One night in Jedburgh, famed for Jethart Snails a ‘nippie sweetie’, Ali’s friend Ben had a gig in the Carter’s Rest, a local hostelry. There are many reasons to visit Jedburgh – the food at the Indian restaurant, the superb ruined Abbey, James Hutton’s Unconformity and being on the jury at the Sheriff Court. The Carter’s Rest was never in that list and being absent from the Good Beer Guide wasn’t a particular recommendation either.

So there we were with a separated housewife with her amply bosomed daughter, my son with his leg in a plaster and his facially bejewelled friend, my wife showing that she was spending through the recession to save Marks and Spencers and myself. Yes Kelso had arrived in Jedburgh for a night out.

The first amazing site of the evening was the Abbey lit with red, green and blue lights – my god I thought the tourist agency has finally come to its senses and made something of the dark Abbey at night – however this turned out to be the band disco lights.

The beer selection explained its absence from the Good Beer Guide so it was going to be Guinness all night and the toilet all morning. The band were clustered in one end with huge speakers balanced with their tests rattling all the bottles precariously balanced on the shelves above the seats. We got our drinks at the relatively empty bar (filled with friends or relatives of the band and some locals hitting each other in the stomach at the end of the bar) and sat down, the music started this was going to be a jolly night I thought.

I went to the loo and whilst in mid flow was asked ‘Are you still flying?’ which was one of the more bizarre urination interrogations. It turned out to be a fellow microlighter (now bearded probably as a disguise to visit Jedburgh) who was there because his son was on guitar.

The stomach punching locals had now been led like the Pied Piper children to the band and were gyrating in the small dance space in front of the band. that would have been mildly amusing for a minute or so however they then chose to clamber over our table and talk incoherently to the guys (was this another gay stag party we had stumbled into?). One guy was trying to sit down at the table on a stool which I kept moving with my foot. He tried picking it up but hadn’t realised on the multikilogram force capable from a well fed Mike and staggered away with the cheery, if not ill-advised threat of ‘gonna punch you in the pus pal’. We asked the bar staff to save them from themselves and a fiesty barmaid ejected a couple of the stomach punchers, who were ruffling ali’s pal, and we settled down to enjoy the band.

Ali was dragged up in his plaster cast for a dance with a drunken pink woman and I followed doing a mix of highland dancing and the pogo – the only dances I can remember after a few pints of Guinness.

A mono browed neanderthal decided to take an understandable liking to the ample bosoms and sat opposite them staring – do they not have ample bosoms in Jedburgh? After jamming his fingers in between the tables he left and I did a passable impersonation of him and his antics when I noticed that old familiar stare from my audience – ‘he is behind me isn’t he?’, they nodded.

He sat down beside me speaking the occasional wordthat one could understand, although the majority made me think this chap was at the dentist. I asked him to leave my personal space which he was well invading, not to mention his ill advised choice of a urine based after shave. He stupidly declined the suggestions to retreat and so ended up sprawled on the floor with a confused look, which with the monobrow was a comical sight. I gentlemanly had worked out that he was right handed from his glass of double vodka and coke and pulled him off the floor, effectively neutralising any resistance with a convivial ‘are you ok?’ note of concern. He staggered off confused and we strategically moved all of our chairs to another table as the separated housewife started to push monobrow down a corridor with some threats of her own.

A few more songs and the Jeddart slugs returned to the welcome of the bar (why do they still serve people who can hardly walk vodka?) but this time had chosen less aggressive targets – local bosomed girls out for the night who quickly left texting their friends not to bother coming to Jedburgh where ‘care in the community’ is the norm. We decided that it would be safer making an exit before chucking out time and bundled back into the car where it was much easier squeezing everyone in the back than on the way there.

As one who survived a night in Campbeltown I had thought the wee border town of Jedburgh would be less troublesome. A town with a sign offering Free WiFi, if anyone tells you the password that is, but in fact offers free loonies. A night out in Jedburgh? Just say No.

As Noel Coward wrote “Very Flat, Norfolk”. And it is. I did expect a lot more waterways though and it wasn’t quite the bucolic venetian landscape I was led to believe. The Broads are man made dug out peat surface mines which flooded and a few canals interconnect – although there is the spendid Denver Sluice which protects Cambridgeshire from flooding where various waterways, including the splendidly named Great Ouse, all interconnect and are redirected during high waters with a locking system to let boats through. Not quite the engineering triumph of the Neptune Staircase or Falkirk Wheel, but a pretty impressive and complex aquatic structure. They could do with a model to show how it all works.

We had left early to Grantham to see the place where Isaac Newton went to school (it must have been easier in his day without differential calculus and Newtons laws to learn) and Maggie Thatcher’s handbag graces the museum as this was her home town – the Hellmouth as Labour know it.

Our gateway to Norfolk was at Kings Lynn with a seafront view down the Ouse to the Wash. Along the coast we saw the Wash with a huge wind farm complex in the middle of it (over the 5 days circumnavigating the south east of England we saw lots of wind farms and at no point did we see one blade turning). Along the north coast we reached Cromer, famous for crabs, and walked along the lovely pier there to find people catching crabs off the pier.

I still had my Cromer Crab sandwich though setting me up for the drive to Norwich (home of Sale of the Century) and visiting Edith Cavell’s monument and grave at the cathedral. A nurse shot by the dastardly bosch which brought the americans into the first world war and through the law of unintended consequence caused the deaths of millions of Europeans through the introduction of Spanish Flu – only called Spanish because it was the Spanish who reported it in their newspapers first.

Crossing the Norfolk Broads to Great Yarmouth we were too late to visit the Louis Tussauds House of Wax, reputedly the worst wax museum in the world where no-one looks like they are supposed to (although I was never sure about waxworks in the first place). Great Yarmouth is the epitomy of what an English seaside resort has collapsed into. So we left there quickly to head aouthward into Suffolk and reach the seaside town of Dunwich , which has collapsed literally into the sea at the rate of a metre per year. You can work out how long the village pub has by marking your steps from the beach – this was a town with 12 churches now reduced to one the others languished at the bottom of the ever proceeding sea.

With darkness approaching we raced to Aldeburgh and settled into the White Lion Inn for dinner and rest although the sea view did mean I was awoken at 5am by sunrise and the sound of fishermen preparing for the day. Aldeburgh is most jolly place and we walked to the Martello tower where I stripped off and swam in a welcoming and surprisingly warm North Sea. We drove to the Cottage in the Sky which is a disguised water tank used by the lovely windmill beside it (water pumped by the windmill was stored in the tank for the village of Thropeness) and then to see the delights of Sizewell B nucelar power station with a caravan park outside its front gate.

We raced to catch the boat to Orford Ness – this is a WW2 armaments training ground and is a very eerie spot. You get to walk around on tracks marked with red gravel and with warning signs that if you step off it you may well get blown up as minesweepers have only cleared either side of hte track. The walk to the lighthouse takes in various testing areas and Laboratories and the pagodas used to test detonators for the atomic bombs sit silent in the mist over the shingle. Well worth a visit if only to see the failed Cobra Mist radio mast project.

It was going to be a race for the last boat before lunch between a large group and us – but we managed to elbow our way to the front and left for the Jolly Sailor for a splendid luncheon, leaving a couple abandoned for the after lunch return trip. Such a selfish act did mean that we made the Sutton Hoo exhibition (most of which is in the British Museum apart from the odd trinket they grant the exhibition), still it was nice to wander around the grounds. A fast drive down to see Southend-on-sea, rivalling Great Yarmouth for tackiest seaside resort, was impressed by the lengthy pier and then it was over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge (which was a big surprise as I had been expecting the Dartford Tunnel) and into a huge traffic tailback as the M2 was closed due to a large accident.

We struggled for hours through Kent traffic whilst Stuart back at base was organising accommodation with great difficulty – but it turned out that the Kings Arms Inn at Sandwich was full but knew a place in Ash that had had a wedding cancelled and sure enough we got into a fabulous b&b in one of Kent’s protected buildings with a four poster bed and a welcoming Tracey.
Filled with Ash curry we settled down to watch a drama about paedophiles and slumbered well after a day of travel and exercise.

Kent is delightful, surprising because of its proximity to London and that it contains the least offensive vowel option (some people do find Immanuel Kant offensive). Using our B&B in Ash as a base we toured the coast via Sandwich and up to the Isle of Thanet (no longer an island due to silting) and the Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs seaside resorts.

Ramsgate looked past its best and Broadstairs was where Dickens wrote Bleak House, unimaginitevly in Bleak House, but was certainly a jewel of a seaside resort. Margate, however, has the unmissable Shell Grotto, a magical underground shell walled tunnel with a friendly chatty owner. Along the coast is Reculver where the dambusters tested their bouncing bomb and where Reculver Church acts as a navigational point on the coastline.

Hence to Herne Bay to pick up a rib for a trip to the Maunsell sea forts 6 miles off the coast. These forts were used to fire upon enemy aircraft coming in and consist of 6 towers upon four legs interconnected with gangways. They look like AT-ATs from Star Wars and as they emerge from the mist with a lonely buoy ringing a bell it was haunting. The rib had picked up the BBC Coast team the other day from another set of forts, the ones that weren;t going ot be demolished by the army. We also visited the Kentish Flats wind farm out at sea and stuck into the sand bank (they weren’t turning either).

With such a long journey feeling like a pilgrimage it was time to visit Canterbury and pass along the shopping malls and heavily branded streets under the gate (to the left of the Starbucks cafe) and gaze in awe at the splendour of the building and listen to celestial voices echoing around.
We stopped off for a pint at the Inn in the pretty village of Chartham, where I ended up with the beer tap at the bottom of my glass. The toilets there also told a tale of sexual deeds in the public toilets that the police were looking into… CCTV in the toilets whatever next?

Our goal the next day was to reach Brighton (which we failed to do from the Cornwall trip) so we headed off to Deal for the walk along the pier and the gaze at the round castle and down to Dover for a week walk along hte white cliffs whistling the Vera Lynn song to find that my phone had now latched onto the French Vodaphone service and I was now being charged for roaming. The channel looked empty perhaps a consequence of the tunnels success (although the tunnel had burst into flames after our visit).
even
Dover Castle was a great castle (and was battle ready in world war 2 for invasion). However, the main thing was the tunnels under the cliffs where the war operations were controlled and a great tour through them.

Samphire Hoe is built from the excavations form the tunnel and dedicated to the lives lost in its construction. Further along the coast is a Battle of Britain monument and a Chinook helicopter did a low pass when we were there – this was where it all happened.

I had planned to vivist Dungeness, not only for the shingle beach and lighthouse but to see Derek Jarman’s pad. This was the plan however I didnlt actually know which of hte ramshackle huts was Mr Jarmans. Kim came to the fore here as I had forced her to see a documentary years ago about his exile to Dungeness and she had remembered the name! Prospect Cottage was seen with its delightful sparse garden.

