Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Making The Most Of The Sun
by Russell Turner - 19:49 on 25 May 2017
What a day – 210 miles around the sunny Highlands aboard Kawasaki San. It would even have been warm enough for Matchgirl, so it’s a shame she’s cavorting with the Vikings again.
I’d no definite destination in mind when I abandoned three snoozing cats at 10am but after briefly considering and discarding Glencoe and Helmsdale I found myself on the road to Ullapool and heading for Shieldaig the long way round.
This took me first via Braemore Junction and through Dundonnell, Aultbea and Poolewe to Kinlochewe where I stopped for refreshment at the cafe and met a couple of unhappy bikers who’d left John O’Groats this morning and planned to be in Dumfries in the evening – an ambitious plan, kippered by a puncture. Finding a new tyre in the depths of Wester Ross was not proving easy. I left them, still on the phone, trying to work out how to send a wheel to Inverness and where they’d spend the night.
The southern tip of Loch Broom glimpsed from the Gairloch road, just west of Braemore Junction.
There were bikes aplenty all day – the North Coast 500 has a lot to answer for – and the approaching bank holiday must have encouraged lots of rich Sassenachs to venture north in their new motors. It seemed that every third car had a non-Scottish 17 plate and was being piloted cautiously around twisty Highland highways. No-one wants to scratch their new car.
Shieldaig was crammed with elderly trippers eating ice-cream so I passed without stopping, bypassed Applecross because it would have been even worse, and took another break in Lochcarron in a cafe filled with cyclists taking nourishment before climbing the Bealach Na Ba road. It takes all sorts.
Home was via Achnasheen and a second stop at Dingwall to replace the petrol I’d put in earlier today. Money well spent, especially as I returned home to find a tax refund cheque for £116 from the nice people at DVLA. Son of Seat’s last tax cost £166 (I think). Grandson of Seat’s costs £30. A smaller engine has advantages.
I’d expected to find carnage beneath the dining table but it must have been too hot for cats to hunt; even their clamouring for food was not as strident as I’d expected from moggies who missed lunch. Maybe they’ll perk up in the cool of the evening.
Willow was out and about shortly before dusk yesterday, doing her impression of a pine marten. With luck we’ll see the real thing soon, if they resume their habits of a few years ago.
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