim Wellens and Ben Wiggins amongst others flashed by and were followed about a minute later by a chasing group containing Lewis Askey, Jasper Stuyven and other hopefuls

The peloton came through several minutes behind with Modern Adventure Pro Cycling pushing hard on the front but to little effect.

The circuit was 19km long and so it took a little under half an hour for them to come around again. This time UAE looked firmly in control with Mikel Bjerg driving the group on.

The chasing grouped looked completely without cohesion and Tudor Pro Cycling now were on the front of the peloton desperately trying to make some inroads into a huge gap ahead.

The next time the race came into Earlston would be the finish so I relocated back towards the podium area. There was a good crowd along the finishing straight but I managed to find a spot to stand where I could see over the assembled media photographers and grab a photo of Nils Politt come over the line to secure a victory.

The riders headed around the corner towards the podium where they were greeted by team members and the press. It was possible to get a few close up views of the celebrating UAE team (Tim Wellens won the race overall) as well as those runners up consoling themselves.

Riders continued to come in for at least 15 minutes showing how fast the race had been ridden. This meant we had quite a wait before they would allow us to cross back towards the car parking. By now the sun was shining brightly and it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Once back at the car getting out of Earlston didn't take long at all and despite some heavy traffic back in Edinburgh I made good time getting home after a thoroughly excellent day out.

The Tour of Britain start list.

Footnotes

I headed through to Glasgow on a warm Monday evening for my second gig of the year at SWG3. Public transport was so efficient that it took barely an hour to make it through to Partick and then a short walk along to the venue. Toe had played in the Television Studio whilst Wednesday were set to play Galvanizers, which turned out to be a bigger venue with a decently high stage.

Wednesday (from Asheville, North Carolina) came on stage around 9pm to rapturous applause from a crowd that had swelled considerably in numbers since I'd arrived at 7:30. Karly Hartzman, wearing a trucker cap, joined the rest of the band on stage, including touring guitarist Jake Pugh who has replaced MJ Lenderman for live shows. Some distorted tuning up led into the opener Reality TV Argument Bleeds which immediately showcased their noisier side.

The audience was very into it and the band seemed pleasantly surprised - Hartzman almost apologising for it being a Monday night. They played from throughout their catalogue, including some of their earlier noisier stuff like Fate Is.... Chosen To Deserve was introduced as an older song and perhaps this is why Hartzman struggled with the words in a couple of the verses - at the end she blamed it on writing songs with too many words!

The middle of the set brought with it a couple of their more country songs - Phish Pepsi leading into the well received Elderberry Wine - which got an audible sing along.

After a raucous performance of Townies, Hartzman announced that the final couple of songs would really be the last - she wouldn't be able to sing after the last two scream-y numbers, plus she wasn't a fan of the whole encore thing. Both Bull Believer and Wasp were delivered in a maelstrom of noise that got a mosh pit forming in the centre of Galvanizers, followed by a handful of crowd surfers. It was a great set that didn't feel like an interlude date between big festival shows.

Support came from New York's fantasy of a broken heart who played an energetic set despite a slightly flat sound. Straddling an unusual boundary between prog and pop punk they had some intriguing songs and a certain confidence that raised them above the level of typical support band.

The gig finished at a very sensible 10:20 which allowed me time to get back to Partick to catch a train back into Glasgow. Unfortunately I forgot that the line splits east of Partick and, not paying attention, ended up on a train to Central rather than Queen Street - a bit of a jog through Glasgow city centre got me to Queen Street in time to catch the next train back to Stirling allowing me to eventually get home just before midnight.

Setlist for Wednesday here.

I've always liked the sound of the Cambus Quarter - it rolls off the tongue nicely and although I've never run the route, I'm familiar with every part of it thanks to occasional dog walks by the Forth as well as a regular cycling route that takes me along to Cambus and around by the Diageo facilities.

Usually this weekend in August is booked up with other activities, but this year I had it free and so decided to go ahead and sign up for the race which is a quarter marathon - around 6.5 miles or 10.5 km. I haven't actually run that sort of distance for a while but after a couple of recent runs of 8-9km I was relatively confident I could survive the extra distance. My aim was to complete in under an hour.

I got to Cambus at around 9:15 where everything was well organised with people guiding you to parking spaces¹. After parking up I headed to race HQ at the Cambus Bowling Club where I got my very first race number². I carefully pinned it to my t-shirt and got in some warm up exercises. A banana was strategically consumed before I locked the car and headed down to Cambus village.

Down at the start line people were congregating and the sun was threatening to come out. We got our pre-race briefing from the Race Director (interrupted by the occasional car trying to access the village) and then lined up somewhere in the vicinity of the start line, waiting for the official start at 10:15.

The route is a figure of eight with the first loop going east along the Forth before coming back to Cambus along the cycle track. I chose a fairly good starting position and there was only a little swapping of positions once the path widened out. At the halfway water station I got a bit flustered and ended up dumping most of it over my head... The second loop took us on the single track around the Cambus Pools before crossing over the level crossing at Diageo (no sign of the train for me) and then returning to Cambus along the cycle path.

It was a nice, fast mostly flat course and around 8km I realised I was on target for a sub-50 minute time. I kept a strong pace along the final section and finished in 47:09 setting my second fastest 10k time along the way (according to Strava).

After rehydrating at the finish line and collecting my sourvenir water bottle it was back to Race HQ for a burger, several cakes and the prize giving. Overall it was a really excellent experience and I will definitely be looking to sign up for more races in the future.

Full results can be seen on the Wee County Harriers website.

Footnotes