On the way to Brighton we passed the Lydd military range with its FISH training ground (Fighting in Someones House) with an eerie set of houses behind a large wall. A set of kite surfers impressively swooped around the shingle surf as the sun was sinking. Rye was lovely and we noted that we must return and spend a bit more time there. The battle of Hastings site was surprisingly interesting and we found that our audio tours were different, Kim laughing away at a comical track as I heard all about the doom and gloom of the battlefield.

The chalk Long Man was impressive and we also found the folly Sugar Loaf, made as a bet that Jack could see the spire of a church from his house – he couldnt so he made one to win! We walked along Beachy Head (famed for suicides) and saw the lighthouse that had been moved from the edge.

Finally we made Brighton at sundown with all the hotels advertising civil partnerships welcome. Our boutique hotel had various rooms (including Elvis and New York) but we had plumped for the Moroccan room (well it was still Ramadan). We walked along the pier and had noodles in the high wind sitting outside the disabled loo.

Brighton was a washout int he morning and we rescued a blown away large dumper from the pier – but the jobsworth still wouldn’t let us walk until much later when it opened (even after we had saved his dumper). The Brighton Pavilion was impressively bizarre and the shingle beach was a joy to wander on in the rain with the sound of surf. There was a tarot caravan on the pier with a list of Corporate Clients (I wonder if he told them anything about the credit crunch)

Returning North we stopped off at the Bressingham Steam Gardens and its Dads Army museum, the train journey was jolly around the garden but nothing prepared us for the higlight – the steam driven carousel. Kima nd I clambered on our horses and the carousel took off and it was ok, but hten the music got faster and jollier and hte horses were goig faster and it started to get quite exhilirating. ‘Gosh it is going rather fast’ said Kim and with increasing grins on our faces we thoroughly enjoyed the whole ride.
The combination of horizontal movement, fast vertical movement, breeze and jolly music seguing from jolly to very jolly from the central organ was just magical. Down a flint mine in a chalk area left us covered with white dust and knowing more about flint mining.

And so North, north, north and apart from me skewing across three lanes of the M1 to get to an exit the journey back was thankfully uneventful.

We have now covered most of the Scotland and England’s Coastline and what a joy it is too – so different in each part with fantastic geology and history on such a small and accessible island.

From Skye North by NorthWest to Gairloch via single track roads and lots of road works with fed up STOP/GO men and very fast cars trying to get home – yes you can get overtaking on single track roads at dusk….

The road opened out to normal A roads but I was unprepared for the race track that was the road to Gairloch – fantastic surface and long long stretch. For legal reasons I am not even going to type what I was doing or what other cars were there – fantastic scenery and a fantastic road. The destination was going to be Ullapool but darkness was descending and I wasn’t sure if the Loopallu festival was still on taking all accommodation for miles around so settled for the Old Inn at Gairloch. And what a fantastic resting spot that is – great seafood (I got the last mussels and great scallops with beetroot mash) then retired to the bar to help the best man of the wedding the next day with his speech.

The bar has fantastic beers and a few pints of blind piper and the highland barmaid was looking strangely attractive. She was a cracker – used to work for BT call center and told us all about the calls they get, had to turn the juke box off at 11 and had to grant no residents drinks (well one order was allowed if there was less then 20 residents in the bar!) The wedding group consisted of folk from Stornoway and I was amazed to hear about the religious hatred (many go to glasgow where it a similar situation allows them to blend in).

Breakfasted I took a walk along the windy shore and met folk who were heading near where I live so exchanged local tourist information and a couple where the chap had a car washing business – time just seems to extend in the Highlands, I noticed this on Barra as well – conversations last half an hour not a quick exchange people have time which is strange because there is so far to travel.

But I had to travel. I had to be in Helmsdale that evening so it was north past Poolewe and the Loch Ewe fom where the British ships sailed in convoy to relieve Russia with suplies and so many were sunk in arctic waters by U-boats. Gruinard Island is Anthrax island where our military unleashed anthrax on it to check its use as a chemical weapon, as a juxtaposition Gruinard Bay beach is fabulous – white, unspoiled and empty with a turquoise sea.

Ullapool is more than a port, it is set in magnificent mountains with a gorgeous sea setting. It has a great fish and chip shop and although I missed the festival I did hear that Echo and Bunneymen made a compete arse of themselves and the lead singer as eventually so rude and unpopular he was punched in a bar later. Entering the Highland Geology Park you are struck with the view of unspoilt mountains (yes no wind turbines) and a sense you are in an ancient part of Scotland. Sadly I had to cut this circumnavigation short and start to head over to the east coast and to Lairg.

The road to Lairg is long. I pulled over to let a white van with refrigeration top pass and got an indicator thanks. On the trip I came across him a couple of other times and the thanks escalated to a wave out the window. I took a side trip to The Falls of Shin – I kind of took it on a whim and after driving down a single track road for a few miles started to think of turning back, but doggedly pursued it for no good reason. I saw a car park for a couple of cars but there was no sign to the falls and then a bit further there was unexpectedly a huge car park and 5 star visitor centre with a waxwork statue of the owner of Harrods Mohammad Fayed. Like all waxworks it, of course, looked nothing like him.

I also didn’t expect much from the falls of shin but was curious as to why there was a huge visitor centre and a waxwork. The falls are small but roar away – nothing that I hadn’t seen before but then there was a shadow, and another… a huge salmon. The reason all this was there was there was the fantastic spectacle of salomon jumping the falls – it was an amazing sight. Although I wasn’t too sure what would happen when they faced the dam further upstream… driving back I passed hte wee white van again and the chap was out delivering fish this time and stop and waved with his large green gloves and I reciporacted with an enthusiatic wave out the window and beep of the horn.

And so the long drive up to Wick to see the seven gates at the harbour – an art project impressive sculpted gates from childrens drawings. But the real reason to visit Wick was to clamber down the Whaligoe Steps. These are hidden but now appear in the 500 best wild places book – you find hte telephone box at Ubster and turn down a wee road to a car park and there is a wee monument to a lady that used to maintain the steps and from there 365 steps down the cliffs. It was windy but not too exposed but at the bottom is a fantastic space with the wind playing pipes with the cliffs. This was where herring boats came in and the fish was salted and the women carried barrels of them up the 365 steps. This was the good old days. I had purchased a guide book at the top but the most unexpected thing was the chap coming down the steps with his dog I said ‘it is easy coming down’ in a passing politeness and then spent an hour speaking to him – he was one of the maintainers of the steps and his tales were fascinating. The boats winched in for tarring, the rocks with metal loops to tie the large boat in and the salting shed. Least of all that the damage to the steps is not erosion but vandalism by youngsters from Wick who threatened to kill the chap and had thrown parts of the steps down at him. We walked back up pausing to see the graffiti (ancient by the step builders) and the places where vandals had dislodged large stones previously used for the women to rest their barrels on. He showed me a photograph of the steps in 1940’s with the herring salting sheds all intact and the women all waiting with their barrels.

I left to pick Stuart up – he was in the bar of the Bridge Hotel finishing his mapping work. I had a drink at the bar served by the Iranian owner who was a Tomorrows World presenter. The plan was to head south and get somewhere for the night – Stuart was using the Scotland the Best guide (awful index that book has) and his phone and was busy negotiating with the best hotels in Inverness – look we will offer you XX pounds for two rooms and that is our budget you are not going to sell those rooms tonight are you – some didn’t go for it, the Golf View at Nairn did, so we set the sat nav to that and ended up in the disabled parking lot of the hotel. The hotel was roasting due to the pipes for the leiusre centre running through it – unbearably hot.

We set off the next day past RAF Kinloss to the Findhorn Foundation. Where the F**K are you taking me bleated Stuart the petroleum geologist – christ it is a bloody eco village!
Quick take a picture of the propane gas canisters on the caravans in the eco village. Eco village or not it did have some splendid architecture – wooden houses that you would want to live in. Everyone looked fairly unhappy though and generally unfriendly – not the happy hippies I used to know – perhaps their cannabis had run out?

From one extreme we edged along the coast road at Gardenstown a very religous town and made our way along a narrow road at the edge of the harbour with Stuart guiding the drop onto the ocean. From there to Pennan to see the landslides were cleared up bu thte pub was still closed. Southward to the great beach at Balmedie Bay and then to Stuart’s flat near Pittodrie football ground and lunch in a splendid pub. Sorted out his broadband with a bit of shopping and then to a flying visit to my mum and on the outside lane all the way home… the car took a well earned rest and got a new set of disk brakes as a treat.

Kim was to drop Stuart off at his geological field trip at Helmsdale and head to Plockton and I was to swim up. With ‘Wild Swimming’ book beside me I tore up to the Real Food Cafe at Tyndrum for fish and chips then into Glen Etive for a wild swim in a brown water pool under a creamy waterfall. Bubbles rose from the opaque water like some sea monster waiting for me, air pushed by waterfall through porous rock I rationally told myself, as I dropped into the brown freezing water for a naked swim and to rescue my sandal which fell in earlier. Check out where this pool is and make sure there are no distilleries down stream.

Invigorated and tingling the next wild swim was after the lengthy traffic jam at Fort William, past the commando monument and up single track roads with ancient forests and moss covered dykes to a waterfall. The Witches Cauldron has great rocks and a scramble down steep banks, whilst hand holds are rotting tree branches and a short drop into the freezing water at the top of a waterfall. Not a place to fall asleep otherwise you end up down the waterfall and displaying a shrunken, frigid and flaccid member to the tourists milling around at the bottom of the falls. Swam around for a while and then had to ask the witch to let me out as wet hands up that bank did not make for a graceful exit.

And so to Plockton in poor visibility – none of the flying club flew up (although 2 managed to trailer their planes up). Dinner discussing divorce with a lawyer and eating our way through the Plockton Shores superb fare before retiring with the locals to the Plockton Inn until asked to leave.

The weather was still bad so I headed off to catch the Armadale to Mallaig ferry with the aim of making Ardamurchan Point and back in the day. Driving down the small roads missing a car with the registration plate MOR4R between Morar and Arisaig.

I had read about the Singing Sands and parked at the gate and started to walk with towel under arm. There were no signs of sands, singing or otherwise, so I started to turn back. A trail bike passed and we chatted and I mentioned I was trying to find the Singing Sands and he said ‘only 15 minutes on we are camped there’. An hour later after trudging through a wood I reached them and they were camped there – it was 15 minutes by trail bike. I swam and heard the sands singing as I treaded along – it is a beuatiful beach with gorgeous views and well worth the tramp. I aske the guys if I could get a ‘backie’ back tot he car as I was worried about the ferry and the kind chaps lent me a helmet and I jumped on the back and we recreated the scene from Star Wars with the jet bikes in the forest. With nothing to cling onto but the leather clad guy and with my feet alternatively hitting the chain, the ground on turns or the exhaust we made it through a forest obstacle course. He said ‘woah, that was scary’ and I realised that wasn’t a question. Last time I saw him he was burning oil heading back to the beach… excellent fun.

