Happy New Year! (and the Best Bits of 2019)

Jan 2019 - First Jasper Ever!

So it's New Year once again. I have to admit this one snuck up on me and I was unprepared. I've learned a lot, seen a lot, done a lot, and lost a lot this year.Those close to my family will be able to tell you how hard it has been to keep everything together and moving forward... but this is not the place for personal madness!

What has 2019 brought then? Mainly travel, writing, and learning. I found out in June that my job in catering was finishing up. Since I had only been there 6 months and my previous place had also closed down I took it as a bit of a sign. I quit the kitchen entirely and have been full time freelance writing since October. So far, so good.

I wanted to take this quiet winter time to reflect on all the best bits of this year. Like a reminder to myself to keep my chin up, or inspiration for you guys to go explore.So I went through my Social Media pictures and pulled out the best bits. If you don't already, you can follow me on Facebook here, or add Katriona Writes on Instagram.

One of the first things I did this year was take a trip up to the Campsie Fells and hunt down some Jasper. I now have a few Jasper sources for both red and yellow jasper... I can hardly believe how much I struggled to find it before!

After the Jasper hunt I took a trip out to Wilsontown. This was one of the few things I actually managed to blog about. Wilsontown is a former mining village near the area in Scotland where I live. It was famous during the industrial era for inventing some essential smelting supplies. Unfortunately, I forgot to add the stone markers into the post. The one opposite was the funniest.It reads:

"William Wilson owned a double-barrelled shotgun and called me Buffoon, villain, and rascal!"

Signed by Alexander Gunn.


Next came a trip to the Southern Highlands. This is just a second home for me now. I'm there all the time. It had been my intention to go camping up there but I never managed it this year. There is always this summer, I hope.

If I ever get rich enough you will see me in a Landrover or a Jeep... you can keep your ferrari. I want to get around!

an old mine working

Of course, all of this was interspersed with trips to Dumfriesshire. If I don't have the petrol to go all the way to Perthshire then I stick to the Central Lowlands. I have been up and down to Dumfries this year - and even had a trip to the exemplary Creetown Gem and Rock Museum. They have a great collection...






 

Anyway: this is perhaps the best find from the year's trips to this area. Don't get me wrong, there have been some great pieces (see the Cauliflower Quartz below) - but this one is my favourite. I believe it is copper under quartz but I'm no expert on the green minerals yet. I'll get there.

Asides from finding quartz druse shaped like Cauliflower (shout out to whoever bought this, I loved it and hope it brings you great happiness) what else happened this year?

Well next I found out what I looked like as a boy. I dd this by discovering Snapchat. I also know what I look like as an old witch woman, a baby, and an old man. It's an absolute scream if you don't have it yet...

 

Made this one nice and big so it can haunt your dreams, too.

Around July time the furface and I took a trip north, and north, and then north a bit more. We visited family in Dingwall, stayed at a campsite, and panned the river. We found zip-all gold but it was fun to try. I've had problems with my feet and pain this year so I haven't been out on the water much since then.

I love panning, I absolutely love the thrill of hunting for gold. when It's freezing cold and soaking wet all season and you already hurt it is hard to stay motivated. It is most definitely a fair weather sport.

That being said I did make it along to the Gold Panning Championships. Well done James Linnett on the win!






In Spring I also found out that there was a castle near me known as 'Danger Castle'. This started a bit of a spate. Pictured to the left is Castle Douglas AKA Castle Danger. I also visited Castle Gloom... the home of at least some of my ancestors. I will put together a separated post on the Campbell clan eventually. For obvious reasons that one will take a while and I'd like to get it straight in my head first. It can be a bit of a touchy subject up here...





Not too long after that I found this absolute beauty of an agate from Ayrshire. That agate though... I still have it in my own collection and I still don't have either a table to cut it on, a wheel to grind it on, or a tumbler to polish it with. As usual, answers on a postcard, please.

On the side there you will see the inside of one of the rooms in Carmicheal House. A couple of friends and I ended up there in July. We had been out rockhounding and came back up through this way.

Carmicheal House lies in its own estate, within the ruins of a garden that General Roy mapped back in the eighteenth century. It was supposedly built around then, supposedly for the third Earl of Hyndford.  It's a beautiful mess now, with a graveyard out back and the forest literally growing up through the walls.



