Early Spring in the Highlands

[MacKenzie]

Posting for @Jock Scot

[Jock Scot]

Thank you so much for posting those pictures for me, MacKenzie.

Now some of you will be thinking what on earth is he wearing!? That waistcoat is way too long! Etc.,etc.,etc., and they are right.......There was a good reason!

Well, the local clay pigeon club had an unscheduled gathering as the weather was so nice. ----------------Not a common event at this time of year, I hasten to add. So they set up an event with teams of three shooting at 50 random targets to be sent out at a steady pace and the winners would be the team that shot the most. So quick loading was required. So, thought I, my tweed early Autumn season game shooting waistcoat with its wide and deep pockets would be perfect for fast loading and would be thick enough to keep a bit of the chill out. So there are times when non kilt items are dragooned into service with a purpose in mind, as in this case.

After the event, Mrs Jock thought it was too nice a day to go home, so we popped down to the river to see what the winter storms had done to it. Nothing untoward thank goodness, but I could not resist paddling over to a wee island, for absolutely no reason at all! Some of you may have noticed that the hem-line of the kilt had been raised a tad. Why? Well a soaking kilt hem is a very uncomfortable thing, clinging around the front of the leg and even more uncomfortable rubbing along the back of the knee............and the water was b........ cold!

So a very happy kilt wearing day that I thought I would share with you.

[MacKenzie]

You are welcome Jock. Sounds like I nice day out.

I have to admit, the position of the kilt hem-line did get an eyebrow raise.

[Pleater]

Having been out in some pretty dire weather in a kilt I second the hoiking up of the edge so it is not caught in the back of the knee joint - I have been soaked to the skin several times but wool is quite strange when wet - it is actually more insulating, unlike cotton which is cold until it dries out.

I had a jersey of natural white wool, hand made straight off the sheep, which I wore when out sailing and over time it turned brown and became almost impervious to water.

I went into a pub after one soaking and alarmed people as I was so warm there was steam rising off me - there was a large mirror on the wall so I could see it myself - like a cloud that forms downwind of a mountain peak.

Anne the Pleater

[Jock Scot]

Before the invention of Gortex and Barbour oilskin, heavyweight wool cloth was the country mans’ saviour. In those days, my early youth, heavyweight tweed meant heavyweight. Not the modern term for heavyweight tweed that we see today. In those days the tweed kept the gamekeepers, ghillies, shepherds, country sportsmen and countrymen in general clad and warm although not dry and the steam from the wet wool that Pleater mentions at the end of the day was a common and regular occurrence. With it came the distinct smell of crotal, the stuff used to fix dye colours to the wool and then, to make the tweed and the added smells of wet dog, gun powder, whisky, tobacco, gun oil, fish, game, etc,etc,etc. is a fond memory.

These days, tweed is still used but thankfully with the advent of the efficient modern and lighter in weight outer shell of outdoor gear, tweed is now lighter in weight, but the magnificent patterns that were and are still woven into the cloth are still to be seen.