Bottling it

I awoke at a sensible hour today, about 7.30. This was a posher hotel than I normally select (not all that posh, really) and opted for the full Scottish Breakfast. Minus Haggis. Been there, though when I had it it was greatly mollified by being accompanied by tatties and neeps and soaked in a wee dram. Well, not all that wee. Avoided it this morning but it was a bit on the meagre side for a big fellow, Probably a good thing. There was a very un Scottish croissant to accompany it because I was surprisingly offered no toast or bannocks or butteries.

Poking my nose outside the door I observed immediately frozen Good Scottish weather to accompany the breakfast. Outside in the daylight, Ballater was rather wonderful with a medium sized hill just outside and blue sky and sunshine.

In Brentford people complain they have to walk on the road because the pavement had trip hazards, Different issues lead to road walking in Ballater.

I chatted with the receptionist and said I was heading for John O’Groats. She looked dubious but said if I went through Aberdeen and kept to the A roads I’d be fine.

I checked my planned route (yeah I know – me, plans?) and I got “Road closed because of snow”. I did go to Aberdeen but the roads were not as clear as advertised and I got windy. But the Aberdeen deviation meant by the time I approached Inverness it was mid afternoon and I decided tackling narrow highland snow-bedecked roads in the dark, and then come back down tomorrow seemed a bit much. John O’Groats will have to wait, like Mathewsons.

Next town I recognised was Elgin. In about 1974 I made my first visit to Elgin. It was my first job when working for Renault. I was part of the team which brought Rendezvous with Renault to dealers from Stoke up to the top of Scotland. So I picked up a car (if memory serves me it was a Renault 5 – the smallest car for the newest recruit) from our HQ in Salford and drove North in convoy.

3 cars, and a Bedford TK box van, with a Renault 16 on the trailer behind it. It took a long time and it was getting late when we arrived.

I don’t remember who the dealer was but not the swanky Arnold Clark showroom I saw in Elgin today. This was July I think 1974 and my strongest remember is having dinner and a few drinks, then going down to the beach at about 10.30 pm. It was still sunny and gave me a sense of what midnight sun in Finland was about.

This is Finland around midnight in July, according to Wikipedia.

Turns out Elgin, which I thought of as a small town, is apparently a historic Cathedral city. I didn’t stop to check out the big church but was impressed by the hillock with a pillar on the top.

Apparently this is for the Duke of Gordon. I hope he paid for it.

It seems that in August 1370, Alexander Burn Bishop of Moray began payments to Alexander Stewart, Wolf of Badenoch. I doubt the wolf of 1370 is related to latter day Badenochs, but I think we little lambs should be told.

This is the local hospital, I hear.

It may not be state of the art in the 21st century, but it is a lot more handsome that the Council Offices which make Hounslow House closer to Versailles.

Well that’s it for today. Tomorrow I will be heading for Oban on the West coast, which should be a much more relaxed drive, about 2 hours mainly down the Caledonian Canal and (mainly) Loch Ness. I will take a picture if he’s around.

For some reason, my website has decided this paragraph should be printed in what I suppose is a negative. Why? I have no idea and giving the computer a kick has not solved the problem. Ah well, variety is the space of life, I suppose.