My wife, directly to me just now as I learned over to kiss her forehead:
Do not touch me, you skanky bastard.
All I did was list the contents of the burger bun I’d just eaten:
Her response to hearing about the peanut butter
You always have to go one step further don’t you.
š
@bookworks@c.im asked the Fediverse for recommendations for accommodation on a clockwise tour of Scotland this autumn.
I have travelled alone and with family around Scotland a fair amount over the decades, scratching only the surface of this scenic, welcoming country from the Borders (the border with England) all the way to Shetland. I am not qualified as a tour guide or itinerary planner. Or writer. Or coherent, probably.
Nevertheless š here goes on a list of places seen and those I would revisit. It starts in the south/southeast at Gretna and goes on a vaguely clockwise route ending in Edinburgh.
Chances are I’ll update this as time passes. I’ve added a few links and a tiny number of my photos. (The links end half-way down the page at Aberdeen, I ran out of patience on the first run through).
Gretna/Gretna Green exists on the reputation of a place to which young couples would elope to and be married over the blacksmith’s anvil or something. It’s always been packed as we passed by since my first and only visit
We visited Kircudbright on a wet day so used it only as a journey breaker. I’d bet it’s quite scenic though, especially down by the river.
We’re off to Newton Stewart later this year, booked a house close to the centre for a week.
Stranraer & Sandhead a few years ago was pleasant but nothing stood out other than its beach and a windy day trip down to the Mull of Galloway – the southernmost tip of Scotland.
There’s a lot of space between towns and villages here, and consequently a lot of spaces classified as Dark Sky – eminently suitable for stargazing.
Made the mistake of stopping in a pub in Ayr next to the racecourse, arriving on race day.
Rolling hills. Decades ago, I can’t recall much. One area landmark of sorts is the Electric Brae, a section of the road that makes it appear one is rolling uphill when in fact one is rolling down. Oh, just go and see if you’re ever in the area.
I’ve only ever driven through or watched American football in Glasgow. Honestly I’m keen to hear what others have to say about the place declared the UK’s first-ever European City of Culture.
The A82 road heading to the west coast doesn’t really interest me, not even alongside Loch Lomond, although my wife would disagree – she says it’s incredibly beautiful, especially later in the year. It’s always been packed or being upgraded so take care driving. It’s only past Crianlarich it becomes interesting – for me.
It’s a bit bleak the further north you go but wow, big sky. And then the hills start in earnest.
Turning onto the A85 towards Oban cuts out some of the gradual approach to some of the cragginess of the Scottish Highland scenery and the road past Glencoe, but there’s more of that and history further north.
Oban has a distillery and a port, and great seafood. We took the ferry as foot passengers across to the Isle of Mull. Fans of the children’s TV series Balamory will want, nay be unable to resist the urge to visit scenic Tobermory. We stopped in a house outside Oban, one I’m absolutely certain is haunted by a previous owner.
North from Oban on the A828 past the sea lochs to the west keeps the interest up. In general driving is pretty easy – unlike driving in the cities people generally become more courteous the further north one travels. Heck, even on single track roads most drivers know how to use passing places! Not true in England and especially the south of England.
Glencoe. Infamous battlefield site. History in the raw.
The town of Fort William, despite the number of times I’ve visited, isn’t special to me. The area around and to the north and west, heck yes! The Moorings hotel in Banavie next to Neptune’s Staircase – the scenic locks on the Caledonian Canal was good base for a few years. Recent reviews appear to show the hotel has lost its spark so I can’t now recommend. Incidentally, if you’re lucky there’ll be a boat or three passing up or down the locks. Fort William’s location at the start of the A830 Road to the Isles to the west and the A82 north to Inverness and made it a good centre.
The town is a stop on the famous West Highland Railway. Look it up.
Glen Nevis to the southeast holds very special memories for me and although I can say I’ve walked up a bit of the Ben Nevis mountain, I much prefer to view that from places like the Commando Memorial close to Spean Bridge. At the turn of the century I visited alone for the first time. In early spring. With snow and sleet and wind. And I walked and saw wild deer and an eagle. It was awesome.
