From beginning of August, the celtic festival of Lammas, the harvest of grain and first fruits, I took some time off and spent a wonderful time with a dear friend. We were visiting cities, towns and beautiful places in Nature in the Scottish Central Belt. Every day we felt the calling to put the walking boots on to discover new paths, new areas, hills, waterfalls and even a Munro: Ben Lomond. Cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling and the smaller town: Callander were not to be missed.. The first section of the West Highland Way on a rainy day was our first longer walk. Amazing, how green Scotland can be, especially when it rains a lot, like this Summer.
On another brighter morning we went to visit the Falls of Clyde in New Lanark and the World Heritage Site, a restored 18th century cotton mill village, created by Robert Owen and his son-in-law, David Dale. I was impressed by the size of the carding machinery and the spinning machine, still in use for wool yarn these days. Robert Owen was a social reformer and one of the founders of the cooperative movement. He looked after his workers and their families’ health, well-being and education. Apart from visiting the site of New Lanark and the Falls of Clyde we saw the astonishing beautiful Camphill Foundation exhibition : World Wide Weave.
The 75 wall-hangings in weaving, tapestry and felting technique were created by people with learning disabilities in 61 workshops worldwide in 19 countries: from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England, from Finland to Sweden, Vietnam to India, Canada to USA and more. I could feel joy and happiness radiating from the colourful textile panels, created by so many individuals with all the diversity in unity. Walking through the exhibition, I remembered, when I worked as a manager of a weaving workshop in the Camphill Community Lehenhof in South Germany, more than 11 years ago. Happy memories! The exhibition is now to be seen in Aberdeen. You can follow the progress of the tour on the website www.camphillfoundation.net
Nature requires its own time to mature, all things, whether mineral, plant, animal or mind and spirit. Robert Owen
On the following day we visited Edinburgh and then: What a great experience, hiking up Ben Lomond (974m)! The weather was fine when we were starting at the banks of Loch Lomond. We had
fantastic views towards the various lochs and of course mainly down to Loch Lomond, as we walked up my first Munro (A Scottish mountain, higher than 3000ft=914,4m). Towards the summit a strong wind blew and I had to focus on my food steps. Eventually we made it to the summit and were rewarded
with amazing views towards mountains and lochs in all directions. Ben Lomond is a very exposed mountain and the most southern of the Munros. More fantastic walks and visits to special places followed and even though this year’s Summer wasn’t one of the best here in Scotland, we were lucky to catch some sunshine on our walks, especially on a beautiful day on the west coast in Largs and West Kilbride, the last day of our holidays.
I feel really happy to have seen and experienced so many beautiful and new places in the area where I feel at home. I had lovely company of my friend Gabriele from Germany and we had lots of fun! Many thanks for a FANTASTIC time!
Here you can find out about upcoming Summer and Autumn felt workshops.
