Christmas in Perthshire

Helen Rose's Hillwalking Diary - February 2007

Photo: Ballintuim. Apologies gentle reader for the delay in writing the February edition of the diary. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of hills and trips to write about having done very little over the winter for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that I have been busy in academia on my part time arts degree at the University of Glasgow.

Photo: cottage. However, I have some nice photos of Christmas in Perthshire that I wanted to share so I am including them in this very short article. I have some very good friends who live in the country in deepest Perthshire and enjoy the way of life there growing their own vegetables and being surrounded by animals and we had a lovely time visiting them over Christmas.

It was very peaceful and relaxing and we actually had a white Christmas. It was very cold and dry so lots of frost around with white fields and hedgerows.

Photo: rosehips. We left Glasgow on Christmas Eve and drove in a thick mist to Perthshire, which is one of Scotland's a wealthy shires with many affluent towns and villages. Most of the countryside is soft and green but in the northern part it is hilly and leads up to the ski slopes of Glenshee.

My friends live at the end of a forestry commission track miles from the nearest road so it is a bumpy ride. Fortunately, there was no snow so they did not need to pick us up from the road in the jeep. As soon as we left the road, the mist cleared and it was blue skies and sunshine.

Photo: Frances. On Christmas Day we did lots of traditional things like eating mince pies and singing carols around the piano with the log fire blazing but before dinner we went for a long walk on the forestry trails around the cottage. There is a network of trails in the area and the Cateran Trail runs through them from Blairgowrie to Glenshee. The Trail is sixty miles long and folows old drove roads.

It was very picturesque and with the plants covered in frost the area had a very Christmassy feel to it. Dinner was excellent, as usual, cooked by our hostess and the Christmas cake and wine saw us through the evening.
We have already booked for next Xmas!

 

Coming attraction; Isle of Gigha

 

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