West are the Glenfinnan Monument and film-famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, and the road itself to Mallaig is worth a drive, although aside from taking the ferry to the Isle of Skye and back again just the once I didn’t find much in Mallaig itself.
There’s a gondola at Nevis Range and decent views atop Aonach Mor. I bet it’s spectacular in the winter.
The drive north up the A82 along Loch Lochy first is easy, and there’s a picnic site close to the southern end of Loch Oich I’ve always stopped at. Another incidental, the swing bridge at Laggan is kind-of fun to wait for if you like mechanical things.
At Invergarry the A87 road west eventually reaches Kyle of Lochalsh and a road bridge over to Skye. It passes the scenic Eilean Donan castle and is worth a drive on its own. Be careful of foreign tourists forgetting which side of the road they must drive on though. Gulp! (It’s the left by the way). š
Skye is special of course, itself and in Scottish history. A highlight for me was the drive to Elgol and the view over to the Cuillins – craggy peaks. There’s not a lot at Elgol but the destination. And sure it’s not for all – my investment was worth it for me. (I read a fascinating book on shark fishing many years ago, Elgol is the closest I could get to the island of Soay).
Look up Plockton. A village with palm trees made possible but its location at the eastern, climate-tempering end of the Gulf Stream.
Honestly, all of this is personal, I get a lot out of Scotland but detoured a lot over the years. Thousands of miles, no joke.
Missing out that significant detour and continuing north reaches Fort Augustus. It’s small, it’s ok. Notable are a more scenic set of canal locks than Fort William’s and the really rather good restaurant at the Lovat Hotel.
Fort Augustus is situated at the southern end of Loch Ness. Further north along the loch are Drumnadrochit and the Nessie exhibits – the Loch Ness Monster is very real dontchaknow!
An alternative to the more widely-travelled west side, Foyers and the falls of Foyers might be a drive for another visit. It’s a narrower road but interesting nonetheless. There are plenty of viewpoints along the way, and I wish in our last visit I’d known of Nessiehunter Steve’s place at the north end of the loch.
Off the north end of Loch Ness is Inverness. I’ve eaten in the city but that’s about it. There’s a river and it’s somewhat scenic.
Further east are Fochabers (Baxter’s foods), Cawdor Castle, Dallas (really!) and south from there are Ballater and Royal Braemar – and Balmoral castle. Not far away is the Royal Lochnagar distillery, the first I ever visited and literally the first time I’d ever tasted whisky. I hated it, but I’ve made up for it since with a whole host of, erā¦ extended tastings of everything from the innocuousness of Bells blended all the way up to a 15 year old Laphroaig. Wish I could afford that one these days.
I’ve been to Aberdeen twice. The first time it was just windy and bleak, the second we were catching the ferry to Shetland. My in-laws flew but my wife’s scared of flying so we took my car and I drove all of us around Shetland.
Shetland is amazing, but somehow not road trip material per se. It’s amazing, did I say that? My father-in-law and thus my wife and now daughters have Shetland heritage removed only two/three/four generations. He made a pilgrimage of sorts there just over 10 years ago. It’s an amazing, important place.
The Shetland Museum and Archives in Lerwick is a must-see, as are the Croft House museum and Sumburgh Head’s puffins. Best soap I ever bought – Shetland Soap Company.
By the way, my father-in-law’s ancestors came from the big house in a Shetland hamlet called Twatt. I kid you not.
The resourcefulness of the islanders is impressive. Less so the removal of pretty much all the trees the island once had.
Anyway, south of Aberdeen is Stonehaven. It’s small enough to be walkable, and holds the honour of being the first place in the world to and sell and popularise a deep-fried Mars bar. š The ‘Cool Gourmet’ tearoom and caterer is a hidden gem. It’s tiny though. I absolutely loved their cheesy scones with rhubarb and ginger jam.
I’ve passed through Aviemore. I guess it comes alive in the winter but it’s a bit depressing in summer – for me at least.
I had friends who lived in Callander, north west of the road from Aberdeen to Stirling. The lived in a forestry-owned single-storey building but aside from their companionship for a bit and the countryside around I’ve not many memories of that area now.
