Return to Ben Vorlich (Loch Earn)

Ben Vorlich at Loch Earn is a lovely hill. It is steep, shapely, easy to access and provides the most wonderful views across Perthshire's hills. It's less than an hour's drive from my house, and I see it regularly from afar. It's a fantastic sight from the A9 as one heads down from Perth towards Stirling, and is a distinctive part of the skyline from Perth's Kinnoull Hill - our regular quick walk. It is ridiculous then, that I haven't been up Ben Vorlich since July 1996. I remember the last trip very clearly indeed. It took place about a week or two before I got married. My fiancee was at that stage in Africa working at a remote mission hospital in Niger. The country was quite volatile at that time, and there was some sort of coup d'etat being attempted, and communications were down. I was, as you can imagine, a little anxious! 

On a blazing hot summer's day in 1996, four of us drove in my tiny Ford Fiesta to lovely Ardvorlich, on the minor road on the south side of Loch Earn. Then, as now, there were cars and minibuses all wedged into the verges and parking spaces by the loch. This time I was alone, in a VW, and it was February. The sun was shining, and its beams danced prettily on the loch, just as I remembered from before. This time however, there was a hint of steam on my breath, a hat and gloves on my body. A delightful stream runs down to the loch at Ardvorlich, and access path goes up it's east bank, as far as a bridge, where it crosses towards an impressive mansion, before resuming up the west side of the burn. The track gains height quickly then splits, the left fork by-passing the hill and the right one heading straight up a huge ridge ahead.

The path has eroded significantly over the last 23 years, it is now a significant, and in paces ugly path. It leads with increasing steepness up to a summit with a trig-point and an amazing view which quite unexpectedly seems to overwhelm the senses. The last, steep part of the climb is up a North facing ridge which is in the hill's shadow. The trig point was in glorious sunshine - and the views were stunning. 

February 2019 treated us to a freaky foretaste of Spring - it was abnormally warm when I went back up Ben Vorlich. Hats, gloves and thermal layers were dispensed not long after the start of the ascent, and I stood on top of the hill in Munro in February T-shirt! Back in 1996, the air was still, and unbearably hot; this time it was blowing a hard wind - but the sun still shone. Last time we continued on to scramble up Stuc a Chroin, before diving off the hills westwards to find a river and some water in the fierce heat. This time, I had to get back to pick children up from school and so had no time to go on and do the second hill, which meant a trudge back down the eroded ascent path.

Film Notes: Kolya

I stumbled across this DVD really by chance. I was noodling about ebay, and saw a quirky picture of a middle-aged bearded fellow, with a small boy on his shoulders, who was rather impishly putting his hands over the man's eyes. Jumping over to the Rotten Tomatoes site, I saw that this film had great reviews, and so grabbed it for not very much.

It turned out to be a charming, if sentimental, coming-of-age movie from Eastern Europe, set during the dying days of the Soviet system. The twist in the story is that person coming of age, is a middle-aged man! Louka, played delightfully by Zdenek Sverák, is a brilliant cellist, who has played with the Prague Philharmonic. Clashes between him and the Communist Party have resulted in him being reduced to playing at the local crematorium, for funerals. What seems to matter most to Louka however, is not ,subversive anti-communism, but his numerous affairs with fellow performers and cello students. His unattached, bachelor lifestyle, more typical of a twenty-year old, seems to have filled his days into his middle-years.

All this seems to unwind in a most unexpected way. Louka agrees to a marriage of convenience with a gorgeous Russian woman whose motivation is to get to the West. Her marriage document enables here to travel there from Czechoslovakia, which wouldn't be possible from Russia. Louka's motivation seems to be both financial and sexual, but to his consternation she dissappears almost immediately, leaving Louka with her young son; Kolya.

Those of us who are parents are aware of how much life changed when children arrived. In fact, our lives divide into the 'before' and 'after' their presence. Life without the busyness, exhaustion, joys and sorrows of children now seems barely imaginable. Young Kolya is the last thing that the selfish Louka is expecting, and much to his surprise it changes him in ways he can barely comprehend.

The film is really well-observed, which adds to its charm, and authenticity. This happens both at the level of adult-child interactions, of little Kolya's view of the world; and is loaded with wonderful period details from the latter years of the Soviet bloc. The film ends with twists in the story, both for Louka and Kolya, but also for the country as a whole. 

Anyone whose life has been turned upside down by children, or who was forced to suddenly grow-up when they became a parent; will smile knowingly at this film. Louka is certainly a more likeable character by the end of the film than he was at the start, but rather pleasingly he doesn't undergo a ludicrous character change like romcom writers seem to indulge in (The Proposal: fergoodnissakes!), but the love he develops for a child starts to shape him in new ways.

I thought it was a delightful film, amusing, wry, dated, well-observed, and with a charm that was quite lovely; and a nice twist in the tale.