 One of my favourite memories of the second half of this year was coming through the forest at my usual dog walking spot to find a book in a plastic wrapper. The book had a message, basically saying to read it, then hide it for another person to find.

Of course it was a kid's book... but if it had been Pratchett I'd be on it. Maybe I should add a few more adult ones? There's no reason that kids should be the only ones who get to play.

At some point in late August I took a trek out to the south east of Scotland. Mainly because I had gone in every other direction so far in the year. I found this lovely little geological marvel that is simply called 'Cove'. I recommend you do so too, if you can.
Cove has an underground tunnel. When you pass through it you come out at this lovely little sheltered bay. Presumably smugglers used it, afterwards the locals used it to store dry goods and keep them cool. Nowadays it is a tourist hot spot. I genuinely don't know how I missed it before.

In summer some time (but don't ask me when) some friends brought me this rock. They had been working at a building site near Thankerton, which is close enough to the base of Tinto hill for me to think of it as Tinto.I had no idea other than it might be a fossil. I took it to the mineral collectors of Facebookland, who gave me a positive ID.

This is a Dendritic Fossil. It is caused when some liquid manages to seep into the pores of the rock before crystallising. It looks like a tree, hence why they call them Dendrites. Pretty cool. It's on my window ledge with the copper-quartz.




As if I hadn't done enough already, September saw me heading down into Dumfries and Galloway once again... this time on a new hunt. Amethyst was my intention.  Reports of an Amethyst vein running through the hills of Dumfrieshire have been greatly exaggerated. That's not to say that it isn't true: just that there is about 600 metres of climbing, a bit of scree kerfuffle, and about 20 yards of brambles to fight through to get to it. I did find a point, I am still not convinced it was worth it...The views, on the other hand, most definitely are.




There was the obligatory yearly migration to New Lanark and the Falls of Clyde. You can read about this on this very blog. This area is where the Welshman Robert Owen introduced a socialism model to Scotland. The people all benefited and so did the establishment. New working hours laws and such were started here.

There's a hotel, the River Clyde with its scenic falls, there's a museum, a cafe, a gift shop, a woollen mill, loads of walks, wildlife, guided tours, a swing park, and some really good ice cream. There are old world mill worker's restored cottages too, just for kicks.



By this time I was writing full time and slowing down a bit. Besides anything else, I am running out of new places to explore. Towards the tail end of the year I took a cracking shot of the estate where I walk the dog. The old Braidwood House is in slightly better nick than the one at Carmicheal, but it's still pretty wrecked.








On another, more dreary, day, I took a trip out to Cambusnethan Priory. I found a really lovely piece of Jasper in the roadway. Asides from that the woods around the place feel horrible. Not great at all. I ended up taking a quick snap and moving on. You can see the contrast between the two buildings, even though they are both in a similar state of affairs.

Interesting aside: when I told my Mum I'd been here she told be she was once offered a job as a 'Wench' in it. Back in the 70's and 80's it was a medieval banquet hall... I wish it still was. I could get a job as a bard.




Most recently (asides from a wee trip to Killin after Christmas) I took a December ride up to Balquhidder. Now... I went to look at the Loch but by the time I got there you couldn't tell where the Loch ended and the field began. I have never seen such bad flooding in all my days as I have this winter in Scotland. Full farms were under water. There is one in particular, named Witsend (which is why I remember it) that was almost wholly under water when I passed.

Anyway; Balquhidder happens to be the home of Rob Roy's grave. He was buried there alongside the clan chiefs of the MacLarens. His grave is decorated with potted flowers and white quartz chips, even to this day. I left a piece of agate from Dunure. In years to come I like to think someone will puzzle over how it came to be there.

Happy New Year!

Well that took a lot longer than I thought - but it made me feel a hell of a lot better about this year's achievements. Stay tuned for Iolite, fourth in the Dark Science series (Jan 2023 update, I just published Comfrey, part 5, in December) and keep following, liking, sharing, reviewing... I'm not fussy, I just need the work...

Happy New Year 2020. Let's hope the adventures keep on coming.