Snowy journey

I’m feeling very tired; the legacy of my recent Covid. Or is it? Could it be that it’s just due to the dreich weather and lack of sunlight this January? Certainly the cats are spending even more time sleeping on the bed than they usually do. I hope that I perk up soon. 

Our next door neighbour, Meg Wilson, died a few days ago. She was very old, had dementia and was bed-bound, so it was probably good for her to finally be at rest. But it still feels sad; another one gone from our parents’ generation. She was quite a character in her day, a respected Ward Sister who (we heard from one of her nursing colleagues) could be a bit nippy if she was displeased. She was widowed before Jamie was born, around the same time that my Aunt Rosemary died, so that’s a long time. She lived with her son Andrew who I think will be very lost without her, and her lovely daughter Sarah lives in the next street, so she was well looked after. 

I accidentally left my tennis bracelet at Ullapool when we returned home after New Year, so James and I decided on the spur of the moment to retrieve it today. We piled the cats’ bowls high with food and packed James’ telescope into the car (we have been meaning to take it to Ullapool) as well as some laundry of bed sheets and towels. The cats spotted us carrying this stuff out to the car and they both dashed underneath the bed to hide, realising that a car trip might be about to happen. They are so clever! And they must have been a bit puzzled when we went without them and didn’t return this evening. 

We had a good run north, listening to Bobby Gillespie’s autobiography on the way. However after we passed Inverness it started snowing. We had checked whether the roads were clear of any traffic incidents but we hadn’t checked the weather forecast, which was very silly of us in January. The snow got heavier as we drove north-west, and we saw lots of deer near the road. When we passed the Braemore Junction at Corrieshalloch Gorge, there were two arctic lorries stuck on the hill on their way towards Inverness. One of them had slid off the road into the soft verge, and the other one had tried to pass it and was stuck beside it on the other side of the road. Luckily there was a tractor with a snow plough blade just ahead of us, which valiantly drove up and down the road to clear the way for the lorry that was still on the road. That lorry managed to move a bit so that after a short delay we (and the queue of half a dozen cars that arrived behind us) were able to make our way diagonally between the vehicles and onwards the last twenty minutes to Ullapool.