Although it’s quite a way, south we go to Stirling – famous for its castle and excellent views from its ramparts, and the National Wallace Monument. Braveheart, remember? I can’t recall being allowed to park close to the castle but it’s not an onerous walk up.
We stopped over Valentine’s Day 2006 close by the village of Fintry, back when the Culcreuch Castle was open as a hotel. Sadly that closed a few years ago.
I’ve visited Dundee for work only, and St Andrews on a day trip from Edinburgh. Aside from the St Andrews golf and university connections I can’t recall much. Do not exceed the speed limit in Dundee. My boss did when we were there, and paid the literal price. Famous Dundee exports marmalade and The Beano children’s comicā¦ can be found anywhere. Just saying.
Falkirk is notable for 2 things that I know of, the incomprehensibly-large Kelpies – horse statues visible from the M9 but with a visitor centre, and the Falkirk Wheel – an innovative rotating boat lift irresistible for any kind of mechanical engineer. 115 feet up or down without locks! My ex boss has been on it. Words don’tā¦
Edinburgh? Wellā¦
The bridges on the approach to Edinburgh are all spectacular in their own right. Rail is a big thing for the city, and Waverley station isā¦
Ok, the Royal Mile, Castle, bus tours, food, drink, Princes street and the Princes Street gardens, the nighttime ghost walks, Greyfriars Bobby statue, National Museum of Scotland, Camera Obscuraā¦ it’s a proper walkable, memorable city. The bus tours even head out to Holyrood and the Scottish Parliament.
Midges in the Highlands peak around July to August. I’ll never forget an Audi cabriolet owner who left his open outside the small private hotel off the single track road northeast out of Banavie. Absolutely crawling in little black flies it was. They bite, so take insect repellent.
Link: https://www.highlandexperience.com/blog/scotlands-midge-season-explained/
Glasgow accents can be almost impenetrable without listening carefully and deliberately. The farther north and west in Scotland one ventures the higher the chance of encountering an Hebridean voice; wonderful, mellifluous, just wonderful.
None of this is as in-depth as I’d like it to be, and I’ve not linked anything much as initially written, constructed as it is on the spur of the moment. I’d rather just go and visit! A road trip is a great way of seeing Scotland. It’s my favourite country anywhere.
Feel free to ask questions! The answers might be rubbish but who knows? š
@atoponce@fosstodon.org posted a poll earlier:
What is your preferred “end of the world” apocalyptic scenario?
– Aliens
– Nuclear fallout
– Pandemic
– Zombies
Assume strict science fiction and not fantasy fiction in the scenario (no supernatural magic).
The last time I looked Aliens was comfortably in the lead with 61% of the vote.
Quite naturally given that the world is undergoing an unprecedented period of stability and equality andā¦ I took the question seriously and replied thus:
Feel free to accuse me of overthinking this š but is this based on the likely survivability of my family and me (ark ship, bunker, isolated cottage) or a quick and easy demise free from watching the inevitable dismantling of our, erā¦ civilisation?
*Or* (cue spooky music) something painful in between, something extraordinarily painful?
Maybe I should think of the bigger picture. š
Aaron’s response?
There aren’t really any rules other than no supernatural mumbo jumbo. I think that’s part of what makes this question kind of fun.
Are zombies animated only for a limited few days/weeks before decay makes them immobile?
Will the cancer from nuclear fallout kill you quickly, or will it be a slow painful death?
Are you food for the aliens or a science experiment?
Me, after a bit of thought:
I’ve voted for aliens on the basis that my preferred scenario involves the destruction of Earth for a hyperspace bypass, and it happens not long after the announcement. I’ve never been keen on prolonging things. š
Ok, I’m not at all keen on the destruction of anything but if it has to happen I’d like my participation in it to be over quickly. Incidentally, the hyperspace bypass thing is borrowed from the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy1, a trilogy in five parts.
So, why did I not choose any of the other worthy contenders?
