It's Behind You

Dusk in the Pentland Hills.  I'm on a sentimental journey to the place where my Uncle and Aunt lived. He was a shepherd, and she the custodian of an Ancient Monument. The glowing circles in the grass are windows letting light in to the Iron Age Fort under our feet.

We used to play house in the round chamber off the long entrance passage. Ferns grew underground out of the dry stone walls. Now the earth above has been covered in some kind of concrete render, and the place feels dank and unfriendly.

Their cottage and all the outbuildings are gone. The land always belonged to the MOD and perhaps it was never a good idea to have a family living so close to a firing range?

I wonder if these sheep could be descended from Uncle Allan's flock? They are the same sturdy Scottish Blackface breed. I saw a man and a collie dog  on the track ahead of us, and I'd have asked him, if I could have caught up with them, but they were out of sight in the shake of a lamb's tail.