I had a tough time schedule to meet now and drove down the single track road to Ardnamurchan Point (the most westerly spot on the mainland) and look upon the sea I had sailed past last year. Mariella, the sat nav, now todl me that I would get to the 6pm ferry at 6:15pm and it being the final Mallaig to Armaale ferry I was on a mission. After what I can only describe as a non fuel efficient ride I got there at 5:45pm in perfect time to roll on the last ferry and back to consume much alcohol.

The barman seemed to take a dislike to us, and in particular me, although going up to bar and being ignored I idly asked if he was playing tetris – and got a bark back – no I am not playing tetris as he continued texting. I loudly speculated that it he certainly wasn’t surfing ‘www.howtobeagoodbarman.com’ but fortunately another barman served me before thugee expended his rage on my face. It also didn;t help that when I was asked what was wrong with the barman – I replied that he is a ‘daft c*nt’ then seeing the look on the face of the interviewer said ‘he is behind me isn’t he’. Of course he was and so we didn’t get served anything on the residents licence….

Kim was going to tackle Blaven on Skye with Gordon and Jill and I decided to tour Skye. I took the wee ferry at Glenelg which is a roundtable 6 car ferry where the boat runs parallel to the slipway and the girl and skipper swing the car table round to let the drivers drive on. Half a dozen dogs were waiting by the ferry being kept in perfect control by a Yorkshire chap gritting a pebble under his boot – they were all in hunting mode. The ferry does not take long but it is truely ‘Over the sea to Skye’ and is a community ferry and everyone should travel on it at least once in their life.

I tried to get to the Three Chimneys for lunch buit it was closed when I got there so ended up with a passable fare at the Dunvegan Hotel before heading to Uig and the Fairy Glen. The Glen is not signposted but is opposite the folly tower and down a one way street then opens out into a fairyland of rock pillars and ribed hills. Quite magical even in the pouring rain.

The Plockton Inn had a great wheeze of dinner, although I am convinced on the health and safety issues. You cook your own food on 400 degree slabs which you get warned will burn you badly if you touch them – and you throw scallops on the slabs and guess when they are cooked. Fortunately this mix is also combined with alcohol so it was a miracle we got to bed in one piece.

In the Plockton hanger and fuelled by Gordon’s birthday cake I decided to mount an assualt on Dun Caan on Raasay, the highest spot on the island and a notable plateau. The postman was waiting for the ferry as we rolled on and rolled off at the pier on Raasay. There is a single road through Rassay and I stopped for lunch at the Isle of Rassay hotel which was doing a passable imitation of the Marie Celeste. Completely empty everywhere I managed to read the maps and thought I would find a shop for food later on.
I reached the end of Calum’s Road (he built it over 10 years when the council refused to build him a road to his croft, now immortalised in a book and a great piece of music by Capercaille) with nowhere to buy provisions for the walk. I still had some sweets rolling around on the floor of the car and a piece of Gordon’s birthday cake left. I took an empty Lucazade bottle to fill up in a lochan and marched on up the path which was now a wee stream.

It is a very pleasant walk but the surprise, apart from finding that when you reach the top there is a bloody valley you have to traverse down to a reservoir to climb up again to the summit of Dun Caan, is the view from the top. Magnificent – Skye of course to the south and west, Rona to the north and the mainland to the east. Wonderfully clear and great cliffs too. Kim flew over in Gordon’s microlight before heading southward. Finally a flying day! I romped down and drove down in time for the 5pm ferry over to the mainland so I could book into my hotel on Isleoransay in the south of Skye ready for my sea kayaking course the next day. Exhausted form the day I retired early after some superb seafood chowder and Skye ales and slept soundly in room 56 (which turned out to be room 5 and 6 joined together!)

Went down to swimming thinking it was Sunday and asked Jim why
Gutbusting was on today and he told me to shift my arse in as it was
Saturday – so got in missing the 5 minute warmup – but at the same
time in the water as some laggards!

So with groin and underarms freshly chlorinated I set off with the intention of getting my specs repaired again this time at another Vision Express – this time in Glasgow. I looked it up it was in Buchanan Galleries which I reckoned was near one of our clients.

Steamed up the road in the TT (I do like driving it and it goes extremely well on the super unleaded petrol I accidentally put in at 123 per litre – the handbook says you can use normal unleaded in emergencies…) and suddenly noticed a fast approaching police car with sirens blaring and
lights flashing – oh fudge I thought what a great start and pulled over
but no it raced past me so I followed him. It was interesting to see
that some people don’t pull over at all and he had to undertake them!
Hopefully taking their numbers to deal with them later!

I reached Glasgow in good time and then hit the labyrinth that is
trying to find a parking place. Thinking that Buchanan Galleries would
have one I had a wee difficulty actually finding them and the plane
GPS was still in plane mode so that was a fat lot of good. I ended up after several circuits finding the Waterloo NCP.

On foot I found Buchanan Galleries easier and it had a bit of a festival
atmpsophere with some religious nut with a megaphone and various
buskers and the sun was out and it was all marvellous. Vision Express
fixed my glasses so I was all set with perfect vision.

Except the Erskine Bridge is closed or having work done so there is a
tailback – but you are not heading to the Erskine bridge I hear you
say – yes but the tailback is so bad that it spills onto the road to
Gourock so there is a 30 minute delay! I reach the Dunoon ferry to see
it leaving – parked and asked for a ticket with the guy shaking his
head saying it has just left, yes but the next one, oh that is in an
hour. So waited for an hour in the sun which was fun with a bunch of
muslims in the cars behind with their engines on (for the hour) so
their air conditioning would work… I even asked if there was a
ferry from Campbeltown to Stranraer (planning my return route) but he
could only mysteriously say ‘CalMac don’t do one’. Scottish tourism hospitality rears its head again.

On saying that I love ferries – they are just brilliant. They arrive
on time, unload with absolutely no problems, load and set off and
collect tickets on board now. The journeys are short enough to enjoy
the outdoors and then you arrive – or for longer ones you have a bar
(for passengers) and cafe (if driving). It also helps that the weather
was stunningly good and the sea was perfectly calm.

So arrived at Dunoon, a pretty Victorian seaside town, with one
thought in my mind – Strone. I don’t know why Strone is in my mind all
I know is that I need to see it. It was pretty but I still don’t know
where it came from or why I was driven to it! I had a chance to
program the GPS and look at the map and it was all bad news – the Mull
of Kintyre was a fuck of a long drive. It was like up to Inverary and
back down the loch again. But there was the chance of another ferry
across to Tarbert at the top of Kintyre. Tarbert means isthmus and
when a King of Scotland granted land to the Vikings he said that they
could have islands they could circumnavigate in a long boat – they
went around Kintyre and then carried the boat across the short land
bridge to Tarbert.

I drove like a madman along a single track road through the centre of
the bit of the map that has Dunoon at one end and Tighnabruch at the
other. Tighnabruch is a lovely wee town well worth spending a night
in. But I was a man on a mission – and drove to the ferry terminal.
Not knowing if there was a ferry of course, but luckily I was in time to get the last one and I was hoping that with 8 cars in front of me it wasn’t an 8 car
ferry. It wasn’t it took us all.

I don’t know what it is about CalMac
and male toilets but I noticed this on the ferry back too – that you
are standing there peeing and the door opens leaving everyone outside
a lovely side view of your penis and its urinal fountain. I now look
upon people outside the male toilet on ferries with a different eye.
This one had the joy of when you shut the door and started peeing that
the door was would slowly open wide with the ladies toilet on the
other side.

Gorgeous views of Arran on the way over and the weather is still
stunning and warm. Reach Tarbert which is a lovely harbour and
picturesque buildings and read where to stay. Recommended is the West
Loch Hotel as it has good seafood. So I head down the Campbeltown road
in search of it. Views of Jura are stunning and also Gigha and also
the Dancing Ladies come into view. The combination of the road trips
and flying trips is just magical. My zero planning is all coming
together.

Well it would have but the West Loch Hotel restaurant was full of
grizzly old farts and the foreign girl said there was no room at the
inn. I was obviously not old enough. So I headed the 35 miles south to
Campbeltown arriving after 8pm in search of hotel and food.

First impressions are not good – as you are hit with the bleak impression
of a council estate. I was ready to head back to see if Tarbert was
any better (although it had mouthy drunks on the harbour so it wasn’t
too promising either). I parked outside the Salvation Army (always a
bed there) and wandered around – hotels looked awful and time was
running out. One had a splendid white stag outside so I tried the
White Hart Hotel. It also had a sign it was for tired and thirsty
sailors. I was both tired and thirsty and had done a bit of sailing…

Pressed reception button and flustered reception girl with attractive
smile comes rushing through from the bar. She was also the barmaid and
is planning to take her kids to Alton Parks and one of them fell ill
so she had to rush off leaving an inept crew of waitresses for dinner
- but I digress. Do you have a room – yes we have one. Is it a nice
one. She laughs. She has a double bed in a room and it is normally 45
but because it is late she will give me the room for 35. A large sign
welcomes you to the news that EVERYTHING has to be paid for in advance
and NOTHING can be charged to the room. She also discloses that there
is a songwriting festival going on and she hopes I don’t need to
sleep. Whilst all this is going on there is a veritable flood of
crying girls in sparkly party dresses with whatever boob they have
either on show or strapped in firmly. Yes I shall take the room I say
quickly.

Dinner is organised beside 40 girls in party dresses mostly wailing -
not because I was there but because Jenny was leaving. I spoke to
Jenny in passing and she is off to Airdrie. I said ah you are
emigrating. She smiled then laughed and then got back to the business
of crying – it is pitiful to see so much mascara running down. Dinner
was lamb which was salty but came with an abundance of vegetables (all
overcooked) but fabby roast tatties. They had a wine list with jam on
it, the glasses were filthy I had to clean it before pouring the wine
(which they didn’t know how to open) and yes they had the stress of
crying girls and all their meals but this was like the Highlands
before the English took over the restaurants – no wonder they wanted
the money up front. I didn’t get a picture of the bizarre girls party
because my camera was securely locked in the car – since the bedroom
door could be opened by pushing it – it had obviously been kicked in
before by some rufty tufty sailors and was repaired using sellotape.
It was ensuite and I had to battle through the songwriters to get to
the room as they assumed I was a gatecrasher to their Pink Floyd song
collection. Nor a Mull of Kintyre rip off for them.

