Wednesday 21 January 2009
Highlands and Islands
Or could that be Hislands and Ighlands? What a strange language English is.
So, as you'll know from reading J's blog we did a quick trip around the H&I. We had picked a weekend statistically more likely to be fine, and had hoped to see some lovely snowy countryside. We got neither on the whole, curse those
statistics.
We didn't start all that well. First stop was Dingwall near Inverness, at a hotel called Tulloch Castle. A lovely place it was too, but they were a bit puzzled by our arrival. It turned out that the lady who booked our hotels had got everything right except the month - we were booked in for February. Fortunately, they weren't busy and, after the duty manager rang around, nor were the other 3 hotels. The room was nice and the public areas were all magnificent.
We had dinner in 'town' after driving three times around it looking for anything other than Indian.
Next day I buried myself in the Fort George archives of the Cameron Highlanders and Seaforth Highlanders. There wasn't actually a lot there but at least I know. J spent the time being blown around the Fort. Apparently it's quite impressive, but I'll never know. Of course, by the time I came out the sun had gone
down, it being just after lunchtime. (Well 4:30 actually.) We raced past Culloden and drove through the dark to Skye. Lovely scenery.
We stayed at Skeabost Lodge most of the way up Skye. It was another large manor type building, with billiard room, etc, and a golf course somewhere outside. In the morning it was raining and windy, but we drove around the north of the island anyway. The only word we could think of was 'bleak' and we were sorely in need of a thesaurus in pretty short time.
A little less weather [yes, I know it's grammatically inaccurate] and it would have been quite spectacular I think, but we couldn't really see much of it from the car. J developed a photographic technique that I shall call 'drive-by shooting' which involved pulling over at any place with a view and taking the shot through the window. (With her new camera I should mention.) There's not much scope for framing a view from the passenger seat of an Astra. On the other hand, when I opened the car door it got caught by the 
wind and was nearly wrenched off its hinges, so perhaps her idea wasn't so bad... Funnily enough we didn't see any bonny boats speeding like birds on the wing, as even the birds were taking shelter. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
We drove through to Loch Ness where we failed to see much of
anything through the rain, let alone any monsters. We had a look at Urquhart Castle - closed for the winter - then drove down the lochs, past the Commando memorial at Fort William and on and on through the dark and rain to Kintyre. We were staying at Stonefield Castle, about halfway down Kintyre, but they also seemed unprepared for us. We were given the room keys but when we got in it was obvious the room hadn't been cleaned up at all: bed unmade, rubbish in bin, towels on floor, etc. We called the duty manager and she was up like a 
shot. Very apologetic and took us to another room - a suite, complete with four-poster, bath and view of Loch Fyne (as we discovered in the morning). This was double bonus as we were there two nights. Not only that, but we got drinks and desserts free at dinner time. Lovely. (Next time we plan to run up to the room and mess it up then complain.)
We spent the next day driving around Kyntyre, but try as we might, we didn't see a mull anywhere, though we did see the mist
rolling in from the sea. I don't really know what Paul was on about. We visited a couple of sights - some bleak caravan parks on windswept beaches; a gun battery with no views, and a fortified medieval farmstead just big enough to swing a cat in. (Sorry Tiddles.) All in the wind and rain of course. There was some lovely scenery here too, including some magnificent rhododendrons. OK, so they'd be magnificent in bloom, not so much so in mid-winter. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
By this time there were distinctly worrying noises coming from the right front wheel area which with my extensive mechanical knowledge I immediately recognised as a splongled wodget, which would no doubt cost three times the value of the car to fix. However, it was still running, at least in straight lines, so we carried on. We did better than a car we passed in a ditch. The lights had been left on so I thought it might have been recent so checked it out. No-one was in it, but oddly there was a pair of gloves neatly placed on the 
passenger seat. I picture it as the shocked response of someone who had just done a 180 before sliding sideways off the road into the ditch - righto then, I'll just take my gloves off and put them here, nice and straight, just like that, there we go now. AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Strangely, there was no ice on the road, nor any sign of other skid marks, so my best guess is a deer got in their way. No sign of the deer, so it must have got out of their way as well. Haha - revenge!
