Having spent the past two days wondering what kind of resurrection Alexander Mackonochie was hoping for, I just had to go back and check sometime. So, with the run up to his monument and back being rougher but no further than the round trip to Altnafeadh (which had been tempting me this afternoon), there seemed no time like the present to head up with pencil and paper. And no wonder I couldn’t get that line (‘AJOYFVL’) from my photos when you see how it’s actually written…
On a decidedly more flippant note, perhaps my running’s currently experiencing something of a joyful resurrection when, after a spring and early summer of mysterious lethargy, I’m suddenly starting to find myself going better again. Whether it’s too little too late for a quick Devil o’ the Highlands, I can’t yet tell, but at least it feels like tangible progress!
[…] To keep you in suspense for a little longer, however, I’d like to talk about the monument to Alexander Heriot Mackonochie, which you pass heading NE from the Blackwater Reservoir to Loch Chiarain. Turns out he’s quite a well-known figure with his own Wikipedia entry and a McGonagall poem on his demise (found dead at that very spot, guarded by his dogs, miles from anywhere long before the building of the Blackwater Dam) and, having read the inscriptions on the monument before, I’d thought a couple of photos should be sufficient to note them down when I got home. But that’s reckoning without the lichenous state of the stone and, even after enlarging and enhancing the photos in every way I could think of, I was struggling to get some of it before (post edited here 19 July) going back to check. […]
Pingback by Piles of Stones « Petestack Blog — 19 July 2012 @ 7:30 pm