I’m thinking of Chernobyl.2 I’ve watched dramatised documentaries34 and actual documentaries of the nuclear meltdown incident. That’s accidents. Thoughts on the intentional use of nuclear weapons leads me right to Threads – a film I cannot bring myself to watch but that I’ve read lots about.5
Not sure, but I don’t think I’d want to survive in a bunker, to see out my days cut off from ‘life’.
2019- COVID-19. Everyone who reads this will have a memory of the 2019- pandemic. But not everyone died, and civilisation didn’t collapse, so that’s alright then.
1981- HIV/AIDS. Mostly under control, and it’s a good thing global outreach programmes are still well-funded isn’t it.
1918-1920 Spanish flu. Pretty much no-one who lived through this is alive now. A 100% mortality rate by now should annoy most people, right?6
1331-1353 Black Death.
Heck no, it’s not an exhaustive list, but this is only a blog post, I’m no academic!
Pandemics vs epidemics though, it’s all a matter of scale, excess mortality rates, pre-existing medical conditions, demographics, isn’t it.
So, a world-ending virus, bacteria, biological thing, has to be pretty, erā¦ virulent, right?
Watch the film ‘Shaun of the Dead’.7. That’s all.
It won’t be enough to prepare you for zombies, but it’s a good start.
I can’t choose this way to go because I wouldn’t want people I know and love to be consumed by or turn into zombies and want to eat my face off. Erā¦ whether they consciously want to or not. I see enough of that with the increasing reliance on social media and propaganda shaping opinions instead of taking the time to have views shaped by ‘hard’ news organisations. So much for my 1997 dream of a golden age of information availability.
And, like most people, I rely on infrastructure spanning the turn of the 21st century for my survival. Were not ready for bartering and butchering and bravery.
Soā¦
Right. I’ve read and watched a good amount of science fiction. The ones that stand out, plot themes from memory:
‘Footfall’, novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; conquest, assimilation, kinetic energy weapons.
‘The War of the Worlds’, novel by H.G. Wells; mass killings, enslavement, nourishment, climate change (in the grossest of senses).
‘Battlefield Earth’, large novel by L Ron Hubbard; mass killings, enslavement. Great book, dire film worth watching only after reading the book and then never again.
‘Doctor Who’, TV series; particularly extermination by the Daleks.
‘V’, TV series; sneaky extermination, eating us.
‘To Serve Man’, Twilight Zone TV episode; misunderstandings, a cookbook for humans.
There’s a theme that pervades (is that the right word?) most of these works, that humanity will somehow prevail against the might of space-going aggressors. Sure millions die along the way, butā¦
And that’s the problem. I’d still want to ‘go’ quickly. I’m not prepped and ready, not even for probing by little green men
Hyperspace bypass then. I don’t even want to know of the planning application. Ignorance is bliss.
Or is itā¦
Links:
To begin with, a Hawaiian pizza is a pizza with ham and pineapple toppings. The odds are good that if you could get over the shock of fruit on a pizza you tried it, at least once. The āBazwichā though, probably not, if you ever heard of it.
I made a sandwich a couple of decades ago, a sandwich of polarisation. People who try it either love it or hate it. It has to be said though, nobody has given me feedback, maybe nobody tried it.
I called itā¦
(A sandwich not for the masses).
Have you booked your place at the local A&E (US: ER)?
[Basic recipe is decades-old, reposted here from my Google+ and later Github accounts for posterity.]
Oops, we’re on the verge of running out of ketchup. Whatever will we doā½
Go to buy some more of this stuff, that’s what!
A colleague gave me a sachet of guava chilli instant tea earlier. Just add its contents to 200ml of water, stir until dissolved, add an ice cube. Easy.
What’s special about this one? The company is owned by my colleague’s friend’s cousin.
Nearly ready:
Just before offering it round my family for tasting:
It’s really rather refreshing, without any kind of aftertaste that often accompanies instant drinks, and so gets Baz’s seal of approval.
I wish I’d looked at the ingredients on the box now, but maybe that’d have spoiled the experience?
Followup November 7: The hibiscus tea given to me today isn’t as easy to dissolve, another colleague said it’s a bit ‘bitty’. I tried.