I decided to go for a walk around town as it was still light. The town
was dismal and reminded me of Hawick, but the people were full of
character. There was some anniversary party on in one of the pubs as
there were pictures of the happy couple on the cashline machine and in
the windows of lots of shops. Eight girls dressed in trippy 60’s
dresses passed and posed for a photo – one looked like Joanne and
acted like her too (has she got a sister). I spoke to them in the bar
later and their dresses came from a design they bought on ebay – their
Karaoke was as trippy as their dresses.

I decided for some reason known only to Springbank malt, the local
distillery, to tell people “I am Polish Sailor in Scotland to look for
wife’ in my highland/russian accent obviously. I even got into a
complex conversation about negative equity with some woman who may
have been vying for my pad in Poland and was impressed by my English.
I met a diver from South Africa who had severe reservations about
moving to Kintyre (I told him about Scapa Flow). There was an amazing
mix of nationalities and ages and to be honest friendliness with
everyone. It reminded me a bit of the Kendal night – except they weren’t all
hairdressers and they didn’t move enmasse from pub to pub.

Staggering back to the hotel the entire town appeared to be well drunk,
with police vans shovelling in people by the vanload. So back to the
hotel with the songwriters still wailing away but the wailing girls
gone. The residents lounge had a wee bit effeminate barman and local (non resident) Campbeltown folk who started off telling about the unemployment and
interesting local history like that but ended up hitting each other with pool
cues. The ensuing melee resulted in 7 policeman and a nice policewoman rushing in and
separating the offenders whilst I was dealing with the wife of one who
was in shock. For some reason like the Polish plumber thread I had
told her I was a doctor to calm her down and got her some sugary
drinks so when the police arrived they delivered a blood splattered
guy to me as she had told them I was a doctor. It is amazing I didn’t
get touched at all since I was inches away from the initial violence
and fortunately they ran out of pool cues so reverted to chairs in the
next room so the fighting resumed there. The police only had the effeminate
barman as a witness as I had absolutely no intention of returning to
serve as a witness in Campbeltown Court for the pittance of expenses
you get. The injured were not pressing charges anyway as they were
apparently related. The pool cue wielding savage was carted away
especially when he started calling the barman all sort of names mainly to do with homosexuality and the PC’s (political correctnesses) decided that this had crossed
the line (the pool cue exchange just being a bit too much to drink
obviously). I think it was Elton John that sung ‘Saturday Night is
Alright for Fighting, get a bit of action in’. So here it all was – a
song writers festival, effeminate barman and a fight on a Saturday night.
Life imitates art.

I returned to my room – pushing the door open – such a good hotel no
inconvenience of fumbling for the keys. The songwriters had finished I
fell asleep.

Thus ended Saturday and I was now as far away from home as I could get
on a tank of fuel and a packet of Polo fruits.

The consequence of waking up after a Saturday night in Campbeltown is that

1. you have a hangover
2. you have been told that breakfast is strictly served between 8am and 9:30am
3. It is 9:20am

Quick dress and down for brekkies. The disadvantage of coming late to a meal at the White Hart is that the clean cutlery and plates have all been taken. Fawlty Towers was run better. One of the breakfasters asked for a pint of Tennants to go with his breakfast. Yes it is that classy a place. The Scottish breakfast was darned good though – tattie scone, beans, sausage and egg with black pudding – I passed on the bacon as I was wearing my Israeli Air Force T shirt. Tea and some orange juice (had to ask for a glass – I will see if we have one – what is it with glass and campbeltown do they not buy enough of them or are they all destroyed in the nightly violence?).

I went back to pick up my stuff and looked out of the window to see what I took to be a local mountain biker heading down the road – gosh I thought perhaps things are not as bad as they seem – someone out exercising. Then he went straight over a junction without looking and I realised he was on a bike because he was probably too drunk to drive or had lost his licence. Yes Campbeltown was the pits and I had wasted my time coming here… after all that travelling…

However…

Having spent a night in Campbeltown the fairy magic works and you suddenly start seeing everything as fantastic. Blame it on the hangover but Campbeltown is like an architectural demonstrator. There is a fabby library, there is an art deco cinema to die for, even new houses have arches to courtyards or quite nifty windows, 1902 sandstone tenements in perfect condition, there is a fantastic swimming pool (sorry it is an aqua something or other fancy name), great harbour, huge number of ornate churches, modern housing that makes you look twice and old houses that are covetable and look like they have been transported from the nice parts of Edinburgh.

I intended wandering down to the cinema and then heading off for a swim but I spent a good couple of hours just wandering around taking photographs of things I really liked. The sun was out and Campbeltown looked great – there were still some particularly dodgy characters lying around on park benches.

You don’t need to be Doctor Who to time travel – look through the windows of the Campbeltown shops and it is jaw dropping. I was in Buchanan Galleries on Saturday with its mix of same and samer and I am now looking at clothes that my mother bought when I was 2. There is obviously a complete lack of contraception which is not good with the abundance of alcohol as one shop seems to sell nothing but baby romper suits (from the 60’s obviously). Time warps are not all bad and on reflection Campbeltown was a characterful place that deserves more than it got (it even got bombed during the war by one of its ex pupils who joined the Luftwaffe and then strafed the place) – it stands geographically and touristically in the shadow of Arran.

It is a long way to go to visit but to be honest the journey is the reward too – but the joy of finding interesting architecture and a town that is not trying to be a version of Buchanan Galleries is a town that we should be building on today. It would be great to see marketing resources and professionals work on Campbeltown to transform it (but then perhaps pool cue fights make it more memorable after all)

So alive with the joys of Summer I drove towards Macrihanish and its famed beach. On the way was a fabulous cemetery (’Scotland the Best’ graveyards section highlighted it) with fabulous views across to Jura and to a ghastly wind farm. Macrihanish is famed for its beach, its golf course which borders the beach (large bunker), and its MOD airbase where NATO ploughed tens of millions of pounds to have secret prototype aircraft land on its 3 kilometre runway. Oh and there was the little matter of a Chinook helicopter which crashed in poor weather over the Mull of Kintyre to the south in the hills – where the MOD blamed the pilots, everyone sensible blamed the software which had known problems and everyone insensible blamed UFO’s as Macrihanish is the UK’s Area 51. The MOD has gone but thankfully the beach is still there so it was clothes off and into the surf to find surfers there all protected from the icy waters with wet suits. The sea was glorious and the views across to Islay and Jura stunning.

No the issue was how to get home – it was either going to be the long long drive up Kintyre and onward to Inverary or do a jump to Arran. It was all going to be in the hands of the Sunday ferry so I raced up admiring the views of the islands and strange rocks at Mausdale to the Arran Ferry. There were a few people waiting and in the distance I could see the ferry coming over. There were no cars so there was the risk that this was just a passenger ferry but the weather was still fine and a microlight flew over us. Fortunately another car turned up so either she didn’t know any better either and we would play tag on the way to Inverary – or it was, as it turned out, to be a huge car ferry.

Landing at Arran the first ting you see is the castle from Tintin and the Black Island – Herge wrote/drew the story after visiting Arran. The next ting is the Isle of Arran distillery so it was a quick visit to the shop for a bnottle of the good stuff and Isle of Arran icecream. Arran is heavily branded – there is Arran Whisky, Arran Cheese, Arran Beer (which sadly had just gone into administration), Arran Ice-cream from the Arran Creamery and Arran Aromatics. A tiny island with marketing nounce, or perhaps they need to let people know after a bottle of Isle of Arran malt where they are.

The mountains are amazing – like the highlands but smaller – and there is mist too lying in the glens. It is described as Scotland in miniature (another marketing plug) although it must have most of Scotlands alien Rhododenrons which colour Brodick (and it needs colour) and its castle.

Holy Island looks another interesting clamber – and with its Buddhist monastery there is no alcohol to be taken on the island.

Romped around the standing stones and over the challenging stoney road (just as well I had a 4 wheel drive TT) to reach the fish and chip shop at the ferry station, although it said there was no fish due to demand – although I demanded and they gave me fish and chips.

The ferry was mobbed mainly with people ordering large quantities of drink and i sat in the sober corner with anyone else who was driving reading the Observer and taking a shot of drunken soldiers when they handed their camera phone over and demanded some photographs – which was challenging when all the soldiers and the ferry were swaying.

A long drive back fuelled with more expensive premium unleaded which makes the TT sound really good – and it was back home for a rest.

Seeing tourist sites in the Borders can be less than exciting so I jumped at the opportunity of spending a night in two of them with the Borders Paranormal Group and the ‘Most Haunted’ co-star Derek Acorah, the man Paul Daniels described as ‘laughable’. Sadly the completely bonkers and squonking Yvette Fielding didn’t manifest. Standing in the queue to sign up for the Anthony Nolan Trust sponsored evening I handed over my sponsor dosh and met my co-conspirators Sally and Susan and the well named Borders paranormal group, although subnormal may be a more appropriate description. But hey getting locked in a cell with a bunch of woman is my idea of fun so bring it on. Wot no fluffy handcuffs? And keep your ectoplasm to yourself.

What was brought on was Derek Acorah at the ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ house in Jedburgh – so called because she stopped off there to use the lavatory and ended up spending the night. If ghostly smells were going to apparate then her lavatory stench was something that was going to put me off my chicken wrap. Derek went through his vaudeville act, flashing his gold rolex, but then in a move that completely threw me and my plan to use my cold reading techniques to unmask a fraud – he confessed that the Most Haunted series was entirely staged with extras throwing things and kicking stools over. Sceptics if you can’t beat them join them. However this heart felt confession was merely an opportunity to promote his new show which was going to be based on ‘real investigations’ and ‘proving’ the existence of the spirit world. It may be that on hearing about James Randi’s Pigasus million dollar prize, for provable supernatural techniques, that he has decided to line his fast approaching retirement pot with that.

Is there anybody there? I am getting a name ‘Jane’ – does anyone know or is connected with a Jane in the group? It may well be that he thought I looked a bit like Tarzan, but I was not going to shop my jungle mate to a medium when Susan piped up that her mothers middle name was Jane. I was surprised in an audience of about 30 that there weren’t more but Susan took the bait and chow’d down on the ‘and you are sensitive but don’t know it’ line. Who was left handed? Surpringsly only Susan put up her left hand demonstrating that she was not only sensitive but also ’sinister’ but she would be comfortable in this house as it had a left handed staircase – who writes this stuff? Derek could sense the ‘great lady’ (I wasn’t too sure whether he was referring to Southpaw Susan, Elizabeth I who was a great lady, but had never visited Jedburgh, or the conniving bitch Mary who was going to sell us down the river to the French (enabling us to all be speaking German now). There were four groups (we were B for Best) and Derek was being time managed carefully by a team of little old ladies who would wrench him from channelling Elizabethan noblemen by the magic phrase ‘the bus is here’.

