Feeling relaxed

So here I am on the plane, about to fly from Edinburgh to Innsbruck. James is sitting beside me doing his Sudoku and I have just played my daily game of Wordle, my new obsession, which I love. We’re feeling very relaxed; we arrived in loads of time for our flight and had lunch with Heather and Ewan in Wetherspoons before boarding. 

I can hardly believe that our PCR tests were all negative and that we are on our way and I feel very excited. I’m looking forward to seeing the snowy mountains and to getting onto the slopes again. 

On a completely different and less pleasant subject, two middle aged men are in all sorts of bother today. Prince Andrew has been told that the civil case against him in America for having sex with a minor is going ahead, and as a result the Queen has now removed all of his military ranks and most of his titles including HRH. What a sleaze - I’m glad that he wasn’t available to come to my school dance with me when I invited him in 1977! 

And Boris Johnson is in trouble for having parties at 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was in lockdown, with people unable to visit relatives, even if they were dying in hospital. He tried to claim first that it didn’t happen, then that he didn’t know, then that it was a work gathering, and eventually apologised - even though he continued to maintain that technically he hadn’t broken the rules. At first I didn’t think that it really mattered about a few stupid parties when the civil servants had been working together all day, but having thought about it, I feel that it does indicate a “them and us” attitude, with the government thinking that they are better than us ordinary folk. 

Well none of that is going to spoil my happy mood, time to switch to flight mode on my phone - chocks away! 

PCR Tests

I deliberately haven’t been looking forward too much to our ski holiday in Austria tomorrow, because I wasn’t at all sure that we would be going! Austria was closed to tourists until mid December, so at that point I think that we all thought that the holiday would be postponed. However it did open up so I got a wee bit hopeful. The current regulations for travelling to Austria require a negative PCR test less than 48 hours before departure, and so many people now have the Omicron variant of Covid that I was resigned to at least one of us testing positive.

James and I went into a testing centre in Howard Street in Glasgow at 9.30 a.m. and paid a hefty £80 each for the 3 hour results PCR test. The centre was very efficient and we then headed up to John Lewis to order the office chair that I’m getting James for his Christmas. After a quick coffee we set off for home and by the time we arrived we got emails to say that our tests were negative. Ewan had already messaged us with his results (also negative) and then in the early afternoon Heather informed us that she too has negative results. Great excitement! We spent the afternoon packing, finally convinced that we really are going on holiday tomorrow!  

Splendid Weather in Nairn

In Scotland the weather is reputed to be cool and dry in the East, and warmer and wetter in the West. This is because the rain coming from the Atlantic falls on the mountains as it heads eastwards, and is used up by the time it reaches the sunny east coast. It’s not always the case of course, for example Davie always says that Dundee is warm as well as dry, and the west of Scotland can have really gorgeous weather. 

This past couple of days however, the east coast’s reputation was upheld as we left a rather grey-skied Ullapool to visit Alison and Hugh in a delightfully sunny Nairn on Monday. We had a lovely time; walking, chatting, and playing with Ash and Birch who are now full size but still very playful and kittenish. On Tuesday we went for a walk in the Big Wood at Cawdor Castle, which ancient woodland has been cultivated for centuries with a mixture of oak, pine, ash, beech and more. It’s very attractive with bridges over the river and a deep gorge; we walked about 9 km with the sun shining dappled through the branches. 

When we got back to Ullapool in the evening the wind was blowing a hoolie straight in from the loch, not even Tom was very keen to go outside. The wind continued all night and it woke me up several times, which is unusual because I’m usually a very good sleeper. In the morning we packed up and set off back to Cambuslang. The cats were absolutely furious to be put into their travel carrier and we had a real struggle to get them into it, they escaped twice before we managed to get it zipped up! The loch looked absolutely beautiful as we drove away; a steely blue colour with white crested waves. 

Spa days

I’m on the plane waiting to take off on my way from Luton Airport to Inverness. I have just spent a very enjoyable weekend with Jennifer, Russ and Ben. The main theme of the weekend was definitely swimming; Jennifer and I went swimming three times! Twice to a spa near her home in Princes Risborough which is called Hartwell House and all day yesterday to our favourite spa, Nirvana. 

Hartwell House spa is small scale, with a 17 metre pool and a small gym downstairs, and a coffee lounge upstairs with complimentary coffee and shortbread. It also has bookable spa treatments, it’s beside a lovely hotel through whose extensive grounds spa guests are allowed to wander, and is delightfully quiet. It has a calm and luxurious atmosphere; the pool area is decorated in terracotta with plants, Greek style statues and urns around it. I love it.

Nirvana of course I know very well already. It is very popular with an eighteen month waiting list, so is always quite busy, however it is big enough easily to accommodate all of the guests and there is no problem in finding a free sun lounger or getting a drink or a coffee. The outdoor area is open year round unless it’s very adverse weather, so Jennifer and I were able to swim in the outdoor pool and to go into one of the outdoor jacuzzis. The new circular building is now open, and has a big round pool with seats around the edge on which to relax. Another new feature is the salt pool, in which you can float gently supported by the buoyant water. I liked it very much but it made any wee scratches on my arms and legs nip a lot, and the salty air provoked one of my prolonged coughing fits, which are particularly embarrassing in this time of Covid! Jennifer treated me to a most excellent lunch in the restaurant, and we had such a relaxing day. 