For the first time in years I’ve lost weight to the point it shows – to others and to the waistline of my stretch jeans. Sure it’s only 10lbs/4.5 kg so far, but I’m impressed. I don’t care how long it’s taken.
The only negative for this Brit, I’ve one less thing to moan about – that I can’t lose weight no matter what I try. š
So how?
More frequent and longer dog walks, and I’ve started jogging with Pumpkin dog (1 year old now) during them. The jogs are only a few hundred yards/metres at a time though, mainly because she needs to stop to sniff things. It’s honestly worth the aching muscles.
Although I’ve eaten more healthily for a couple of years now (health scare) this time around there’s been no measurable change in diet.
So, exercise not extra fries.
On Thursday I signed up to the Butternut Box dog food delivery service and was pleasantly surprised to see they’d deliver an introductory pack of 2 weeks of food the very next day.
The sign up and variety selection process was pleasant enough I suppose, and I looked forward to getting, erā¦ told Pumpkin to look forward to some lovely new food.
She’s been a very fussy eater of late, probably because she’s started the transition from puppy to lady dog. So we’ve tried introducing her to new varieties of biscuits, wet foodā¦
Anyway, as soon as their delivery partner’s email dropped in my inbox my heart sank. dpd have a well-deserved negative reputation. But hey, how difficult is it to deliver a box within a 1-hour window?
Bear in mind I’d instructed Butternut Box that our safe space is to the right of the house behind the bins. In the shade. Bear in mind I’d already informed dpd too. Easy.
I arrived home just after my wife had returned with daughter1, to a box dropped upside-down at the front door in the heat of mid-afternoon sun. The contents had started to defrost but at least Butternut Box said they could be refrozen if still cold to the touchā¦
So I complained.
I tried to complain.
The reply-to email address is a ‘no-reply’. The from email address was returned to me with AI instructions to try another one, which elicited an AI response letting me know that I could save a safe space location in my Butternut Box account and with dpd.
Sigh.
Right, let’s close the account.
That’s not possible without a message to either an AI or via a telephone call. So I asked the AI to delete my account. Nope, had to wait for a human to contact me to do it.
So I waited.
Just tried signing into the account in the app and on the web site. Nope, it’s now an invalid email or password.
Erā¦
They shut the account without a request for feedback. To be fair it’s what I asked for, but it all seems just so impersonal.
No, I cannot recommend Butternut box and I emphatically cannot recommend their delivery partner dpd.
But hey, at least Pumpkin has a new branded bandana. It’s too small to fit her, but hey we can’t have everything.
I acquired a peace lily plant when my last boss retired in November. I feel a great responsibility to keep it alive. I’d killed 2 of his previous plants and bought this a couple of years ago to make amends.
Until recently it positively thrived in my care, but this week it drooped. It has browning leaves too despite it being watered to the same schedule and with the same volume of water my ex-boss used. (Science)!
Now if you hear in mind that I’ve been poking my finger into the soil between twice-weekly watering sessions, and it’s always been just slightly moist. But today I tested at 180ā° from my usual place.
The photo caption mentions a dark brown liquid. My poking finger submerged up to the first knuckle.
Oops!
Kitchen roll pushed into the pot absorbed some of the surface water, but it just kept on absorbing and absorbing andā¦
I cradled the plant and tipped up the pot over my mug (which needed a wash anyway). Most went in the mug.
Next week I’ll trim the dead leaves.
It’s a plan.
Phase 2: I’ll buy a soil moisture meter/monitor.
And, erā¦
That’s it folks.
A conversation with my wife, the evening before Valentine’s Day 2025:
Me, “How much cock do you think is in there?”
She, “12%?”
Me, “No, it’s only 2%.”
She, disappointed, “…”.
Me, “How about leekie?”
She, “3%?”
Me, “No, it’s 11%!”
She, “ā¦” again.
She’d bought me a 400g tin of Baxters ‘Cock-A-Leekie” soup. Its blurb:
“The finest leeks, succulent chicken, tender rice and freshly grated juicy carrots ā that’s what makes our Cock-a-Leekie soup the very best. No wonder this traditional Scottish recipe is loved by so many.”
ā Audrey Baxter.