Sally had a cold spot down her back which Susan and I verified by giving her a revigorating back massage and we were bussed back, waving like groupies at Derek enjoying his fly fag (medium tip?), back to Jedburgh Jail for our Fright Night. The night started reasonably frighteningly with sachet coffee (wot no espresso) juxtaposed with the ladies toilet with the dangerous mix of people emerging from trances on the way to the toilet jostling the people greedily overfilling flimsy paper cups with scalding hot Nescafe coloured water. A bunch of bizarrely clad storytellers entertained the captive crowd shouting phrases such as ‘bite my clap ridden arse’, whilst our Pippi Longstocking spirit guide was doing tarot readings to fleece the gullible.

People started to get very excited because someone had photographed an ‘orb’ – a hum of anticipation raced through the room as people clambered upon people to stare at an LCD screen on a compact camera as a blurry orb was shown, followed quickly by ‘and I have a figure of a lady too’. Orbs for those who spend their life protected from bullshit are a well known photographic anomaly where a camera flash lights dust or pollen particles or especially rain forming a sphere in pictures. Take a photo with no flash you get no orbs, take one with flash you will get an orb – especially in old places that are dusty. Outside is good too, especially when raining as it was. Video, especially infrared is also susceptible. As for the photograph of a ghostly woman – there are several photographs of ghosts in existence. Most have been established as frauds. If one was taken this would be a wee bit more than just an excited paranormal group – this would be a world event. From what I could see it is difficult to tell whether it is an anomaly of the light, or perhaps the Large Hadron Collider time travellers have started appearing already in Jedburgh Jail during a paranormal night – using Occam’s razor I tend to favour the simplistic solution of a wandering ghosthunter, or a desperate fraudulent act to court attention or simply a light anomaly. I knew I wouldn’t be happy until I had an orb so went roaming around taking pictures until I got one and then a few. Then I got bored and went back to annoy Susan and Sally. The orbs were going to return frequently though in the subnormal group’s chatter – although they tended to be orbs that they could see but no-one else could. That was when I realised that an alternative explanation to this was a mild form of mental illness – or perhaps they should have gone to SpecSavers. In any case getting this excited about a photographic anomaly highlights particularly poor research.

We had a tour of the jail which was otherwise a fairly jolly musuem and in reality wasn’t that old or terrible so we ended up in a modern unscary room with CCTV and spotlights and labelled artifacts behind glass panels. Derek arrived, the lights went out and the theatre of the bizarre started. First of all as the lights went out a supernatural phenomena happens – everyone grabs a video camera and starts filming in the dark with their faces spookily lit by the LCD screen. Meanwhile Derek is channelling whoever he has read about in the Jedburgh Jail guidebook including a prisoner called Brown who is a nasty man and will start interfering with the women in the room. If this happens we men (there were 2 of us) were to stand in front of the women, presumably to make sure we weren’t the ones interfering with them. I wasn’t too sure what would happen if Brown had realised that there were more woman than men and he could play an abusive game of chess with the men pawns unable to defend all of their queens. Perhaps one man could defend a conga line of woman. Sadly that didn’t get put to the test. The next phenomena is that the lights start cooling and on metal contraction make creaking noises – this is obviously ‘proof’ of Brown and consequently Life after Death and Derek launches into his potted philosophy of the afterlife and Hell. In the History of European Philosophers I am pretty certain that whoever updates Bertrand Russell’s book is not going to have to add a section on Derek Acorah.

Much more scary was the revelation that the Geordie chap in the corner was a medium (in occupation only as this chap and his wife were more on the XXXL side) and he then launched into a potted history of his spirit experiences from his childhood. I initially was sceptical but then slowly realised that we were dealing with someone with a mild, and possibly not so mild, case of mental illness. I couldn’t see this as a fraudulent exercise as he wasn’t a convincing medium but perhaps this was better than clubbing in Newcastle. He did mention that his parents tried to get him sectioned but I wasn’t convinced about his explanation that this was because they were Catholics. I did genuinely believe that some psychiatric input would not go amiss. In fact instead of the tarot readings it might be a good move for the Borders Subnormal Group to bring along some therapists next time.

Just recovering from realising that we were in the dark with a possible maniac, was when the dynamic duo of the lady in leopard tights and the Attractive Acorah Angel decided to get possessed. Incidentally I knew she was an Acorah Angel as she had this sewn on her jacket. She was a platinum blonde who is a gimmee for the live action Captain Scarlet remake as an Angel pilot, but Brown was going to have his evil way with her and before I had the chance to rush in front of her to protect her she disappeared in the arms of some subnormal helpers to the toilet to throw up. Possession or Bulimia – you choose. In any case Mrs Leopard Tights had to rush out feeling a crushing presence and threatening possession – again my protective charm was not called upon perhaps they didn’t have faith that someone with a blinking GPS light could battle the undead with his uneaten chicken wrap. The fact these women had driven up from Bristol that morning and were driving back at 4am – was possibly the most frightening thing I learned all evening. Low blood sugar, lack of sleep and an unstable mental state does not make for perfect driving skills.

With Derek gone the most entertaining thing on offer was being locked in a cell with a paranormal investigator who turned out to be claustrophobic and bunch of fake mediums who kept seeing orbs, the cell getting darker and ‘the man in the corner’ glowing. That man needless to say was me. Susan was told that she was protected because her dead grandfather was behind her, although it has to be said I wasn’t sure why she had one frozen buttock (the obvious explanation that I was warming the other one was actually proposed and was simply untrue). Sally announced she had frozen legs and someone whipped out a thermometer and started to tell us the temperature of different parts of the room (expecting them bizarrely to be the same). There was also an EMF meter measuring electromagnetic force which is not of course affected by the large electromagnetic alarm system, CCTV and countless video cameras in each cell. For those in the cell who kept saying that it was chilly I can only suggest swimming in the North Sea to actually experience chilliness or get some bamboo underwear (mine were warm, environmentally friendly, antibacterial and comfortable for lengthy spiritual vigils but not recommended if there are pandas being channelled). I was encouraged to call out the spirits and channelled Margaret Rutherford in Blithe Sprit for a short time before launching into the commanding ‘oh come on get a move on we don’t have all night here show yourself’ which went down almost as well as asking “do you think we might get a visit from Anthony Nolan?”

The evening ended with the Acorah Angel clinging to me as she heard chains in the jail corridor and to which everyone else (apart from Susan, Sally and I) agreed that they had heard them too. The Medium/XXXL announced that he was getting white noise through his hearing aid (really I am NOT making this up) and we all retired at 3:30am (ghosts have to sleep sometime and humans too – unless you have to drive back to Bristol) to watch orbs on a TV screen until I really had had enough and Sally kindly drove me home with the added attraction that her car has dual pedals as she is a driving instructress – everyone who has complained about me as a back seat driver hasn’t had me in the front seat with dual pedals…

There was 18,000 pounds raised for the Anthony Nolan Trust and we were assured that this might save a life if they find a bone marrow donor. It has to be pointed out that they don’t seem to try too hard as Kim signed up after donating blood, was never contacted and is now apparently too old to be a donor – although perhaps they didn’t want her bone marrow. The group have raised a lot of money for charity though which is obviously a good thing unless you subscribe to Oscar Wilde’s view in The Soul of Man under Socialism, as I do.

Was it worth it – well it was a bit of a giggle (who is going to take Derek Acorah seriously really?) and it was a sober night (yes really), it raised money in a way which meant I didn’t have to swim another bloody 100 lengths of Kelso Swimming Pool and I got to meet another sector of society I would normally be unlikely to meet (and I don’t mean the ghosts). And I found the more entertaining badpsychics.com and unbelievably an interesting Paul Daniels interview.

Three seas, three capes, three mafia dons – this must be Sicily, with a flag of three legs with a gorgon in the middle you know that this is a Classical Isle – a Dairylea triangle with quality cheese. A land that had the Biscuit Wars between Garibaldi and Bourbon; where they killed anyone who couldn’t pronounce ‘chickpeas’ in Italian (mainly the French but I can imagine there was collatoral damage); a people who accidentally wiped out the indiginous Griffen Vulture and a history written by just about every major culture including Phoeniceans, Greek, Roman, French, British, Moors and Spanish. A land with active volcanoes and a major fault line that they are building a bridge over. I couldn’t wait to get there, especially before I had to drive over that bridge.

Easyjet from Edinburgh to Gatwick, hang around for ages in Gatwick Limbo then Easyjet with a camp steward trying to sell a ‘Wish Upon A Star teddy bear for Auntie Muriel’ to Palermo. Boarding was class led (A for Ace and B for Bastards and probably C for C*nts) but the flights were comfortable and the food selection onboard was intriguing (I went for olives and shortbread and red wine to stop those pesky DVTs).

From Palermo airport we switched on the sat nav and the gentle plummy voice led us onto what I thought was a Nintendo racing game – cars in any lane they fancied and travelling at high speed flashing lights and beeping horns. Lots of lengthy tunnels, some looking a lot more decrepit than others, one in particular having a dark roof so it looked like the light were suspended like stars. After a gruelling ride we reached Milazzo at 1am and abandoned the car down a dark side street and booked into La Bussola hotel to sort out our baggage for a trip to the Isle of Stromboli on the 6am ferry. At 5am whilst I was sitting on the loo Kim decided to turn the air conditioning on and successfully killed the power to the entire room – so in between the sounds of farting and shouting there was Kim falling over our bags looking for a torch. The lift didn’t work so early so we struggled down the stair with a bad and managed to wake up a grumpy hotel attendant to get our passports back and then head out into the dark streets of a Sicilian port in search of a hydrofoil, with Kim soothing her insect bites from the hotel and munching ginger for the journey.

An hour later we were in Stromboli on a small motor bike carrier and rumbling along the narrow streets under the volcano to the hotel which was closed, but managed to feed us breakfast whilst reception opened. This is the first time I have checked in at 7:30am in the morning but it was great to dump everything in the room and then march off along the Stromboli streets sightseeing and trying to find a volcano guide to take us above 400m of the active Stromboli volcano. We walked along the black beach and I swam in the Tyrrhenian Sea emerging like the creature from the Black Lagoon. The weather over the volcano was not good and the guides were all booked up – but we still held hope as Magmatrek said that often people arrive and were seasick or just didn’t bother turning up. Unfortunately today was the day when they all turned up so we set off for a 400m walk around the volcano waiting to pick off any stragglers on the official guided walk. We met a Dutch woman who had taken our place on the walk but had abandoned it – she came so close to falling off a ridge I can tell you – but we did see an eruption of billowing multi coloured smoke from beneath and the street of fire at sunset which was gorgeous. Walking with head torches down the volcano in darkness and in between the high sugar cane was quite spooky with crickets chirping away and we walked back to our hotel in a thunderstorm with lightning flashing around – storms are often caused by the erupting volcano which is lit up in profile against the lightning flashes. Stromboli was unsurprisingly where the film Stromboli was filmed with Ingrid Bergman’s affair with Robert Rosellina a bit obvious from the photographs on the hotel walls.

