Tom and Floof in Ullapool

The cats have been spending their summer in Ullapool with us. They are hilarious. Tom was at my side in the bedroom one morning, brushing his tail against my leg, when suddenly I heard James speaking to him downstairs. How did he get there so quickly? He must have moved so fast! Flora is still skittish about going outside, but when I’m sitting outside on the bench having a cup of tea she loves to come and sit beside me. She likes to start her day under the bed, and then progresses to the top of the bed, and then downstairs for the afternoon and outside in the evening. She likes to have a routine. I had stashed my soft red case under the bed after my trip to Glasgow, and Floof decided that it would make a good bed under-the-bed for her! One sunny morning James reached under the bed and pulled out the case with Floof still blinking on top of it, picked her up and carried her outside, telling her, “The weather is too lovely to stay indoors!” Far from being annoyed, Flora stayed outside all morning and ran about the garden happily. When James and I were walking down the path towards the village yesterday Tom trotted down the path behind us but he stayed at a distance and stopped well before the bridge. He knows the limits of his territory! 

A brief interlude in Cambuslang

I went down to Cambuslang for a couple of days this week, and in fact I’m blogging from the train on the way back to Inverness. From there I will jump on another train to Garve, where James will meet me at about half past two. I have had a pleasant time at home, although it was eerily quiet without James and the cats. I was supposed to go to the Degas exhibition at the Burrell with Christine but we had to postpone because Gerry is unwell. I had a nice coffee and catch up with Alison T yesterday morning, and then last night I went to see The Fifth Step at the Pavilion with Ally W. We had a tasty pre-theatre meal at Roma before heading the short distance to the theatre. 

The play was about a new young member of Alcoholics Anonymous played by Jack Lowden, and his relationship with his mentor, played by Sean Gilder. I had wondered if the subject matter would result in the play being a bit grim, but this was not the case. It did tackle some very serious issues head on, but it was also very cleverly written and at times it was laugh out loud funny. Both actors were absolutely excellent. Jack Lowden is Jamie’s age and he is one of the leads in the series Slow Horses, which James and I both enjoy very much, and he married the fabulous actress Saoirse Ronan just a few weeks ago. I didn’t realise that he is Scottish until last night, because he uses an English accent in Slow Horses. Ally and I both loved the play and afterwards I took the train home to my quiet house. 

Update at 6.30 p.m. I had only ten minutes between trains at Inverness, but it's a small station so I wasn't worried. However the train from Glasgow was a bit late and arrived in Inverness only one minute before the 13.35 departure time of the Kyle of Lochalsh train! I got off the train as quickly as I could and heard a guard shouting "Anyone for the Kyle of Lochalsh train?" "Me!" I replied - I was the only one making the transfer from the Glasgow train - and he told me to run straight to Platform 4. So I ran along the platform waving at the other train guard who was standing beside the train, jumped on to the train and the doors closed behind me! Phew! The last lap of the journey went smoothly and the train was nice and quiet. James met me at Garve Station and we stopped for a quick coffee at Inverlael before continuing to the cottage. I was a lot more excited to see the cats than they were to see me! I'm now relaxing on the couch while James is making his signature asparagus risotto; the aromas that are wafting through from the kitchen are tantalising. 

A good day with good news

It was a fine morning today so I accompanied James on his walk to Loch Achall which looked very pretty in the sunshine. There were sheep trotting about near the path to the loch and lots of wildflowers. We then walked into the village, had lunch at Tea by the Sea and got back to the cottage just before the rain started. Every day this summer seems to be sun, rain, sun, rain. 
In very exciting news Margaret has just bought a beautiful house in Crail, very central, with a lovely garden and with a view of the sea. I’m so pleased that she will be living back in Scotland soon! 
And in family news, from New Zealand, Jamie and Kerry have got a dog! He is gorgeous; an eleven week old Dalmatian puppy with brown spots. They have called him Whisky. 
As for my other dear sons and their partners; Ally and Cat are currently on holiday in the Balkans, visiting several new countries. Davie and Chanel were at Hampden this afternoon watching Rangers, tickets courtesy of Marjory and Forrest who are on holiday at Lake Garda in Italy. Rangers won 6 - 0 against Ross County. 

Early Start

We were up very early today because James was taking Kevin to Inverness train station for the 7.55 a.m. train, which meant that they had to set off at about twenty past six just to be on the safe side. After I said goodbye to them I dived back into bed for a couple of hours and it was tremendous! Meanwhile James and Kevin arrived at the station with a good fifteen minutes to spare, and James then drove another hour and a half to climb Corryhabbie Hill near Tomintoul while I processed washings and did a bit of housework back at the cottage. 

Tom was a bit traumatised this morning because he had stayed out all night! We don’t have a cat flap at Ullapool so we let them in and out on demand, and they can shelter in the porch if it rains. They usually go out for a last excursion about an hour before we go to bed. Flora is always ready to come back inside when we call but Tom can be more elusive and quite often I have to pop back downstairs a couple of times after we are in bed to see if he’s ready to come back in. Last night he didn’t come back and I finally went to bed after midnight, in the knowledge that he would have the shelter of the porch and that we would be getting up very early anyway. Well when we came downstairs in the morning there was Tom standing on his hind legs in the porch battering at the glass of the door with his front paws! He rushed inside when we opened it and ate mightily before retiring to the bed for a very long snooze! He didn’t come downstairs until two in the afternoon!

