Today's wander through the gorse laden hillside behind Duntocher revealed something of a mystery when I fell upon a severed deer leg in the undergrowth (especially since I had, just last night, downloaded and watched the first two episodes of David Lynch's new season of Twin Peaks - I had yet to watch the third installment which I did this very night in which lo and behold! and severed dog leg is discovered...).
Duntocher could well be Twin Peaks then... ! What an idyllic little village, with some lovely well-crafted bungalows and well-detached local-stone villas! Apart from the odd ponderosa that looks as if its been built by a Saudi with its fake lawn and all the trimmings (you'll know it when you see it!), Duntocher is a lovely little residential quarter with the Kilpatrick Hills for its rather wild back garden. I've always thought (at least for the past year or so since I first cycled through Duntocher) that, when I have enough cash (which'll probably be never), I should have a little villa in Roman Hill Road (since my surname is Roman and I love hills!). But then you start thinking that maybe I love the hills because of the dialectic of living apart from them, that maybe, if I lived in them, I wouldn't love them as much....
At any rate, from Kilpatrick, it's an easy enough route up through the sloping fields to 'coffee rock' and then down again avoiding the gorse bushes, to the dual carraigeway and across into Dalmuir Wood.
Don't build a wall, plant some gorse! My first recollections of gorse are on the golf course and searching for wayward balls. Not a pleasant experience! But I have managed to come round to gorse, over the years, in a more intimate way, let's say, although getting intimate with a gorse bush is not something I would recommend. The intimacy I speak of is to do with 'a sitting quietly with' and 'an identifying with' that is possible through this quietness. It is only through this kind of intimacy and quietness that you will come to see your self in the gorse and vice versa, to the point where you can exclaim, at least in my case, that 'I am Gorse!' Which is probably well and good since I am pretty thorny at first touch, but radiant with it!
May 23rd, and the Hawthorns are out in force. Some years they trickle by, but this year, maybe due to the dryness that preceded this week, they bloom like nothing else, amd the sides of the hills above Duntocher are afloat with Hawthorn.
A truly bizarre find, a deer-leg in the undergrowth. Blue Velvet indeed! Duntocher is the quiet peaceful village with secrets, apparently...
The golden hills of Duntocher! (More white than gold with all that Hawthorn). Plotting a way through this wall of gorse and brush is vital when you're at the top looking down, because by the time you get down there you can't see anything! (And this stuff can swallow you up whole!).
Through the wonderful Dalmuir Wood into the wonderful Dalmuir Municipal Golf Course. Both empty of people!! I wonder at what everyone is doing, since, in my humble (and humate) opinion, there is no better way to live than to walk the earth.... and allow it to speak through you.
'The Wee Drap' is one of the most iconic golf holes of the world!! With the beautiful stream coming through, down from the hills from where we ourselves have just tumbled, it is Glasgow's very own Amen Corner, except here, there are no toffs in monkey suits keeping you out. This Amen Corner is open to everyone.... (note the garden party with their 'alky tans' just downstream at the other bridge).
Idyllic! Where would you rather drink? In a stuffy old pub, or by a babbling brook, beneath the sun-dappled shade of an enchanted wood? (In tribute to the 'jakies' who regularly gather here to drink and blether).
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