We woke early and made the first ferry at 7:30am to return to Milazzo via the other Aeolian islands of Volcano (no surprise why it was called that) and Lipari with Salina in the background where the wonderful Il Postino was filmed. With heart in mouth we turned to corner to find the car still there remarkably and so on a packed itinerary it was driving out of Milazzo with Marialle directing us (we called our Sat Nav Mariella after Mariella Frostrup as they both sound frightfully plummy). Tyndaris was the first stop after a series of hairpin bends were sending Mariella a bit loopy – turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right – we turned her off to let her calm down. The cathedral at the top was magnificent and ruins including a Teatro Greco and roman mosaics overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea were splendid. Kim got caught up in a huge tour group being not so quick as I at avoiding such things.

Our plan was to head to a gorge called Golo Alacantra, but we misread the sign and were tumbling down some rocky path when we realised from the froggy signs that we were actually driving along a nature walk. With large clunks from boulders hitting the sump we were glad that hire companies don’t check underneath cars when you return them – and turned back to avoid the more blatant pot holes and waved goodbye to the frogs. The actual Golo Alacantra is magnificent – a lava made gorge with waterfalls and flash floods – we dressed in waders and waded up a freezing cold river up to our chests dipping our rucksack bottoms in the water. Kim’s wellies naturally sprang a leak and I almost fell in – but that was not unexpected from past experiences. And so dried out we drove to Tiormina, abandoning the car in a multistory car park, walking to the Greek Theatre overlooking the Ionian Sea and the picturesque town and returning to forget where the car was…

The plan was stay at the art hotel in Messina – that was when Stuart informed us that it wasn’t actually in Messina but lots of kilometres back on the road to Palermo. After a brief exchange of various swear words I accepted this possibility, abandonded my plan of visiting each of the triangle point capes and headed to Catania for a hotel Stu was booking using latebooking.com. We walked around the black lava streets of Catania and found a traditional restaurant where I had sea urchin and Kim bought a dalmation dog yapping lighter from a deaf and dumb beggar. I squeezed into the thin shower to find that the other panel actually opened, and the toilet flushed with 32 jets of high pressure which always left a floating piece of toilet paper in the middle. A morning walk through the fish market was rewarded with clams spitting water at us and we played Spot the Bellini in the cathedral looking for his memorial but only found a priest who stopped Etna’s lava flowing by taking some sacred bit of Agatha to the spot in front of the village – timing is everything. Mariella took us right through the fish market again (she liked to take us through the suburbs of Catania (turn right through someones garden then left down that one way street the wrong way). We escaped to the high ground heading to Etna taking out someones wing mirror on the way and headed left, right, left, right up a torturous path watching lava surrounded houses. One chap was cycling up the hill the Panda was having problems getting up – he had a hand pedal as well.

The route up Etna is via cable car then jeep then a short walk around the new crater. The weather was closed in so we travelled up the cable car barely seeing the other cars through the fog to find that the jeeps had no intention of travelling to the crater. We watched a fascinating DVD aboiut Italians dropping explosives on the lava to slow it down to allow it to cool (as opposed to waving bits of a saint in front of the lava) and then a big group hug on success (described in the English commentary as shaking hands). Incidentally I was glad to see that the English translations are still shown by the Union Flag rather than the stars and stripes at least acknowledging the debt the world owes Britain. With the weather not improving we decided to walk to the crater (a couple told us it was a couple of hours up and one hour down) and I have to say that it was a splendid walk across a moon like landscape. With steam falling over the landscape from hot rocks and the only life being ladybirds bizzarely crawling around the black surface. At the top was the new crater and I immediately looked around, whipped out my firehose and urinated into the crater with a satisfying sizzling. Behind me came a ‘Hello, I am from Manchester’ cry as I hurriedly put my equipment away and turned with open flies to reciprocate. At that point I managed to breathe in a sulpherous cloud and with a coughing fit vomited a stream of yellow bile which sizzled on the hot ground. On returning the doctor said it was probably a virus so typically I catch a virus from a volcano and then immediately pass it onto Kim. We walked around the crater and then into it walking through sulpherous clouds before spotting the steaming top of Etna emerge from clouds. We walked back to catch the last cable car and wound our way down the mountain to head to Syracuse and the Island of Ortygia.

There were two opportunities for accommodation – the junior suite at the hotel Roma and a bed and breakfast – Kim went for the latter and we came close to divorce again – especially when the B&B parking was on the other end of the island and I had to wait amongst the local prostitutes and traffic police in Piazza Archimedes whilst Kim dragged the heavy luggage as penance up the B&B steep steps. I managed to reverse into a flower pot and was convinced that all the police cars following us was looking for the Flower Pot Man. The B&B toilet also had a death defying step which caused me to fly into the room everytime I left the loo. Dinner was sea bass presented by a waiter who removed head and tail, took out the bones then stuck the head and tail back again. Ortygia really tested Mariella which we ended up ignoring as she had no ideas on the one way system. We walked around the next morning to breakfast outside the Duomo and wandering around came across the debris of the flower pot – I was going to pay if it was some Sicilian mama but it as an expensive hotel so I figured they would be fine and they would figure that they were late on their protection money this month.

Syracuse has an archeaological park with a Teatro greco and a slave quarry called the Garden of Paradise. The slaves also quarried out a cave that looks like an ear and we arrived just as a lady broke into song testing the acoustics – it was a magical moment as she could actually sing although my accompanying whistle wasn’t appreciated at all. Kim was told by a policeman that the parking was ‘Libre’ which came as a surprise to the chap collecting money but the phrase ‘Polizia Libre’ saw him walking swiftly away. We had a delicious glass of freshly squeezed orange and Kim was presented with a green orange which we devoured in the hotel later that evening – delicious indeed.

Drove down to Noto on a whim – I had read Julian Cope’s European Megalith book and there were catacombs outside. Noto was a joy with fantastic gargoyles and wenches holding up balconies and a delightful cathedral square where we gorged on huge ice creams in the sunshine. Outside Noto is Noto Antica which has catacombs although not the ones that Julian was harping on about, but it was a splendid limestone valley with a castle and absolutely no-one around and we came across magical circles of trees and stone tables at the start of a 46km walk.

Who else but the Italians would dress their law enforcement in fuschia – and so many different types – tax fraud, anti-mafia, traffic police (who almost caught us speeding) and military.

Over the hills and far away to the lake of Persephone – where she was raped and dragged down by Hades and where mum Demeter recovered her but not before the anorexic gal had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds for lunch giving us Winter and Autumn returning in Spring and Summer.
The lake is now ringed by a race track and is protected as a nature reserve. The hotel had the feeling of The Shining, large and empty – normally stuffed full of wedding guests it was deserted for the night – it even had a little girl who run around speaking Italian all she needed was an identical sister or a three wheeler.

Dinner was off the menu as there wasn’t one and was delicious served with a recommended Nero D’Avalo wine. Breakfast was chocolate croissant as it should be every day. We raced around the road parallel with the race track and waved enthusiastically to the bin men who insisted on me taking a photo of them.

We raced to the roman villa with famous mosaics to beat the coach tours. The mosaics were awesome and more interestingly they were in progress – people fixing and making potions and reconstructing. The coach tours arrived as we left which was good – it would have been chaotic in the narrow walkways with more than the other 2 people in the whole villa.

Mariella decided to make a stand – she drove us down an unmade road past a rubbish tip, bumping our way down a road getting much more like a nature trail than anything else – what kept us going was the huge multilane highway ahead. We bumped and crunched our way on the sump for half an hour before arriving at the multilane highway separated from us by a 40 foot bridge and even when heading up what must have been the road worker track which ended up at a substantial barrier separating us from a high speed exit. Low on fuel we bumped and crunched our way back to the little town with the inhabitants having witnessed our plight and must have enjoyed hte fact that the petrol station in town sold just that – no diesel which our thirsty Panda was desperate for. She then shutdown and refused to grant us her petrol seeking abilities so we used our own instincts and sure enough we were outside an unmanned automated diesel pump which refused to take our credit cards and seemed a trifle fussy over our 20 euro notes too. Eventually it accepted one after I had sat on it a few times and we used the 20 euros of fuel to take us to Agrigento and the Valley of Temples over very high bridges in an earthquake zone – I was going to use that as a speeding excuse but fortunately the various branches of the colourful police ignored me, I suspect they didn’t think a Panda could really go that speed.

The valley of the temples was disappointing in that you couldn’t wander around the ruins of the impressive temples but had to gaze from afar as they were protected from the Italian grafitti artists by fences. We wandered in the midday sun and retired to a well placed cafe for icecream and a delicious deep fried globe of rice and mozerella cheese fortifying us for the next set of temples (which we could wander around a they were in the phase between ruins and gravel. The Telemann lay like a broken man with no temple roof to hold up – looking similar to Kim’s play dough version of me. After a hot hot day it was time for the beach and after a few false starts leading to cliff edges or fishing harbours we found the most delightful beach surrounded with limestone cliffs and with a beach cafe. I swam in a shallow Mediterranean Sea filled with seaweed and we ate ice cream in the afternoon sun. We found the gallery where a Sicilian had gone to America didn’t like it and returned sculpting a forest of wooden figures of people he hated, however it was closed so we headed for temples at sunset at Selinunte.

We parked outside a Colditz looking hotel and Kim disappeared – fearing another B&B scene I was going to suggest the rather nice looking 4 star hotel opposite when she returned saying the 3 star hotel was shut for some health reason and we were going to be put up at the nice looking hotel for a 3 star price. The room had a contemporary feel the aesthetic of which was somewhat damaged by us hanging up our washing to dry. We sat sipping sparkly stuff watching the Italian version of The Weakest Link and an interminable Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – where one question was still being deliberated over half an hour later as we left for the trough. Dinner was more entertaining with the combination of an American woman emphasising to her dim companion that 300BC (which was SO old) was 3 HUNDRED years before Christ was born, a mincing waiter and an entire conference of building documenters who sat in cliques and, although there were sufficient tables and chairs for them all, the hotel staff had not counted on people not wanting to sit beside particular individuals so extra tables and chairs were minced in for the handbag wielding ad picky documenters.