This day I buried myself in the Stirling Castle archives of the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. There was a reasonable amount there and at least I know. J spent the time being blown around the Castle. Apparently it's quite impressive, but I'll never know. (Actually I might this time because it's only a day trip from Edinburgh.) We raced by Stirling Bridge, the sight of Mel Gibson's famous victory over the English and headed for home. We think we did around 1000 miles in this short trip, at least 200 of it in daylight. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
J, who is currently between jobs, took the car in to unsplongle the wodgets. L110 later we had a new CV joint or, as they say over here, resume joint. We figure that by the time we go to sell the car we'll have replaced almost everything. The buyer will will certainly get a good deal on oil - we're constantly replacing that. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
There have been one or two tense moments during our many miles of driving in Italy and the UK, so we decided to buy a Sat-
nav. We got quite a good deal on a Garmin Nuvi 255W and tests so far have been positive. Actually we got a 250W first up but it was a shop model and when we came to update its maps we found it had been running since June last year and was no longer eligible for new maps. J used it to navigate back to the shop for a replacement that was eligible. It's pretty cool and should take one source of stress out of our trips. If it can get us out of Frosinone it is worth every penny!
We have (oh, all right, J has) spent the last few days organising a trip to London. What an horrifically expensive business that is. We figured that with J not working we will only be losing my wages, not both. It'll be the last hit in the archives before Italy, and this trip to Italy has to be the last before the book is published. When we live closer to London it will all be so much easier of course...
So that's 2009 so far...
So, as you'll know from reading J's blog we did a quick trip around the H&I. We had picked a weekend statistically more likely to be fine, and had hoped to see some lovely snowy countryside. We got neither on the whole, curse those
statistics.We didn't start all that well. First stop was Dingwall near Inverness, at a hotel called Tulloch Castle. A lovely place it was too, but they were a bit puzzled by our arrival. It turned out that the lady who booked our hotels had got everything right except the month - we were booked in for February. Fortunately, they weren't busy and, after the duty manager rang around, nor were the other 3 hotels. The room was nice and the public areas were all magnificent.
We had dinner in 'town' after driving three times around it looking for anything other than Indian.Next day I buried myself in the Fort George archives of the Cameron Highlanders and Seaforth Highlanders. There wasn't actually a lot there but at least I know. J spent the time being blown around the Fort. Apparently it's quite impressive, but I'll never know. Of course, by the time I came out the sun had gone
down, it being just after lunchtime. (Well 4:30 actually.) We raced past Culloden and drove through the dark to Skye. Lovely scenery.We stayed at Skeabost Lodge most of the way up Skye. It was another large manor type building, with billiard room, etc, and a golf course somewhere outside. In the morning it was raining and windy, but we drove around the north of the island anyway. The only word we could think of was 'bleak' and we were sorely in need of a thesaurus in pretty short time.
A little less weather [yes, I know it's grammatically inaccurate] and it would have been quite spectacular I think, but we couldn't really see much of it from the car. J developed a photographic technique that I shall call 'drive-by shooting' which involved pulling over at any place with a view and taking the shot through the window. (With her new camera I should mention.) There's not much scope for framing a view from the passenger seat of an Astra. On the other hand, when I opened the car door it got caught by the 
wind and was nearly wrenched off its hinges, so perhaps her idea wasn't so bad... Funnily enough we didn't see any bonny boats speeding like birds on the wing, as even the birds were taking shelter. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.We drove through to Loch Ness where we failed to see much of
anything through the rain, let alone any monsters. We had a look at Urquhart Castle - closed for the winter - then drove down the lochs, past the Commando memorial at Fort William and on and on through the dark and rain to Kintyre. We were staying at Stonefield Castle, about halfway down Kintyre, but they also seemed unprepared for us. We were given the room keys but when we got in it was obvious the room hadn't been cleaned up at all: bed unmade, rubbish in bin, towels on floor, etc. We called the duty manager and she was up like a 
shot. Very apologetic and took us to another room - a suite, complete with four-poster, bath and view of Loch Fyne (as we discovered in the morning). This was double bonus as we were there two nights. Not only that, but we got drinks and desserts free at dinner time. Lovely. (Next time we plan to run up to the room and mess it up then complain.)We spent the next day driving around Kyntyre, but try as we might, we didn't see a mull anywhere, though we did see the mist
rolling in from the sea. I don't really know what Paul was on about. We visited a couple of sights - some bleak caravan parks on windswept beaches; a gun battery with no views, and a fortified medieval farmstead just big enough to swing a cat in. (Sorry Tiddles.) All in the wind and rain of course. There was some lovely scenery here too, including some magnificent rhododendrons. OK, so they'd be magnificent in bloom, not so much so in mid-winter. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
By this time there were distinctly worrying noises coming from the right front wheel area which with my extensive mechanical knowledge I immediately recognised as a splongled wodget, which would no doubt cost three times the value of the car to fix. However, it was still running, at least in straight lines, so we carried on. We did better than a car we passed in a ditch. The lights had been left on so I thought it might have been recent so checked it out. No-one was in it, but oddly there was a pair of gloves neatly placed on the 
passenger seat. I picture it as the shocked response of someone who had just done a 180 before sliding sideways off the road into the ditch - righto then, I'll just take my gloves off and put them here, nice and straight, just like that, there we go now. AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Strangely, there was no ice on the road, nor any sign of other skid marks, so my best guess is a deer got in their way. No sign of the deer, so it must have got out of their way as well. Haha - revenge!This day I buried myself in the Stirling Castle archives of the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. There was a reasonable amount there and at least I know. J spent the time being blown around the Castle. Apparently it's quite impressive, but I'll never know. (Actually I might this time because it's only a day trip from Edinburgh.) We raced by Stirling Bridge, the sight of Mel Gibson's famous victory over the English and headed for home. We think we did around 1000 miles in this short trip, at least 200 of it in daylight. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.
