More than 100 hours

News in today's The National that a team of ultra runners has completed the Scottish National Trail in 100 hours. The team raised more than £6000 for the Scottish Association for Mental Health, SAMH.

That's 536 miles, at an average of just over 5 miles an hour. On foot. Sleeping a couple of hours, then carrying on.

My version will take a wee bit longer... It's the sleeping that will slow me down. Honest...

I'll have a drammach

I've found the perfect drink for the Stroll Up Scotland - drammach (the name comes from the Gaelic, dramaig).

The recipe is from F Marian McNeill's "The Scots Kitchen. Its lore and recipes." The original book was published in 1929 - I have a 1974 edition. Drammach is the very last recipe in the book.

The ingredients are oatmeal, salt, pepper and water, and F Marian McNeill describes this as "the hiker's 'special'."  The recipe is to "...carry some oatmeal, seasoned with salt and pepper, and mix it with cold water until thin enough to drink." She quotes Robert Louis Stevenson as saying of drammach that it "provides a good enough dish for a hungry man, and where there are no means of making fire, or good reasons for not making one, it is the chief stand-by of those who have taken to the heather."

I'll be taking drammach to the heather.

The Anthem...500 miles

There is only one song for the Stroll Up Scotland. The Pretenders' magnificent I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)