Two quite different spas, but both were equally lovely. 

We didn’t just go to spas though, we had a country walk this sunny morning, and watched two good movies in the evenings with Russell. I had a nice chat with Ben, and we visited Alan and Jean in their fabulous retirement apartment just along the road from Jenn and Russ. Jean gave me a tour and I was very impressed by how spacious it is, with so much storage space and triple aspect views over the town towards the hills. It was great to see Alan and Jean, they were on good form and very happy with their move.

And so my weekend is over. La famille Smith made me extremely welcome as they always do. I will be back soon in the springtime. 

Fry-up

Our New Year’s break to Ullapool continues very pleasantly. Yesterday James, Ally and Cat went to climb Ben Wyvis, driving carefully along slushy roads. It was snowy and windy on the mountain but they got to the top, ticking off another Munro for Cat, bringing her current total to 206. Cat made a delicious fry-up for breakfast this morning, a treat which has great memories for me from childhood and holidays. Not only did she produce a beautiful array of sausages, black pudding, mushrooms, fried eggs and fried potato scones, but she cooked half of it using vegetarian products. It was so great! Needless to say none of us were able to eat any lunch! 

The weather is dreich and showery but that doesn’t stop us from going for walks around the village to see the Christmas lights, do a few errands, and look at the boats in the harbour.

In the evenings Cat and I have been watching the new series of Emily in Paris; we watched the first series during lockdown and have very much been looking forward to this second one. It’s still great fun and I love Emily’s clothes! 

Hailstones

After a mild start to the year, the weather has turned much colder and we have had some snow in Ullapool, and much more higher up on top of the hills. We have also had a lot of very noisy hail, battering on the windows. When James and I were out for a walk this morning the hailstones were actually quite painful on my face when we turned into the wind. Ullapool is almost completely closed; there are only two hotels open and a few shops. I went for a lovely walk yesterday up the hill to the end of the road to the lighthouse, there were beautiful views to the summer isles with big moody clouds moving fast across the sky, bringing freezing showers which passed quickly. 

Ally and Cat arrived yesterday afternoon and it’s lovely to see them. The cats were very excited to see them and seemed amazed to meet them here! They are hoping to do some winter walking if the weather improves. For now we are cosy in the cottage and this evening we played the board game Catan which was great fun - even James joined in! 

Loony Dook

We arrived in Ullapool on Hogmanay to spend our first New Year here. Unfortunately Davie and Chanel couldn’t join us; Chanel tested positive for Covid on Boxing Day and Davie also has symptoms. This means that they have had to self-isolate at home. Naturally we were all disappointed but we are not the only family affected by this; over the past week there have been more than a million new cases of Covid, so lots of people have needed to self-isolate and have been separated from family during the festive season. The better news is that the Omicron symptoms seem to be much milder than previous variants; David and Chanel have told me that their symptoms are like those of a heavy cold. The number of hospitalisations and deaths is going up but not by a huge amount, so the hospitals are coping with the numbers of patients - so far. If numbers of Covid patients in hospital don’t rise too much over the next few weeks the restrictions won’t have to be increased, and we will be entering the phase of “living with Covid” rather than locking down. We shall see. 

We have car troubles again, probably expensive again, and less than six months after the last time. Too boring to blog about, but it means the car is off the road for a couple of weeks again; very annoying. Luckily Ally and Cat have stepped in to save the day by lending us Ally’s car and then travelling north (tomorrow) in Cat’s car. If they hadn’t kindly offered to do this, we would have had to cancel all of our New Year plans. 

So we arrived in Ullapool yesterday afternoon in Ally’s car, with the cats who seemed much calmer this time, and we both felt very happy to be back in the cottage. 

Because of the recent surge in Covid, the Scottish government decreed a week ago that restaurants can remain open but not nightclubs, which means that that the Ceilidh we had booked at the Ceilidh Place was to be dinner only with no dancing. It was a really nice occasion but a Ceilidh without dancing isn’t quite the same as it should be! It was very amusing to see the variety of attire that people wore; everything from very smart to very casual - we noticed that at one table there was a man dressed in full dinner suit sitting beside his friend wearing a rugby shirt! Dinner was excellent and the folk music was great, and a piper welcomed in 2022.

The weather is surprisingly mild for the time of the year, but very windy, so I swithered about whether to join the Estuary Swimmers for their Loony Dook at Ardmair beach this afternoon. In the end I went along and was very pleased that I did. There were about ten of us and the water felt breathtakingly cold at first, but I quickly got used to it and swam around in the waves for about 10 minutes. I felt invigorated! Back at the cottage I had a warm bath and we watched the latest two episodes of Mackenzie Crook’s new take on Worzel Gummidge.