17th April 2012.

McIntosh down from Glasgow, Matthews up from London, they meet at Dumfries station and in hired car are soon driving to the forest. Mission: to walk to White Laggan bothy, spend two nights and confirm that this is the location to install the star gazing chairs as well as find their spots. Q’s: will the site be accessible enough but still remote? with wide views of the sky and a flat area near bothy for the chairs? Parking up on the old Edinburgh road, their heavy packs loaded for one night (McIntosh is also carrying a prototype spacesuit), 90 mins of forest retuning walking later, just as it became too far, there it is, the bothy.

Up the boggy hillside they’re soon in the door. Incredible. This is the bothy, two years ago, they dismissed as squeaky clean and almost vibrating gortex.  Now here, 2 years of forest time under their belts, they love it. It’s spacious and dry and the door opens and closes and there’s wood in the shed and some candles and a tin of spaghetti and no-one else is here and they can sleep here and here’s the wood burning stove and other people have been staying and it feels used and cared for and it’s free. Bothy culture rocks. Dumping gear they get out, looking for potential star chair sites sniffing out the lie of the land and hearing forest space once more. They’re above Loch Dee. It’s sublime.

The other good news is that the suit really works. It makes lying on the ground one of the best things a human can do. Gazing up at the sky warm and dry under stars on a night that hopped almost to zero was something not to forget. Portable shelters for individuals. Free and available on a deposit hire scheme for a couple of days from a local centre. The suit really does overcome all fear of cold and the outdoors and makes you want to go lie on the Earth.

Tuesday 18th April.

It’s light and voices and dogs are outside. Two guys with fish from the loch.(they know the farmer).Breakfast? They show them the suit and discuss lying on the spinning earth looking up, night-time fishing and stars and being warm, always. What freedom. They go out and revisit the terrain above the bothy. This is where they plan to put the chairs. You’ll even be able to see them from inside. Yes, bothy folk, once inside at night, don’t want to go out, they’ve discovered.

Other good news is that White Laggan bothy sits on a wide sheltered hillside with good views of the sky and it is flat enough to install the chairs. Overnight they’ve wrangled with all the different people and situations that could arise up here. Day trippers, Southern Upland Way walkers,  local visitors, wildlife, bogs, accessibility, immovable rocks, the weather, the chairs as sculpture, the chairs survival, issues around permanent work and visibility from the road. Its been a good night. They take a walk down the route they had in January walked up.  Spring is good.

Wednesday 19th April.

It had been an even clearer night. The Milky Way was tangible and so rich it shouted. They experimented looking in silence and looking listening to Yird music. Both experiences quite different. Again they had slept as bears and now it was time to leave. Cleaning up and striding down the hillside early, they’re laying out plans for action. Chairs to make, suits to make, songs to write, album to complete, and White Laggan gets the thumbs up.  mba membership must be renewed.