A road sign for Marsala caused a quick itinerary change and we quickly headed through delightful countryside with lots of empty houses – Sicily has more houses than people due to Mafia money laundering. Marsala was a delightful town – home of the fortified wine and a bottle of ‘Terre Arse’ graced my backpack and Kim managed to ask for a packet of Sicilian Strepsils for my Etna virus which had hit my throat. There was a student riot and demonstration in progress in the Trumpton like town square surrounded by police. Marsala has a futurist cinema and delightful winding streets – the scene of Garibaldi’s mille (his thousand men army who kicked the ass of a 15,000 enemy). North is an area of salt pans which look fabulously gorgeous in the sun with windmills used to transfer water between the pans until evaporation leaves the white gold which is shovelled and wheelbarrowed into large white piles covered in pantiles for storage. A video explained the process and we left with a bag of quality salt.

Over the mountains to Monreale with an impressive set of Old Testament mosaics in the cathedral and then to the Mafia centre of Corleone and the anti-mafia museum. The museum is fascinating – a room full of photographs of judges and priests and police chiefs all gunned down by the mafia. One of the heads was on the run for 43 years yet still running the organisation all from Corleone where he was finally arrested after they killed a people popular police chief and the tide turned against them. The girl who showed us around told us her friends were sons of the main men which seemed quite chilling. There is also a Castello Soprano there.

And so to the art hotel which we missed the first time around – Castel Di Tusa was found my Mariella by taking us down an old road hugging cliffs. We stopped outside where she reckoned hte postal code took us and I looked around saying – I wonder which one is the art hotel. Kim replied – perhaps it might be the one with the large yellow naked woman holding up the roof.

The entrance is amazing with art works everywhere and it turned out that the chap that checked us in was the artist himself. One of his enthusiastic assistants showed us four art rooms and we chose the lovely Journey room – where the bed is a raft and the floor is blue tiles and a large bath is at one end of the raft with a mast and curtains acting as sails and a window which opens onto the Tyrrhenian Sea itself. Toilet and washhand basins were in oil drums and it was simply the best room I have ever stayed in – magnificent hotel. Dinner was at a retaurant under a railway bridge and everything shook when the Palermo express thundered past. Our evening walk heard the sound of millions of birds flocking in the yellow lit trees and we returned to our raft to hear Kim snoring then her waking up to nudge me in the ribs and say ’stop snoring’. Our morning stroll was along the beach collecting the pebbles that talked to us and put our baggage over the Easyjet limits with our Etna lava bomb (do not mention you have a lava bomb in your baggage it doesn’t go down well as Stuart found out).

Last day meant a trip to Cefalu to see the cathedral stained glass as the artist also did our stained glass in our art room. Cefalu was a wonderful town to stroll around with a broken pipe spewing water across the narrow street and soaking everyone.

Palermo was chaotic to drive into – 2 lanes of road with 4 lanes of traffic and the scooters. I started to use hte scooters as pawns effectively to maneuver and we found a parking place eventually and rushed up to the building named ARS – at least the Sicilians have the honesty to name their tourist organisation appropriately – we have VisitScotland whereas if one was going to be honest…. The mosaics were all covered up for restoration and we left disappointed only to be knocked over by the cathedral. We turned the corner and it was breathtaking in its beauty and scale. Our mission was to find the tooth of a saint – and not only did we find it but it was held by the preserved forearm of Saint Agatha. A meridian line runs through the cathedral and possibly connects to the one on Etna.

Teatro Massimo was magnificent from the outside and a bit rundown inside, there was a great crossroads with fountains and statues on all sides and the Fountain of Shame (naked statues shock the populace), the minimalist palace of justice and the very fantastic catacombs. Nothing prepares you for the Cappuccini catacombs – you file down the steps and there 2 inches in front of you are dead preserved bodies hanging there – no waxworks, no glass – just death straight in your face.
We parked outside and a mafia thug offered to not steal our car for 1 euro – it seemed a good deal.

We had time to kill so headed north to be near the airport – and out to a small village by the sea which used to be a tuna processing area before the Japanese pinched all the tuna.
The area had had its telephone lines cut the evening before so we had to use the last of our cash to buy gifts and some red bull to keep me going.

We returned the car – flew to Gatwick with a couple of women from Welsh Wales who had travelled by themselves for the first time with their husbands on a golf holiday elsewhere. I had helped them with their luggage leaving Kim to struggle with our two large bags. Kim and I stayed in a Yotel in Gatwick airport – a great idea – small room with a couch which on the press of a button turns into a very comfortable bed; shower and toilet and LCD telly with internet access and a button which promises much (it has two set of feet in the missionary position) but when pressed simply dims the light and turns them purple in preparation for sex. We had 7 hours for 60 quid which I thought was a damn good deal (it is 25 quid for 4 hours which is much better than taking your chances in the airport itself). The lady who was changing the room near us showed us around and we could see how single rooms backed onto each other and how it had all been so well thought out – designed by the British Airways 1st class cabin designer – this was first class at a budget price and ideal when in between flights.

Sicily was a fabulous place to visit and has so much to offer. I am now working my way through a collection of Sicilian wines and Kim’s Pasta A La Norma (after the Bellini opera) and grilled sea bass reminds us of our trip with every munch. I got a bottle of Cariddi from the local store – described on the label as a sea nymph and daughter of Poseiden, wikipedia has a different slant on Charybdis-

She takes form as a monstrous mouth. She swallows huge amounts of water three times a day and then belches them back out again creating whirlpools.

I guess they couldn’t fit that on the wine label.

Photos of the trip, including one of Kim peeing in Grecian ruins, are in a flickr collection

Not wet enough this summer? Then go for a spin in the whirlpools of the Gulf of Corryvreckan, to the north of Jura.

To prepare us for the long journey we lunched at the ancient Unicorn Inn in the surprisingly charming fishing village of Kincardine, turn left after the bridge and prepare to be surprised with a Fife fishing village like architecture and the circa 1639 Unicorn Inn with its splendid fare. We were also suprised to find our microlight colleague DSI Badger there, fresh from working at the nearby Tullieallan police college (Rebus’s alma mater). Fuelled for a romp around Alloa Tower, in the shadow of the enormous Tesco Extra in Alloa. The enthusiastic National Trust staff were fiercely proud of the Tower which is a surprising jewel, with an Italian dome inside it and a rooftop walkway revealing a glassworks, power station and pylons, Grangemouth oil refinery and the Tesco car park.

An espresso stop at the real food cafe at Tyndrum, across the Bridge over the Atlantic, booking into our B&B at Easdale, ordering dinner at the Oyster Bar and stepping into waterproofs and life jackets and we were then jetting across the sea riding on saddles and bouncing around at high speed towards the Grey Corries whirlpool and then onto the Gulf itself. The Gulf of Corryvreckan was said to be unnavigable by the Royal Navy, is the most challenging dive site in the UK, and is feared amongst yachtsmen and kayakers.

There are several whirlpools and it is a combination of tidal force, wind and bad luck to see standing waves, whirlpool walls and lots of whirling water as the high powered motor boat spins around and supplies gallons of salt water across the bows and straight into my face. I was underwater powered – watch, camera and new deck shoes and wrapped in Sea.Fari waterproofs – it was just the rest of me that got soaked. The camera almost went overboard as the neck strap broke – but my Day Skipper knot practice saved the day as my Bowline, idly tied for practice, kept camera attached to the sodden owner.

As if we weren’t soaked enough we retired to the Oyster Bar for pints of Grey Dogs with the brewer at the bar and some very welcome food. Retired to our B&B and its Sky telly entertainment where attractive women encourage roulette playing, Urdu channels compete with God, Pop and Shopping channels and all resulted in a deep sleep. The room was for the Long, the Short and The Tall – just not all at the same time. The bed was long and particularly high – as I found out getting up in the morning – I reverted to parachute training and kept knees together and rolled on impact; the short was for the bath filled with Boots bath caviar and the tall was for the bathroom mirror perched high above us.

After a delicious breakfast we headed home, Kim following slow traffic meandering down the Highland roads in wonderful Highland scenery in surprising sunshine, as I read my Day Skipper text and tied more knots whilst munching ginger bears to ward off travel sickness. We stopped at the Falls of Lora under the Connel Bridge and watched ducks floating backwards down the tidal anomoly. We returned to find our estranged son had crashed his monkey bike, as predicted by everyone but him, and had cracked ribs. It’s now a race between his bike and his girlfriend screwing up his repeat 5th year.

A fun packed weekend started with sleeping in for gutbusting and heading southward towards Blanchlands for lunch in the cellar bar of the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel. We wandered around the fireplace with a priest hole and read the tale of how monks were saved from ravaging Scots by prayers which were answered by a fog, which the poor navigating Scots couldn’t cope with and led them astray. Unfortunately for the monks they rang their monastery bell in triumph which led the murderous Scots to them. Refuelled we headed for Hadrians Wall, avoiding the Roman Fort on the top of the hill for the great views at Steel Rigg and the less than impressive wall which Scots who had romped around the ridges of Glen Coe would not really be too troubled with. The rain started to come on so we abandoned the clamber up the crags but it would be worth returning there.

Vindolanda is an impressive excavation of a roman fort and settlement with reconstructed mileforts, shop with plastic romans and a temple to the water nymphs. The museum has some very interesting artifacts and has a video of how they found the highest prized archaeological find in the UK – the letters from the romans analysed using infrared imagery to read personal tales of how they loved money and women.

Popped into see our psychiatrist chum, whose twin daughters need 4 D’s in their exams, including English, to get into their beauty therapy course (if they don’t they have to sit module one, which begs the question what the hell is in module one). He used to work in the heroin unit in Manchester (8 beds for a population of 5 million) where they got the really bad cases with veins in their penis collapsing and injecting into their neck, absolutely dangerous and awful. Methadone worked and they were physically off Heroin within a week but due to their life style they were back on and partying plus getting a bigger hit after being weaned off it. Experts in all drugs they knew that they could kick heroin, until either HIV or old age (when they simply gave up the lifestyle) got to them, but Benzo’s (Valium et al) took a month or two to get off (the housewife’s choice being harder to kick than opiates.

Corbridge was a surprise – a delightful town with a Saxon church dating from 634 and a delicious Indian meal (the guidebook said that there was a service where an Indian Waiter would be on the train from Newcastle taking orders and serving drinks so the meal was ready when the train arrived).