J, who is currently between jobs, took the car in to unsplongle the wodgets. L110 later we had a new CV joint or, as they say over here, resume joint. We figure that by the time we go to sell the car we'll have replaced almost everything. The buyer will will certainly get a good deal on oil - we're constantly replacing that. Still, I'm glad we made the effort.There have been one or two tense moments during our many miles of driving in Italy and the UK, so we decided to buy a Sat-
nav. We got quite a good deal on a Garmin Nuvi 255W and tests so far have been positive. Actually we got a 250W first up but it was a shop model and when we came to update its maps we found it had been running since June last year and was no longer eligible for new maps. J used it to navigate back to the shop for a replacement that was eligible. It's pretty cool and should take one source of stress out of our trips. If it can get us out of Frosinone it is worth every penny!We have (oh, all right, J has) spent the last few days organising a trip to London. What an horrifically expensive business that is. We figured that with J not working we will only be losing my wages, not both. It'll be the last hit in the archives before Italy, and this trip to Italy has to be the last before the book is published. When we live closer to London it will all be so much easier of course...
So that's 2009 so far...
Sunday 4 January 2009
Happy New Year
Blimey, over a month since my last blog. It's a good thing that J keeps hers relatively up to date. Two major calendar days have passed without comment and a few others too so I'd better say something...I hope you all had good Christmas/New Year breaks. J was at home for Christmas and appreciated catching up with her loved ones. It meant a quiet Christmas for me - dinner of leftover lasagna and chocolates in front of the computer. Still, as an atheist and away from family it really was just another day.
New Year's Eve was much anticipated. J came home on the Monday and it was great to have her home. In a reverse of the relativistic effects of travelling, time seemed to pass slowly for me here while much happened for her while away. I surprised her at the airport by actually being there, but even that was a close run thing as she was 25 minutes early. She spent the rest of the day sleeping off the jetlag, then the next day getting sick. Either food-poisoning (but we had the same things to eat) or norovirus (but I didn't catch it) but her back to bed, so come New Year's Eve she was too crook to go out. Damn. Never mind, we popped out just long enough for the count-down and to see, from a distance, the fireworks off Edinburgh Castle and Calton Hill. the good news is she is now over whatever it was.
Since I had 4 consecutive days off from the pipework we popped out to see a couple more castles. Linlithgow was quite graceful and liked to be called a palace rather than a castle, while Blackness was a solid fortress, built to withstand Cromwell's artillery and later used to store the Scottish army's ammunition. Of course we finished exploring in pitch blackness (boom boom) as the sun disappeared at 4:00 pm. Two other days were partly filled by being dragged around shopping centres.
What else? I had a night out with some of the work crew playing Laser Quest. I was crap - cannon fodder - but still had fun. Oh, and there was a work dinner and a badminton dinner. The restaurant where we had the latter was burnt down a week later, which is a shame as it was a good restaurant but also a heritage building. But aren't they all here?We've started making our plans for the year to come, with the overall assumption that J will get work again soon enough. The very weak pound (97 Euro cents, so way down from 1.40 last year) means we have that much less spending power, but what the heck...
We have decided on Leeds/York for our next place of residence. Leeds is the 5th largest city in the UK apparently and has plenty of history while York, though smaller, has even more. Each is an easy commute to the other so it doesn't matter which we find work in. Leeds is on the motorway and main rail route too, and they're not so far from here to move all our stuff.
This month we will try for a week in the Scottish Highlands; in February (or earlier if J has no work) a week in the archives in London; in March a short trip to Paris for J's birthday; in April catch up with G&RH; in May attend the 65th in Cassino, finish gathering those photos; following on from this, in June get matches for my own next article on a battle at Termoli, and spend time on a Greek/Croatian/Albanian/Montenegran (tba) beach for a couple of weeks. Then back to the grind for the rest of the recession-struck year.
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