Taking the long way home

I’ve always meant to go and fish it. Perhaps it should be at the top of my bucket list

Our business in Dundee finished, I suggested to the Doyenne we go pathfinding, a favourite activity of the Whitson family when our bairns were small. Nowadays, not even the grandchildren are small, so you can guess how long it has been since we went on a truly mystery tour.

As we left the city the sun was bouncing off rain-soaked roads and black clouds which had cloaked the hills on the journey down had rolled away. We had time enough to take the scenic road home and turned off the A90 at the Kirriemuir junction and headed for Memus via the new Shielhill Bridge over the River South Esk.

My father grew up in nearby Kirriemuir and told me that the cloven hoofprint of a water kelpie could be seen on one of the stones built into the old Shielhill Bridge which was downstream of the new replacement. He never showed me the stone – perhaps his father told him the same story and like a dutiful son he believed his father as I believed mine.

We turned right at Memus on one of my favourite roads which runs along the west shoulder of Strathmore to Edzell and Brechin. The Strath was looking just about its best, patchworked with fields of golden barley and wheat rippling in the breeze. Several fields had been combined and ploughed ready for next year’s oilseed rape which is always the first crop to be sowed.

At the Denside crossroads we turned left into Glenogil passing the Redwings Mountains Animal Sanctuary, a charity for horses, ponies, donkeys and mules, founded 36 years ago by the late Alan Fraser in memory of his mother. It’s a pleasure to see the animals, some rescued from the most dreadful conditions, grazing peacefully in their new home.

Once in the glen proper the road splits left and right. Left takes you to the Den of Ogil reservoir and a favourite walk for the family when they were young. I’ve always meant to go and fish it. Perhaps it should be at the top of my bucket list.

Secluded glen

Each of the Angus glens offers its own special attraction and Glenogil is an intimate glen, secretive almost. The road loops through well-wooded areas and the fields to the west rise to meet grouse moor and the foothills of the Grampian Mountains.

A notice warned us about young pheasants and, sure enough, we had to slow down to avoid mowing down birds scattered over the road and verges and disturbing others roosting comfortably in the warm sun on dykes and gates.

Past Auchnacree House the countryside opens up and the road drops down to Afflochie Farm. Swallows hawked for insects among the sheep and we heard peasies (peewits) and oystercatchers.

The main Angus glens are all familiar but smaller Glen Moy and Glenquiech and, smallest of all, Glen Trusta are less well known. The entrance to Trusta is beside Afflochie and I’d have turned up it but Inka was at home waiting for me to take him for a walk.

The glen road rejoins the main road at Shandford Farm and we would have headed for home but there was more pathfinding to do.

At Kirkton of Menmuir we headed inland again on the road marked to Glen Lethnot, over the hill to Bridge of Lethnot which crosses the West Water. To the south are the Iron Age hill forts of the White and Brown Caterthuns. We were on the home run now as we passed Pirner’s Brig, named after a benevolent pirn or spinning bobbin manufacturer who erected a bridge over the river.

A good scolding

Before we got to Edzell Castle we passed Edzell Kirkyard where, as it happens, an ancestor on my mother’s side is buried.

There used to be a branks or bridle fixed to the wall beside the gate. This was a mediaeval instrument of ecclesiastical punishment for female scolds or nags. Women who were considered fractious could be condemned to wear it by the church or their husbands.

Then it really was time for home and a bowl of the Doyennes’s cold mint, pea and lettuce soup made with mint from the garden. Inka was getting quite bossy and nudging me to take him out. When I did he got too hot and spent half the walk trailing behind me. There’s no pleasing some dogs.

Rescued animals grazing peacefully at Redwings Mountains Animal Sanctuary.