And so to Little Sparta – the magical garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay outside Dunsyre, near Biggar – which of course entailed an ice cream at Caldwells of Innerleithen. Acres of established garden with ponds and waterfalls and littered with sculptures and rocks with poems carved on them. The weather was perfect with fluffy cumulus and the sun casting shadows all over the sculptures. A tenner per person to get in and a long walk to the gardens, nicely keeps the riff raff at bay which allows a personal and unhurried experience – we took over 2 hours wandering around and enjoying the entire garden. Kim enjoyed a different experience being on SSRI’s and was wandering around in a daze mesmerised by the poetry for the entire meander randomly through the garden – quite why she didn’t fall off the stepping stones or open bridges is beyond me. Fish and chips at Biggar ended a perfect day and we got in the car just as the rain started.

And so July descends into Harry Potter month from a series of books including The Philosopher’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince we await the Deathly Hallows. In the meantime ‘The End of Harry Potter?’ provides some interesting insights into naming etymology and professional literary misdirection. And the movie is out this month too. With the post office on strike perhaps we will resort to using owls this month.

Ali’s train has been wobbling off the rails for some time now so we thought we would have a family weekend away to see if we could get it back on track. Heading south means breakfast at Tebay then off to the Lawnmower Museum in Southport with its racing lawnmowers (65mph), Hilda Ogden’s mower and Nicholas Parsons secateurs – this was a treasure trove of mowing mysteries. Shank’s Pony from my home town of Arbroath was a lawnmower built by Shanks and there was even a wedding gift of a sit on lawnmower for Charles and Di. Naturally we left with a DVD to enjoy in the comfort of our own home forever.

Liverpool plays host to the earthly Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King (also known as Paddy’s Wigwam) which is a delightful piece of contemporary architecture and is a cathedral of light inside, although the Beer Festival in the crypt had finished. The much larger Anglican cathedral, designed by the 22 year old designer of the red telephone box, is the largest cathedral in Britain and a sandstone marvel it is too. We were destined to the underground though and the Williamson tunnels – built for no good reason as far as anyone can tell but being excavated at some rate. Albert Dock, home to Richard and Judy’s daytime television show with the chap leaping onto the floating map, is now a quayside filled with shops, cafes and the Tate Liverpool gallery (filled with a treasure trove of Scouse art, including video art – my favourite being Rineke Dijkstra’s The Buzz Club where individual clubbers dance against a plain background).

We took the Duck which starts off trundling around the Liverpool streets on a tour before plunging into the dock and showing off its WW2 amphibious qualities and chugging around the docks on a tour. The Beatles Story was an enjoyable romp through their history and music – showing they were more than the Fab Four as Epstein and Martin had made a phenomenal difference to the charismatic team.

A pint in the Baltic Fleet pub (St Georges Ale for St Georges Day) and then off to Llandudno (a well preserved victorian seaside resort with much charm, a friendly Italian restaruant with great food and where we enjoyed The Tears of Christ, wept when Lucifer Morningstar fell from Heaven, from the foothills of Vesuvius. Llandudno also provided a promenade along some very well maintained victorian frontages and a fantastic copper mine which we wandered underground for ages at Great Orme. We got up Great Orme using the tram system and intended on descending by the cable car but apparently it was too windy (which the previous folk had found when let on at the bottom and were released swinging wildly at the top)

Ali found out that in his absence his girlfriend (now known affectionately as ‘S**tB***h’, and less affectionately in private something far, far worse) had betrayed him with his best friend (whose claim to fame is crashing his motorbike everytime he comes to visit) and had now dumped him, and he spent the entire journey back in a state of distress, until we detoured across the Pennines to see the other love of his life Lindsay.

Meanwhile in Madeira Kim’s father died in his chair at the age of 69, possibly from a pulmonary embolism, fortunately Kim’s mother had friends out there to look after her whilst her daughters arranged flights at short notice to be there for her and Kim spent many a fretful hour sorting out incompetent insurance and funeral directors who appeared to be doing nothing whatsoever.

My youngest son’s school bus driver has a side trade in stage hypnotism, so when I heard he was appearing at the Templehall Inn at Morebattle I was all set to see what was involved. Fuelled with dinner at the Border Hotel and lashings of wine and ale we turned up enmasse to the Inn, where I was quenching my thirst with Guinness as the performance was delayed. Initially I was keen to be just an observer, but since there had been quite a few pints of Guinness hypnotising me and there was one seat remaining with no-one making a move for it – I was suddenly part of the performance. I was keen, as I knew stage hypnotism was bunkum, to experience it first hand now.

And first hand I did – we were all to put our arms out whilst he jabbered away. I locked my hands learning something at least from the climbing course, and as some people, including my son, were rejected as unsuitable hypnotism subjects three of us remained in the spotlight – a south african woman, a yummy mummy and myself.

The first ‘performance’ was to pretend to cycle down a country lane – the crowd were loving it with catcalls and clapping and jeering. The temptation to giggle started to disappear, not because we were hypnotised but because we were suddenly performing and there was an audience. We were told we were freezing and had to warm up – obviously I threw myself around the yummy mummy and we kept each other alive through the ice age, the south african was wearing warm clothes anyway visiting Scotland so I knew she was going to be ok.

The girls and I were separated into sexist roles – the girls were poledancing and lapdancing and I was landing a plane on the Kelso bypass, pretending to be Michael Jackson (molesting a teenage boy rather than moonwalking which surprised the audience with my interpretation) and giving birth whilst writhing on the floor and being attended to by a South African midwife screaming – “I am only a student midwife”.

The final humiliation/performance was that I was to rush to the toilet whenever anyone said ‘Malt Whisky’ – which was a welcome break as my bladder was fairly bursting from the Guinness anyway… Squirrel’s mum got dragged to dance during the lesbian dance and I whirled the light fantastic with her husband. The audience were appreciative after and there were lots of questions like ‘do you remember anything to which I lied of course’.

The next day was an early rise to drive to Inverness (the flight prices were affordable from there for the three of us). Eldest son had returned from Aberdeen University to find his parent out being hypnotised and then buggering off to the northern isles the next day – we had a quick welcome back glass of wine before leaving to be hypnotised and kept in touch with text messages….

The drive up was painless and moonlit with the gorgeous full moon and we stopped for breakfast at the House of Bruar – north of Perth in the middle of nowhere. We were told that breakfast didn;t start for twenty minutes and we would have to wait in the car – Highland hospitatlity at its best – we told them to bugger off and headed to the Dalwhinnie Cafe – which had a priceless combination of attractive blonde waitress, free wireless connection, good breakfast and espresso and music playing from a Windows Media Centre with large flat screen.

We had time to kill as the A9 was fairly clear so ended up at the Tescos in Inverness to kill time and buy presents. That was where we discovered the Self Service checkout – we are rural folks so had never seen one and it had never seen the like of us. We managed to get the thing very confused, had it not charging for some stuff and over charging for others with goods lying all over the place and spilling off the conveyor belt at the end with security tags intact – until finally a woman summoned by the CCTV camera rushed along to try to restore order and check we weren’t a diversion for a team of professional shoplifters.

The twin prop Saab 340 flight was only 40 minutes but was fun with lovely views of the Northern Scotland coast and the Pentland Firth. No movie but jammie dodgers served as a suitable replacement. It was a smooth flight considering the wind socks were horizontal at Inverness and Kirkwall. Calum picked us up and we were whisked along the churchill barriers, which had waves crashing over (Calum reassured us with stories of how car windscreens and roofs get crushed when the weather turns nasty).

Roeberry is an impressive pile, a 24 room country house with wonderful views towards Hoxa Head and the surprisingly attractive oil refinery at Flotta (at least at that distance) with its methane flame sometimes horizontal in the high winds.

Our first job after eating and drinking was rescuing – Calums yacht was attached to the ferry pontoon (wintering in their bay) and the wind had bashed it against it and it had loosed its moorings. So we were off in a rubber dinghy – me at the helm like Washington crossing the Delaware, spotting an inquisitive seal. The yacht was holed above the waterline but I had to bale her out whilst Calum did some impressive knots to repair ropes and secure her better to the moving pontoon. We got soaked in the rain and from spray in the small dinghy but settled back for drinkies and to watch the evening sunset.

Kim decided that it was time she learned pool and a few hours later had wiped the table with all of us – I was impressively and consistently potting the white ball – including aiming for my seven balls on the table – missing them all in a circuit of the table and potting the white in the top corner. We relaxed with Canadian movies, books about Barra and piracy and lots to drink and reading Andrea’s article for the Guardian on living with Calum’s mother who suffers sadly with alzheimers disease.

In the morning since the main job was mucking out horses I retired to a quiet room and hid with the newspapers and enough books to keep me going until everyone had finished the horses. Still quiet Geoffrey, my badger glove puppet who was lonely as there are no badgers (or snakes or foxes) on Orkney, and we went wandering around the private pet cemetry in the grounds to discover folk trundling around with large wheelbarrows filled with hay or dung – representing the alpha and omega of the horse.

We all headed out to the cliffs at Hoxa Head on a fine weather afternoon and the children were making a short movie around the world war 2 ruins, curiously nothing to do with WW2 but since they had plastic swords it was Zorro. It was far too windy for kite flying or sailing in a leaking boat so back for drinkies and eaties (fine Orkney fare) and more pool with background ambience from Hendrix and The Cure.

On the day we were leaving Kim and I walked along the beach at high tide and up to the Chambered Cairn and glass folly (with a rolls royce reputedly under it up to a short while back) and back via Lady Jane a splendid large horse who showed a particular interest in my badger.

A short cut through the ladies lingerie section of Mackays took us through the wealth of bookshops and cafes of Kirkwall – and I emerged with only two books (a book on Cod and one on pirates – it had to be two books as there didn’t seem to be a single book encompassing both fascinating subjects) and absolutely nothing by George Mackay Brown – the local poet who seems to be divinely worshipped. A quick visit to the new Kirkwall Public Library had me discovered an article on Petroleum Geology for Stuart in the Falkland Islands Newsletter. I secured a copy of a Blindspot CD, the winner of the Orkney Battle of the Bands, along withe Saltfishforty (produced in bedrooms and sheds around Orkney with the Burray Strathspey and Reel to keep those toes a tapping.

The flight back involved high security with out bags searched thoroughly (’no you cannot touch the crystal ball’ I cried ‘it takes away its power since it is charged with moonlight’ – was one of the more unusual statements that Kirkwall security had encountered). My badger glove puppet was frisked and our shoes removed and sent through the machine (I was glad I didn’t have my arabic Koran with me). The flight was gorgeous with views of the Churchill Barriers safely from ten thousand feet. We landed and paid the hefty car park ransom, attacked the Tesco Self Checkout machines again and dined in Pitlochry at the Old Armoury Restaurant and Tea Rooms where Alasdair could display his appalling table manners whilst dining on the finest fillet steak.

The journey back consisted of Ali breaking up his girlfriend (or possibly her intermediatary it was difficult to tell from the mobile phone conversation) which whiled away the long journey.
We got back in time to empty the dog and upload the volumes of photographs