In the evening James and I followed a recommendation of Kevin’s and watched the first couple of episodes of Vikings, which started on the History Channel about ten years ago, however it has become even more popular since its release on Netflix. So far so good; it’s a bit reminiscent of our recent favourite The Last Kingdom. And there are 89 episodes so it should keep us going for a while! 

A Visitor from New Zealand

We have had a visitor for the past few days; it’s Kerry’s Dad Kevin. He is a very easy and relaxing visitor and joins in good-naturedly with our plans. He has a sore back just now, which hopefully is temporary, but he is determined to keep moving so we have walked into the village with him a couple of times when it’s sunny, to have coffee. We also went to the harbour, the bookshops and the outdoor shop and today we visited the new Handknitted Pottery shop on West Terrace. Kevin is a potter so he was very interested in the set up and chatted about techniques with the owner. We have been lucky to get some dry and sunny walks because the weather has been very fickle; heavy rain one minute and warm sunshine the next. 
Yesterday the weather forecast was truly dreadful so we decided to go for a run in the car to Inverewe Gardens. The rain wasn’t too heavy so we got good coastal views on the way there. On our arrival the young parking attendant told us that part of the gardens were shut “because of the hurricane!” Well it wasn’t a proper hurricane of course; what he meant was that it was the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto, which originated in the Caribbean and has brought us the heavy wind and rain! Undeterred, and fortified by cake and coffee from the tea shop, the three of us set off into open part of the gardens and walked along to Inverewe House, pausing to look at the plants on the way. The house is quite impressive; James thinks that it’s his first visit, however I have been there several times while he has been hill-walking. It was raining even harder as we made our way back to the car via the NTS shop, so we drove the short journey to Gairloch and had a tasty lunch of soup and toasties at the Gale Centre. The wind was howling around the outside but we had a tasty lunch indoors, of soup and toasties. 
This evening Kevin very kindly treated us to dinner at the Ceilidh Place and I’m glad to say that the menu is back on form. The restaurant was busy but the service was still good, and we had a very pleasant time. Back at the cottage there was time for a nightcap before we got an early night because tomorrow we have an early start. 

The beach at Nairn

We have had a splendid weekend. Cornel arrived on Friday evening and we had a very pleasant evening with him. He had asked earlier this week if he could stay with us because he was going to climb a couple of the western Fannichs. We explained that we already had plans to go to Nairn on Saturday, but that he was very welcome to stay in the cottage anyway. 

On Saturday Cornel was already up and away climbing his hills by the time we set off to Nairn to see Alison and Hugh. After a cup of tea we went for a lovely walk along the broad, sandy beach in the afternoon, and then Alison made us a delicious dinner and we had a convivial evening chatting and laughing.

We had a leisurely Sunday morning and then headed back to Ullapool to see the kitties; Cornel had fed them before he set off home, and he messaged James that they had given him lots of attention! Luckily he is a cat person. 

Meeting Margaret in Perth

We went on a road trip to Perth today to meet up with Margaret who is house-hunting in Scotland just now. Since we are currently based in Ullapool, this was our only opportunity to see her before she goes back to the USA. Margaret is staying in Broughty Ferry so she also had a journey to meet us in the Fair City. All went smoothly, although the journey was enlivened by a scam phone call which luckily we realised was not legitimate. * We listened to several episodes of The Rest is History in the car as well as some music, and we met Margaret in the centre of Perth. 

Perth is a city that I don’t know well, my visits there have always been fleeting so I don’t really have a feel for it. We headed for the recently re-developed museum and had lunch in a café close by. It was great to see Margaret and we had a good catch up before heading into the museum. It was interesting and Margaret and I were both impressed by a Celtic cross that was lit up in different moving colours which emphasised the depth of its patterns. There were lots of artefacts and information from the history of Perthshire going back thousands of years, the highlight of which was the Stone of Destiny. James and I have actually seen it before, when it was in Edinburgh Castle, but its new home seems like a worthy setting. It is displayed in its own room where a short film about its story is projected around the wall to give a sort of immersive experience. 

We had coffee in the museum coffee shop (very nice) and more chat, until it was time for us to head north again. We bade Margaret a fond farewell; hopefully it won’t be too long until we see her again. We got back to Ullapool at exactly 8 p.m. and had supper with the kitties. 

* A scammer phoned me pretending to be my bank’s fraud department and asked me about my recent transactions. There was something a bit off about him; he told me that someone has been trying to take money out of my account but then asked how many accounts I had and how much money was in each of them, and said that he would help me to “secure” the money in my account. At this point we got cut off because there was no signal, so at James’ suggestion we pulled into a lay-by and phoned the bank's fraud department. Sure enough they had not contacted us. I hadn’t given the man much information but I had given details of some of my recent transactions, so my card has been stopped and I will have to await a new one. There seem to be a lot of scams going about.