The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Monday 11 February 2013

Scotland – Day 0

We were a little late leaving home for our journey to Scotland. We should have left on Friday morning, but that plan was hampered by Mick still being at work up in Oldham and by the time he arrived home on Friday evening, I was lying in a darkened room, whimpering softly, with a very poorly head. A new plan was set that we would leave home by noon on Saturday, which would give me chance to make all the final preparations (important ones, like baking a cake and making some flapjacks), which I had failed to do on Friday afternoon due to said poorly head.

We were only a few minutes behind ourselves when we did finally leave home. Time wouldn’t have been an issue if we had left home on Friday, as we would simply have broken the journey half way. However, with a forecast of snow for Sunday, we wanted to be at our destination before it hit, and thus needed to complete the journey in one go.

The journey was completed in one go and completely without incident. At 19.35 we pulled into the campsite at Braemar, some twenty five minutes before their ‘latest arrival’ time. Twenty minutes later, having filled Colin’s water tanks and plugged him into the mains, and having realised that I’d forgotten to bring either of my two key jackets with me, off we wandered into Braemar*.

We’d not gone very far when we bumped into Martin. Small world isn’t it? Admittedly, it wasn’t an entirely accidental encounter, as I had checked his website the evening before and found that, by coincidence, he and Sue were due to be in Braemar on Saturday night too.

They were staying with Sue’s friend Simon, who seemed completely unfazed at having two complete strangers turn up on his doorstep for a three-course dinner at very short notice.

An excellent evening was had and just as we were about to turn into pumpkins on the stroke of midnight, back we toddled down the snowy streets of Braemar to collapse into bed.

(*It was during the drive up that I realised that I’d forgotten to pick up my insulated jacket. “Not a problem” I said, “I can manage with just my Paramo”. It wasn’t until we arrived in Braemar that I discovered that my Paramo jacket was, rather unhelpfully, still hanging on a hook at home. That’s left me with just my ridiculously-lightweight OMM Kamleika as my jacket. Ooops)

1 comment:

  1. Hi Gayle, How do you find the OMM Jacket as a general purpose jacket? I have been looking at the OMM Kamleika race smock like this - http://www.aboveandbeyond.co.uk/.omm-kamleika-race-smock-blue-various-sizes-_5060103821440.htm, as it is slightly cheaper and has many of the same attributes, but as someone with the jacket, what do you think of it? K

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