The Flying (god) Squad

Monday 11th June 2012

For those of you expecting more talk about canoeing and waterproof kit, you may as well stop reading now. Today's blog is about god. Or rather, proof that god does not exist. (As an aside, I find it interesting that Apple's autocorrect does not try to make me capitalise god. I'm sure that Microsoft's does).

Now, as those that know me will already be aware, I was not a believer before I came on this trip. I didn't come to feel closer to god or anything like that. I came because I like doing this sort of thing (although that is something I question several times a day on this sort of trip).

The solid gold proof that god does not exist is midges. I believe that they are even stronger evidence than the menstrual cycle.
Midges are here in swarms. They are horrendous creatures. They get everywhere. In your hair, mouth, eyes, ears, food and wine. Nothing seems to repel them, except intense heat, but that repels me too. I even burnt my hand on a midge repelling smoking coil that doesn't work this evening.
If god existed, then midges would have been created. And who would create something so irritating, unless they were some sort of sadist? I cannot think of one useful purpose or good point about midges. If you can, then please let me know and I will start going to church at once.

I suppose I should say a little bit about our day. We woke up to dry weather (and more importantly, a dry tent), faffed around for a while and eventually set off at around 11.30am. There was hardly any wind and it only started raining this evening after we'd set up camp.

We've got about half way down the loch, which fits in OK with our timetable to get to the other end and back.

We've seen loads of birds on the loch and the shores. We think we saw an Osprey, and there was an unusual woodpecker on the shore earlier. The bird life is a big contrast to last year's trip on Loch Shiel, where we hardly saw anything. However, up to now, we both prefer Loch Shiel as it is so much more remote. We can see houses nearly all the time here. There's also loads more good camp sites on Loch Shiel. It took us ages this evening to find somewhere suitable, and our chosen site still only gets 7 out of 10 (points lost for the lack of a stream and the midges).

We've spent the evening getting stressed about the midges and dinner. Claire was baking calzone on the campfire tonight, so naturally, the fire wouldn't get started, the tarp collapsed (my fault for trying to stop it sagging), and it started raining.
When we eventually got to eat the calzone, it was very nice, but probably not worth all the stress on balance.

Tomorrow we're hoping to get down to the bottom of the loch and part of the way back up. That depends on the weather and the wind and our energy levels.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Loch Awe